Webster vs KS1
Johor SMM Qualifiers Final
(Sentinel) Webster
(Top) Sandking
(Top) Twin-headed Dragon
(Mid) Shadow Fiend
(Bottom) Queen of Pain
(Bottom/Jungle) Spectre
(Scourge) KS1
(Top) Viper
(Mid) Warlock
(Bottom) Vengeful Spirit
(Bottom) Slayer
(Bottom) Lord of Olympia
The final of the SMM Qualifiers Johor pits 2 teams, KS1 and Webster (formally known as VS). A quick glance at the lineup shows that Webster AGAIN picking their favourite hero, Spectre. Their lineup consists of heavy AoE heroes in Sandking, THD, Shadow Fiend and QoP, with an option of late game dominance via Spectre. KS1's drafts heavily favour early game, and with them running the 3-1-1 lanings, is hell-bent on controlling both early game and mid game, via hero killing and map control.
The game starts off with a rather casual top lane. I said casual because Sandking and THD seemed to have quite a troublesome time handling the Viper. The Viper played very aggressively and pushed the Sandking to half health very early. This in turn deterred the Sandking from making stuns, and THD's inability to mimic Viper's aggressiveness, gave Viper ample farming space. However at level 3, Sandking decided to go for a stun and it resulted in a FirstBlood for Webster.
Mid lane was dominated by Warlock who kept Shadow Fiend under pressure for much of early game. Even though Shadow Fiend was underleveled and underfarmed, lack of deaths means that Shadow Fiend got his bottle at level 5. However, even after obtaining bottle, Shadow Fiend remains under pressure. It would be better if he went off trying to gank bottom lane once he hits level 7. It was clear that Warlock already had him under wraps.
Bottom lane saw QoP against the 3 heroes of KS1, VS, Slayer and Zeus. Spectre remained in the forest for quite some time, pulling creeps and what not. Because KS1 was facing a blinking hero at bottom lane, killing is made quite hard and troublesome. VS could have gone off ganking instead of staying in lane and helping in last hitting. If VS went out ganking earlier, Shadow Fiend could have been even pressured more. VS's stubbornness led to a rather late bottle, from which the willingness to gank and gain map control begins
Mid game saw both teams struggling to gain map control. KS1 quickly downed the bottom and middle sentinel towers, and followed up with the top sentinel tower, giving them some gold advantage over Webster. Shortly afterwards, QoP suffered a quick death after being ganked by Lina, Zeus and VS. At the same time, top lane saw THD dying to Warlock and Viper, and they pushed quickly, taking out the second top sentinel tower. It was evident that the heavy nuking team of KS1 was giving them the edge in finishing heroes. SandKing with dagger made it a more balanced affair; sadly Epicenter's cooldown meant that mid game map control went to KS1.
As the game dragged on, KS1 found the urgency to push early as most of Webster's heroes were getting buffed with items. They knew that Spectre's late game was almost impossible to deal with. A few attempted pushes by KS1 was repelled like water against a rock, which in turn allowed Webster to farm up even more items. The breakthrough finally came when Spectre was caught off guard for the second time, and got her killed. The resulting push means Webster found themselves with a gaping hole in the middle of their base. The game took a huge turn when Viper lost his last Aegis charge. From that point on, Webster with their super buffed heroes backdoored a few outlaying towers and delayed pushing just so that their heroes can get even more buffed. With a few more ganks and pushes, KS1 succumbed to defeat.
MVP of the game goes to SandKing for good coordinated Epi + Blinks.
*Endnote*
KS1 was given a victory after Webster was disqualified for breaching the rules of 1 Aegis per hero. While I agree that they did break the rules, QoP only bought it after the game was decided. All of KS1's raxes were destroyed, and there was no hope of victory for them. At that point, breaking that particular rule seemed to merit a warning at most for myself, because it played no part in the outcome of the game. Just my 2 cents.
PS: Sorry for the long summary. Long game = Long summary
This post has been edited by Noobie-I-Am: May 20 2007, 03:39 AM