WED
Number in brackets indicates a team’s ranking coming into the playday.
Predictable Results:
Anstar (5) — Haraway (11): 2–0
Prediction: 2–0
Despite some early inconsistency, I think this series was always going to be favoring Anstar’s squad. Haraway’s team is still dealing with adjusting to an FA which causes them to swap their roles around, and Anstar debuted some fresh non-zoo Lycan gameplay in both games, putting up 31 kills in the second. Was picking it into Spectre just an excuse to grab a first item Silver Edge? Either way, very fun. Ben also put in a shift this series — just like he promised he would.
Schuffi (17) — Debowy (7): 0–2 (by Forfeit)
Prediction: 1–1
Not much to be said here. Missing multiple players, with the captain exploring a literal swamp (I have pictures — seriously Schuffi where the fuck were you?), they decided to just give the series up, which could have serious implications on their playoff chances.
Thronplunder (15) — Kalisdar (19): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
In a not entirely unpredictable turn of events, Thron’s core duo of Szajtek-LPSD took over game 1 (Szajtek playing his master-tier Lesh!), but got caught off guard by Acid’s last pick Arc Warden in game 2, leading to a pretty straightforward 1–1.
Kimer (3) — Darba (2): 0–2
Prediction: 0–2
Darba’s team continues to dominate, even without rigged standins. Some fairly odd hero pickups coming out of Kimer’s team in game 1 meant the game was pretty hard to begin with, and DmWp getting a taste of what it’s like to lane against a mid main with 2k more MMR certainly didn’t help. Game 2 was only slightly less of a stomp, but Harb managed to take over the game on PA nonetheless. Are we seeing championship favorites emerge here?
Laavi (22) — exZ (8): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
While I did predict a 1–1 here, the reasons why I did that don’t really align with why it actually happened here — I thought it’d be a matter of Laavi’s team trying hard to maintain momentum in the season, and not exZ’s GPU failing in the middle of game 2. I’ll take the correct prediction nonetheless — lord knows I’m in desperate need of those.
Waloo (21) — Wesside (14): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
I’m just putting this out there — Alchemist has >80% winrate over 11 games this season. Wess seems to have taken note of this, as his team grabbed it for Jihadi with the 23 pick, and Waloo’s team couldn’t quite keep up. They tried to do something similar in game 2, swapping Alchemist out for a 23 Arc Warden this time around, but Waloo wasn’t going to let that happen, taking over the game on QoP, putting up the highest number in kills, networth, last hits, denies, GPM, XPM, hero damage and tower damage. Man wants to make playoffs.
Slight Surprises:
Moyo (10) — Holy Harry (9): 0–2
Prediction: 1–1
In hindsight, there’s an interesting dynamic at play here when talking about RD2L team draft matchups. Is the importance and impact of a top mid player enhanced or diminished when they’re matched up against an average lane opponent? More often than not, having that kind of mid means your sidelanes are weaker, and at that point, does the focus of the game swap? This series seems to support that idea, as Xela absolutely took over this series, putting up 43 kills, averaging 800 GPM and proving his reliability as a win-condition carry.
Play (1) — Brainy Gonzo (6): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
Things are starting to heat up among the top dogs in WED — after a pretty solid game 1 win, Play’s team appears to have gotten a bit cocky, and opted to put all their game 2 eggs in the Denden AM basket, drafting a Magnus offlane and taking an Underlord mid. Gonzo’s team wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip and snatched up a fairly convincing game 2 win off the back of great performances from SwagMander and Unix.
Severe (16) — Stl (12): 2–0
Prediction: 1–1
Despite a string of fairly decent results, Stl’s team crumbled as soon as they entered the top half. Valchers and Severe completely outclassed Shnoor and Stl as a core duo here, leading their team to their first 2–0 this season.
Drakesfjord (4) — Joll (18): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
Drakesfjord managed to snatch up his signature Morphling in game 1 and drag his team to a win on it, but game 2 saw them fall apart to a Joll AM with a good start, as well as a great performance from Kuro on QoP. How do you stop 2 Blinks man, you just can’t!
Reddydas (24) — Madsen (13): 1–1
Prediction: 0–2
While the first game was a stomp of sorts, the second is hard to look back at. With a 2–0 win just around the corner, the match being ours to lose and not theirs to win, we managed to throw game 2 and drop a game to Reddydas’ team here. Madsen Morphling yikes.
