WED
Number in brackets indicates a team’s ranking coming into the playday.
Predictable Results:
Brainy Gonzo (3) — Darba (1): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
A matchup between two of the three top dogs was sure to provide enticing games, the first game saw an early lead form for Gonzo’s team with Swag on his signature LD, but the game eventually swung the other way with Darba and Harb proving to be too much to deal with on Weaver and Drow respectively. The second match saw Gonzo’s team pull the infamous first-phase Dusa out, and he proved exactly why it’s a threat worth banning, putting up massive numbers across the board to secure a 1–1 in this top 3 matchup.
Kalisdar (13) — Stl (16): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
Another fiercely contested 1–1 between two fairly close teams, with Shnoor popping off on WR game 1 with backup from Stl’s Spec, and standin Legatus Steg proving to be too much deal with for Stl’s squad over in game 2 with the mid Riki in an hour long game.
Holy Harry (6) — Drakesfjord (8): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
Despite producing one of the funnier clips of the week, Drakesfjord still managed to put the team on his back with a 956 GPM AM performance that a Xela-less Harry team couldn’t match. He tried to do much the same in the second game, this time around on Lone Druid, but with Harry getting his usual carry back for game 2, it was Xela who this time around picked up the AM and proved too much to handle for the opponents.
Moyo (18) — Melalez (24): 2–0
Prediction: 2–0
Say what you want about Hutten Discord personality, but he’s still a damn good Dota player, and he made sure to remind us of that as the FA for Neon, stepping up to fill some big shoes. A 20 minute stomp in the first game was followed up by a longer game which nonetheless was Moyo’s to lose, with Hutten putting in a big shift on AM, which Melalez’s team just couldn’t deal with.
Slight Surprises:
Play (2) — Kimer (5): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
Game 1 of this series featured a 24-pick Play Naga Siren, and you can already guess what that means. Credit where credit is due, Kimer’s team did hold the lead for most of this game, but then this happened…
…showing that said lead might not have mattered much considering their lack of Naga solutions. Not intent on throwing another lead, some disciplined play and a great AM performance from Boelens meant Kimer’s team grabbed the 1–1 with a pretty impressive showing by them both games.
Laavi (14) — Schuffi (15): 2–0
Prediction: 1–1
So Mikel seems to have discovered the Void Spirit hero, and seems to have a fair bit of fun on it to boot. Jokes aside, massive props to Jeremy for showing up on Morphling in game 1. The second game saw Laavi’s team start with a good lead and maintain it all throughout with Jeremy, Laavi and Mikel all having a fairly good time, closing it out pretty convincingly.
Waloo (22) — Madsen (19): 0–2
Prediction: 1–1
I’ll be honest in saying this series was probably made a bit easier by Waloo’s absence, considering that Zakke isn’t exactly a natural mid player. Game 1 was a straightforward one, with my mid player Matotimo proudly proclaiming that he was ready to first phase Lone Druid after playing 1 pub and 2 bot games on it, and going on to produce the space I needed to take over the game with a last pick CK. Game 2 was a much closer match, and I genuinely thought we’d lost at one point, but the boys stepped it up in the late game and we brought it back to grab the 2–0 that secures playoffs.
Severe (12) — exZ (7): 2–0
Prediction: 1–1
Oh Severe’s missing? Who are they getting? Polarbear? Damn okay that’s kind of a downgrade, exZ might take the series.
Oh.
Anstar (4) — Debowy (9): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
Despite Anstar putting in some work on Void Spirit in game 1 to provide his team with a significant lead for most of the game, they didn’t quite have the damage to bring down a Spectre and LD, resulting in a late-game comeback from Debowy’s team, which saw them steal a game in the series. Deciding seemingly to not have the same damage issues in game 2, Anstar’s team opted to grab some heavy hitters with Morph and Spec for the captain himself and Ben in the safelane respectively, with both having great games to take a very convincing game 2 win.
Joll (11) — Thronplunder (10): 2–0
Prediction: 1–1
Uh oh, I see a last pick Lycan y’all. With a strong draft and both Joll and Kuro performing very well, game 1 was a fairly simple affair, and game 2 was…even simpler? A 15 minute win for Joll’s team off the back of his DP, this game didn’t see a single player crack 10k hero damage, and that should really tell you everything you need to know.
Wesside (23) — Reddydas (21): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
Syrphx standing in for Grimmjow seems like a bit of a rig — especially considering he contributed heavily to a Reddydas win here — but it’s not worth dwelling on considering the standings. A trade of wins changes nothing for Wess’ team, but puts Reddydas into a rough spot where they’re in a big tie for the last playoff spot, a process that could’ve been entirely avoided had they swept this series.
