Team Empire started the final stage of Starseries in the lower brackets, playing through nerve-wracking do-or-die games for days. They had to eliminate Alliance, iG, and rox.KIS simply to make it to the consolation final. EG already tasted victory moving to the Winner's Bracket final, but now they need to earn their way back for one more chance at DK in the Grand Finals.

This match is the culmination of the every ounce of hard work that Team Empire has in their systems. They've really fought the odds, constantly playing on the edge of elimination and have been given a brilliant opportunity to show their merit here in the consolation finals. I've rolled out of bed right at dawn to make sure I could watch the game, and I'll be dropping my thoughts in real-time here throughout.

Looking at the draft, the most notable alteration to the meta from pre-Starladder to post-Starladder is the Treant ban in the first ban slot. Ember Spirit, Lycan, and Naga Siren were all banned out as well, which is no surprises, but Team EG is going to be given the Batrider, while [b]Team Empire[/b] is going to be given the Invoker. That surprise Pugna draft is going to mean heavy push coming out of Team EG. Dragon Knight, too.



First blood was narrowly avoided on the Batrider by a very strong Firefly getting him out of damage range after a double-stun.



[b]6:00[/b] Empire moved through the mid lane with a strong rotation from Shadow Demon through a dewarded earlier. Soul Catcher is too strong and Invoker gives up first blood, but in addition Batrider Town Portals in and dies trying to make a trade. In the top lane, EG lose two immediately after.

7:30 A three-man rotation into the jungle turns Batrider into ground beef. [b]Team Empire[/b] gets some more kills mid and loses nothing. They said good day sir!

7-0 their favor.

14:35 Batrider blinks into the mid lane and attempts to grab a kill, but Team Empire was prepared for it. Batrider goes down, then Clockwork grabs himself a follow-up kill in lane, and Team Empire grabs the tier 2 mid as well.

16:11 Batrider gets a triple kill with the first successful blink initiation in the top-lane, forcing Team Empire to trickle back.


19:00 Team Empire Pushed the bottom high ground with a huge Epicenter. Sand King was dragged back into the base by Batrider, but a huge Sacred Arrow stops an initation on him. No tower drops.



21:00 A huge engagement opened with a two-man Epicenter in the bottom-lane, followed by a skirmish involving nearly both the full rosters. Sand King dropped, but so did Dragon Knight.



23:00 EG gave Team Empire a completely uncontested Roshan, but Team Empire immediately pushed onto the bottom lane. Pugna dropped a great Netherward along with a blink-initiation from Batrider kept the melee barracks up, although the tier 3 and the ranged barracks dropped.



27:30 Team Empire used Moonlight Shadow to try and push into the bottom lane and earn some kills, but EG already prepared with a sentry ward at the high ground. Team Empire was forced away empty-handed. It doesn't feel like Team Empire can secure the towers they need unless they can get kills first. With EG playing as defensively as they are, they are in a good position to swing the gold lead.

Items at 25:00


29:00 Team Empire has a functional obsession with the bottom melee barracks. They converge on it AGAIN and still fail to get it. Once again, EG reinitiates and forces a route, taking a kill and breaking several heroes to kill-range. Team Empire needs a new strategy.



34:00 After a few minutes of positioning between both teams, Team Empire took a completely uncontested Aegis. EG tried to move to the pit fast enough, but they weren't able to move fast enough to contest. Then Sand King moved at them in the mid lane, but stutter-stepped or was stunned out of his blink, wasting his Epicenter.

Yet EG popped all of their BKB's.

37:00 Team Empire pushed the mid tower, and end up trading the Shadow Demon to reduce the tier 3's health to about 300. Yet, the comeback is real. EG is showing supreme, monklike patience. Yet, they still have no map control and no real vision. They can't leave their base; they can't farm.



All there is is the defense.

40:00 THIS COULD BE IT! Batrider used a Lasso but was unable to get a hero into the high ground and separated. Sandking dropped on the mid-tier 3 after Epicenter. Team EG was forced to buy back their Dragon Knight, and Dazzle dropped as well. Yet, they take three and they keep their melee barracks.



These boys are REALLY playing the margins. Two barren melee barracks. They need to be able to leave their base, and they can't give another uncontested Roshan.

43:00 That is not what I mean, Team EG! They moved down the center lane with smoke, tried to catch Empire off-guard way down the middle lane. They got a surprise lasso, and were immediately punished as one hero after another dropped. No buybacks. Team Empire pushed as hard as they could and take out the last tier 3 in the top as well as every melee barracks.



EG's glory push did not end as hoped. The engagement was followed by several hero deaths and the final death spasms of their base. GG, go next.

Death throes of EG. Click to Englarge.

After dropping the bulk of their roster, Team EG was forced to call the GG. They started off weak, but ended strong. Let's hope they come into game #2 with the gusto and force with which they ended game #1. Their lack of ability to push in the early game offset their draft's advantage, and while the Pugna was a strongly defensive hero, Team EG gave up too many towers to a roster that had no business taking early towers. Also, ca Eternal Envy had minimal Pugna play in the past (in fact, only one game on record).

Perhaps next round, they'll play it safe and draft heroes they understand and execute.



Game 2



Alright, so let's look at game #2. No Naga or [/b]Ember Spirit[/b], courtesy of Team Empire. Evil Geniuses drop the Batrider and Lycan. Giving team Empire Invoker has proven to be problematic already this series. Plus the Dazzle, already Empire looks very difficult to team fight against.