Big Upsets:
Crispy Bacon (23) — Melalez (20): 2–0
Prediction: 0–2
Woah woah woah — Crispy Bacon and his gang came out swinging after getting a taste of escaping 24th. I think it’s fair to attribute part of this to their role swap — Hiboo played offlane rather than support, which meant Elpie transitioned to 5 and laned with Crispy Bacon. I can’t tell if this is a permanent change or if Elpie just couldn’t play Furion, but I talked about how this team needed to figure some things out and they seem to be doing so.
Prediction Total: 5–6 (1 forfeit)
SUN
Number in brackets indicates a team’s ranking coming into the playday.
Predictable Results:
Cardinalstar (12) — Kevin Richardson (8): 0–2 (by Forfeit)
Prediction: 0–2
Once again, not much to be said about a forfeit. All of these Fantasy destroyers.
Rinku (16) — Neox (14): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
In the absence of Butters, Neox’s team enlisted the services of Sbx for the offlane, shifting Viper over to 5 and Kalimoo to safelane. This worked out fairly well in game 1 despite a somewhat odd draft, as they managed to capitalize on a massive throw by Rinku’s team, who weren’t intent on repeating this mistake — they got an early lead and maintained it all throughout. Don’t let the 1–1 fool you, though — the real story here is that Rinku almost got a 2–0.
Slight Surprises:
Syrphx (4) — RampagingBench (7): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
An ultimately ineffective last pick Meepo for Dekait saw Syrphx drop the first game to Anstar’s Storm taking over the game. Dekait fancied the idea of doing the same, and managed to grab a last pick Storm into Anstar’s Tinker and Bench’s Morph — and, well, you can imagine how that went for Bench’s team.
T-Reds (6) — Madsen (3): 1–1
Prediction: 0–2
A fairly straightforward game 1 in which my team followed our usual gameplan of me doing absolutely nothing, getting carried and then clicking some towers lead into a game 2 where we got perhaps a bit too cocky with the heroes and effectively gave up too many lanes. We did have a solid shot at grabbing the win, but a couple of bad fights meant that T-Reds took a game off us with a massive performance from Mikel’s Riki and PONPO’s Storm.
Sakoh (11) — Grimmjow (13): 2–0
Prediction: 0–2
I’d have labeled this an upset had Grimmjow played with his entire roster — my prediction was based almost entirely on my belief that Agnitos’ introduction to this team would benefit them greatly, but with Unha standing in for the new FA, they didn’t appear to be that strong. Another Szajtek Leshrac in this match week, paired with Shnoor popping off on Riki, secured a straightforward game 1 win for Sakoh’s team, leading into yet another great performance from both in game 2.
Play (2) — Maus (1): 2–0
Prediction: 1–1
Looking for someone to stop this ridiculous Play team please! Matched against their premiere rivals in the group stage, this series looked to be the one that would erase the perfect record for both teams, but in the end, we’ve just got an 8–0, as Play and Darba keep up their nutty performances day in, day out. It seems we’ve also found our SUN favorites with this series concluding.
Big Upsets:
Neon (5) — hi5 (9): 0–2
Prediction: 2–0
Oh lord what happened here? The Dotabuff for this game’s a mess — the losing team has a strong Riki and DP with loads of kills, the winning team’s players ALL have double-digit deaths, Neon’s squad was ahead the entire time…and then seemingly lost one massive fight and it spiraled from there. Hi5 and his boys took this momentum and ran with it, grabbing a very convincing game 2 win to sweep a top team. Laavi carried, for fuck sake!
Ovidiu (10) — Harbinger (15): 0–2
Prediction: 2–0
Harb was seemingly quite intent on punishing all of these lower MMR, off-role mid players, and he did exactly that against Elpie both games, but the more enticing storyline in this series for me was in one of the sidelanes — Luke put up respectable numbers against the best offlaner in the division, and with the rest of his team doing well early in both games as well, they didn’t struggle much at all on their way to a clean sweep here.
Prediction Total: 1–6 (1 forfeit)
Additionally, the previous matchdays’ Neon — Syrphx series was replayed, resulting in a 1–1 (Prediction: 1–1).
Week 5 Predictions
WED
Holy Harry — Debowy: 1–1
I’d say these teams are pretty well matched. I lean very slightly towards Harry’s team after this last performance, which seems to suggest that perennial captain extraordinaire Holy Harry is getting his squad in line, but I think there’s still a lot of quality on Debowy’s team.