Haraway (17) — Crispy Bacon (20): 0–2
Prediction: 1–1
Crispy Bacon’s team wasn’t in the mood to mess around — they needed and wanted a 2–0, and they went out and took it, with the captain himself putting in big numbers in the series.
Big Upsets:
None this week!
Prediction Total: 4–8
SUN
Number in brackets indicates a team’s ranking coming into the playday.
Predictable Results:
RampagingBench (8) — Kevin Richardson (4): 0–2
Prediction: 0–2
While Bench’s team does have individual quality, Kevin’s squad has been on the up-and-up, and despite a new FA, they’ve carried that momentum forward as predicted. Game 1 was very much a showing of exactly that, with Blackjack having a standout performance in a match where his team got the upper hand in the draft. The second match was pretty weird, as Anstar swapped over to the 4 position and putting Qwicker mid on Enchantress; it didn’t help much, though, as Kalisdar and Blackjack took over the game nonetheless, securing the team a 2–0.
Cardinalstar (15) — Reddydas (10): 0–2 (By Forfeit)
Prediction: 1–1
Y’know, some teams might be garbage, but at least they show up to their officials. Cardinal’s squad seems to have essentially given up, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see another forfeit in the upcoming playday.
Grimmjow (11) — Maus (5): 1–1
Prediction: 1–1
I’d taken a chance on predicting that Grimm’s team takes a game off the slumping Maus team, and take a game they did — with few solutions to Acid’s 23 pick Ember, he managed to take over the match. With a less elusive and more static hero game 2, though, he didn’t pose as much of a threat to sidelanes, and as a result, Kuro managed to do a lot of work on Luna, sealing a 1–1.
Slight Surprises:
Madsen (2) — Syrphx (6): 1–1
Prediction: 2–0
As it turns out, my team’s good, but not good enough to sweep someone when fucking around. We unfortunately didn’t have Boelens, but after securing the first game to alleviate any potential seeding concerns, I decided to let everyone play whichever hero they wanted. It, uh, didn’t work, and we couldn’t really deal with Syrphx’s AM and Dekait’s Invoker with the heroes we had.
Rinku (14) — Ovidiu (13): 0–2
Prediction: 1–1
I’ll admit, I may have gotten caught up in the hype with Rinku’s team stringing together some 1–1s, and with what is in my opinion a fairly notable downgrade with RageDino standing in for Nino, Ovidiu and the gang wasted no time, with all three of the cores having a good game 1 despite mediocre lanes, a trend which carried over into game 2.
Harbinger (12) — Play (1): 1–1
Prediction: 0–2
Woah Luke Huskar making an appearance — and dominating to boot. While I do feel like Play’s team might’ve been playing for fun with a pre-patch core Tiny pick, it’s still good for Harb’s team to take a game off them, especially seeing as Play and Darba seem to have decided they had their fun game 1 and tried a bit harder in game 2, taking over the game on Furion and Slark respectively.
Big Upsets:
hi5 (9) — T-Reds (3): 2–0
Prediction: 0–2
What happened here? Mikel had a good game 1 on Jugg, but we all know by now what happens when KTZ wins mid, and with Blackbriar putting in a notable performance on Mars as well, they didn’t struggle to close out the match. Game 2 saw a weird draft coming out of T-Reds’ team, and despite having last pick, they didn’t manage to find a solution to KTZ’s Morph, resulting in an unexpected 2–0 for hi5.
Sakoh (7) — Neox (16): 0–2
Prediction: 2–0
With Stl standing in at carry and Neox stepping his game up, we finally witness this team not average double digit deaths on their cores in a game, and — shocker — they manage to win it. I’m not sure the lastpick mid Mirana was the solution either! Over in game 2, they gave Neox Bat, and while he did die 12 times, one would have to assume that he had a lot of impact on his best hero to set Stl up for the great game he had on Spec.
Prediction Total: 2–5 (1 forfeit)
Week 7 Predictions
WED
There’s some silly tiebreaker shenanigans going on here — I’m not going to go too deep into the rabbit hole, and will just do predictions for the first matches and the follow-up games that the winners of the first round go into.
Darba — Brainy Gonzo: 2–1
While Gonzo’s team had a very strong showing in their 1–1 against Darba this past Wednesday, Darba and his team are still the favorites here, so I’ll give the edge in the 1st place decider.