Darba — Play: 1–1
These two SUN teammates will definitely try their very best against each other for this match. While Darba’s team remains my current favorite to win the whole thing, Play’s still got a very strong team and thus I won’t read too much into their slip up against Gonzo.
Drakesfjord — Laavi: 2–0
There’s still a big quality disparity between these two teams, so even though the latest results for Drakesfjord have been lackluster, I think they should still be able to handle Laavi and co.
Joll — Kimer: 1–1
Joll’s team has improved massively in the last while, and I think they’ll be able to take a game off a top team once again.
Severe — Brainy Gonzo: 0–2
Gonzo’s team has firmly established themselves as one of the best in the season, and while Severe’s team has promise, I’ll give the edge to Gonzo’s for this matchup.
Thronplunder — exZ: 1–1
It remains to be seen whether exZ will be able to solve his GPU woes in time for this series, but I think Thron’s team has a strong pair of cores that will threaten exZ and Nsphere in this series.
Crispy Bacon — Madsen: 1–1
Alright, I’ve been predicting 2–0s for myself and getting 1–1s instead. Let’s try the opposite? Jokes aside, while we should be winning this game, Crispy Bacon’s team is showing some promise after a massive win in week 4, so I won’t dismiss them instantly.
Haraway — Reddydas: 2–0
I have massive doubts about Haraway’s team at the moment, but I think Reddydas’ team is a bit too reliant on the enemy team fucking up, and while that’s a possibility, Haraway generally does a fairly good job of keeping his animals in line when ahead.
Anstar — Kalisdar: 2–0
While Kalisdar’s team has stepped their game up in recent weeks, I’ll still side with Anstar and co. for this encounter.
Wesside — Schuffi: 1–1
Wess’ team has slipped up against a few fairly weak teams recently, and I think Schuffi’s team has the potential to take a game off them here.
Moyo — Stl: 1–1
Both of these teams come into week 5 having suffered an upset sweep, but I do think they’re overall fairly close. I’d give a slight edge to Moyo on the condition that they give Neon heroes he can take over the game on, since he’s probably the best player in this series.
Melalez — Waloo: 1–1
On paper, this game should be going Waloo’s way, but they’ve been hit or miss — and mostly miss at that. Over on the other side, Melalez’s team also seems to suffer from consistency issues, so it’s not far-fetched to me that they just trade games here.
SUN (Group A)
RampagingBench — hi5: 1–1
Some of my faith in hi5’s team has been renewed with their upset over Neon, and these teams in general are pretty close at the moment, so a 1–1 seems logical.
Kevin Richardson — Neon: 1–1
I’ll give Neon’s team the benefit of the doubt about getting swept by hi5, but Kevin’s squad is nothing to scoff at, so I’ll once again predict a trade here.
Syrphx — T-Reds: 1–1
This series will be all about the early game — the result will depend on whose cores get the ball rolling.
Madsen — Cardinalstar: 2–0
Despite drawing two series in a row, I think this series against Cardinalstar is the one to get us back to the 2–0’s, since his team has been somewhat underwhelming.
SUN (Group B)
Maus — Rinku: 2–0
This one’s self-explanatory — despite a demoralizing loss to Play, Maus’ is still easily a top team in the group (and division as a whole), so even though Rinku’s squad did very well against Neox, I don’t see them getting a win here.
Neox — Grimmjow: 0–2
Neox’s team put up a very underwhelming performance against Rinku (admittedly without one of their players), and I’ll take a chance and make the risky call that Agnitos’ will be able to keep his new teammates in line and make them put out a clean performance against the slightly hectic and, uh, death-heavy Neox team.
Play — Ovidiu: 2–0
The top team in the division should easily grab yet another 2–0 here, and I have few doubts that they will. If they don’t, it’ll be a massive upset on its own.
Harbinger — Sakoh: 1–1
Both of these lower ranked teams come into this series with massive 2–0 wins, so this is going to be an interesting one for sure. This is another one of those matchups where the end result will be heavily dependent on how either teams’ cores perform, and I’d wager Sakoh’s team will secure one game with Szajtek at the helm and drop the other due to Harb and Haraway doing very well in their lanes.
My writing routine, more often than not, is to take a walk and grab a coffee somewhere. If you want to support my content, you can buy me a coffee, but I’ll keep writing as long as there’s stuff to write about, no matter what.
Thanks for reading!