Play — Kimer: 2–1
A match that I consider fairly similar to the one which decides the number 1 team, I favor Play’s team here for the 3rd spot despite them struggling a bit with Kimer’s team last matchday.
Holy Harry — Joll: 1–0
I think this is a pretty volatile match that could go either way. Joll and Kuro form the scarier core duo, but Harry has a more even spread of quality across his lanes and much more defined shotcallers than Joll’s team does, so I think they’ll hop on the Xela express to a 1–0.
Anstar — Laavi: 1–0
While I have admittedly been underrating Laavi’s team throughout the season, I think that — depending on which version of the captain shows up — Anstar’s team should have this one.
Holy Harry (?) — Severe: 1–0
Going under the assumption that Harry’s winning the game against Joll, I think they’d also be my favorites against Severe’s team for much the same reasons as against Joll.
Anstar (?) — Debowy: 1–0
Again, assuming my prediction of Anstar’s team winning the first round goes through, it’d imply that they’re taking these games seriously and at that point I’d favor them over Debowy.
Crispy Bacon — Madsen: 0–1
Crispy Bacon has suggested we play a game of Pudge Wars instead of this (utterly meaningless in every single way btw) official. Scared, I’m assuming.
Drakesfjord — Madsen (?): 1–0
As 1–1 kings, if we win the first game against Crispy Bacon, we will lose the second against Drakesfjord. Naturally.
Kalisdar — Stl: 1–0
I think their series this past week was pretty close, which should favor Kalisdar considering they were missing their best player in Acid.
Reddydas — Moyo: 0–1
I feel like Hutten is going to smash Reddydas here, in all honesty.
exZ — Moyo (?): 1–0
My confidence in this prediction rests upon a report I’m waiting on detailing the health status of Nsphere’s cat, to be entirely honest — but preliminary data suggests it’s in poor condition. Assuming Moyo wins the first game, I think this is going to be a really volatile match, which they could easily win if Hutten pops off, but I’d say that’s a fairly big if, considering that exZ’s team is, in my opinion, the stronger of the two overall.
Schuffi — Thronplunder: 0–1
Both of these teams are coming off disappointing losses, but I’ll go with the team that has a 7k carry. Can you blame me?
exZ (?) — Thronplunder (?): 0–1
Okay, I haven’t gone this far for the other tiebreakers, but this is probably the most important one (or, well, the only important one), and assuming my predictions even come this far, I’m going to say Szajtek is going to pop off again, probably pulling out some epic 7.27b strats.
SUN (Group A)
T-Reds — Kevin Richardson: 1–1
Getting wins here is pretty important for both of these teams. Each of them faces potentially getting pushed out of the playoffs or getting the dreaded 4th seed, and while I do think T-Reds’ is the stronger team of the two, their drafts have also been slightly questionable at times, and I think these teams will trade wins here.
RampagingBench— Cardinalstar: 2–0
My prediction here is sort of missing a “by forfeit” in brackets, since I feel like Cardinal’s team might just not show up again. Doesn’t matter much, though, since both of these teams are out with no way of getting back in, so this would essentially be one last scrim for both, if they play it at all.
Syrphx— hi5: 2–0
Not gonna lie, despite an amazing win against T-Reds, I don’t really believe in hi5’s team here, and I think Syrphx’s team is going to grab the 2–0 to secure a playoff position. hi’s team still depends too much on KTZ in my opinion, and he’s got a tough match waiting for him mid.
Reddydas — Madsen: 0–2
I think this should be a fairly straightforward series, though you never know with teams who are in a spot where they don’t care whether they win or lose. Still need to stave off the looming threat of the 4th seed.
SUN (Group B)
Ovidiu — Grimmjow: 1–1
While there is (I believe?) a universe in which Ovi and the gang make playoffs, it’s a pretty far-fetched one, but they should be trying for it nonetheless, and I think that’ll make this a fairly interesting contest.
Maus — Sakoh: 2–0
Maus’ team will need to shake off the past couple of results and take this game a bit more serious, considering there’s a world in which they’re pushed out of a qualifying spot, but I think they’ll be up to the task and come out of this with a 2–0 to secure the spot they want — which might leave Sakoh praying for 2–0s elsewhere.
Play — Rinku: 2–0
Y’know, I really think Play and his team will come into this game just wanting to fuck around a bit…and yet I still think they’re going to 2–0 comfortably.
Neox — Harbinger: 0–2
While Neox and his squad are coming off a good win, I think Harb’s team is playing this series with more to lose and will probably care just a bit more. Plus, I mean, Neox doesn’t have Papa Stl to carry them this time, duh.
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