Instead of picking a push-oriented draft, EG starts by picking the Treant Protector to buy map control against early pushes. This should be very effective against Team Empire's draft, as with Bane and Centaur coming out, they have no sustainable siege damage through the early or mid game unless Invoker does go with Exort (and even then, the push is not comparable to an Elder Dragon form). With Luna to add early-game damage to attacks and Elder Dragon form coming out of Dragon Knight, EG has a balanced draft.

Team Empire will need to execute very strongly with a four-protect-one strategy, snagging the Morphling in the end. Morphling's damage and push in the mid and late game scales absurdly well, and his global reaction thanks to Replicate will curb split-push potential from DK and Luna. But Team Empire will need to make it that long, depending on Invoker and Centaur Warrunner to buy space with the blood of their enemies through the mid game. Early game could be pretty rough for Team Empire, but they do have great defensive heroes with the Bane and Dazzle.



A Surprise dual-lane mid from Team Empire pits Morphling and Dazzle against the Dragon Knight. As of 2:30, Morphling is doing very well in this lane. This makes a lot of sense for Team Empire, who as already stated are playing at an early-game disadvantage. A 2-2-1 style laning configuration will help keep DK from playing aggressively in the mid lane, forcing him to cool his jets until Team Empire is ready to handle more aggression.

This is a method of moving into the mid game smoothly, at the cost of some experience, and controlling the throttle of the game.



4:11 EG smoked right on top of a ward and rotates both supports onto Morphling in the mid lane. Leech Seed, Disruption, Soul Catcher, plus Dragon Knight in general is too much damage output.

Morphling gave first blood due to a play error, playing without map awareness. Fatigued, distracted, or tunnel-visioned doesn't matter. Their mid lane is now risking being an experience sink without gain. They aren't shutting down Dragon Knight, and they've given up a kill. Very dangerous execution failure by Team Empire.

7:35 Luna rotated mid along with Shadow Demon as Dragon Form is popped. The mid tier-1 was about to drop, and Shadow Demon used disruption and soul catcher to force Dazzle and Morphling apart. Both dropped, and the tier 1 tower dropped as well.



8:30 With a haste rune, Centaur chased Shadow Demon into the Radiant jungle, but he wasn't able to output damage fast enough to overcome Living Armor. Sunstrike from the mid lane would miss, and Centaur ended up giving a kill rather than taking one.

10:00 Towers continue to fall. Another tier 1 dropped bottom and Team Empire still has no ability to push, even with exort Invoker. Morphling needs more time. Double midas build on Team Empire also begs for more time. Will Team EG give it to them, and will they even care? DK and Luna both carry pretty hard, themselves.



11:30 Stampede initiation into Team EG's bottom tier 1 turns into a Town Portal team response, bringing a bad situation into a two-for-two trade. The tier 1 tower almost drops, but Living Armor immediately starts to heal it back. No commitment to the push means no towers for Team Empire.

14:00 Dragon Knight pushed the top against Team Empire, while Luna pushed the bottom. Arteezy makes a BEAUTIFUL north-path jungle juke away from the entire Team Empire squad while Luna free snags a tower.



15:50 As Team EG slow-siege outside of the mid tier 3, Centaur used stampede to initiate. The whole of Team Empire charged from high-ground to defend.



Team EG didn't even blink. Eclipse. Dream Coil. Dragon Form. At the end of the fight, Team Empire had lost a team and a tier 3.



18:30 The same thing again by the Roshan pit. Beautiful Treant overgrowth out of a Nature's Guise. EG pushed into high ground, forcing a buyback on the Morphling, but EG punishes the buyback by safely removing their team from the situation. That is a painful loss for a Morphling, especially a Morphling who is behind and relying on Midas.

Team Empire keeps throwing themselves under the treads of the tank to no avail. Fight after fight, literally too fast for me to even update the page, they go down in twos and threes. High ground was continually being pushed in, and pressure was too much. After one-too-many majorly failed teamfights, Team Empire called GG.



What else could they do? Four-protect-one is a risky strategy against a push squad. Team Empire gave up the second-fastest game of this season of Starladder. They'll be going to game #3--the first in the last two Starladder seasons.



Game 3



Team Empire Opens with some of the same bans from the previous games. Naga Siren and Treant Protector. Game 2 proved why the latter needs to be banned. His damage output, counter-initiation, and us PPD's overall expertise makes it a must-ban.

Lycan and Batrider banned out EG, who open with a similar lineup. Team Empire's draft opens the same as game 2, as does EG's.

But Dragon Knight is banned by Team Empire, meaning the dual-push farmers strategy will likely not be returning for EG.



Huge combos incoming: Sand King, Dazzle, and Dark Seer together, as well as a potential Meteor and Sunstrike from Team Empire. Coordination and team control will be vital for success coming out of our Russian friends.

Meanwhile, EG is using a strong push and aggression lineup. Luna provides great early game damage for towers, but Crystal Maiden and Shadow Demon will provide tremendous early game map control with their gank potential and jungling capability. All of Team Empire's early game tower siege comes from Invoker. Of course, mid and especially late game, Gyrocopter will push like a monster.



Pre-game Evil Geniuses block out all three Eastern camps.

2:30 Dark Seer found himself disrupted and pickled between Luna and Shadow Demon. Town Portal reaction threats are not timely enough and the first blood goes the way of EG. Because of the wards, Dark Seer can't even retire to the jungle for another two minutes.



2:52 The offlane puck caught Team Empire's Sand King in a jungle labrynth. The inevitable kill was to follow.



3:45 Team Empire moved into mid at the same time as EG. Dazzle narrowly saved Invoker with a Shallow Grave, then they managed to turn the fight and kill Templar Assassin. This was absolutely necessary, as Templar Assassin continued to dominate Invoker in Creep Stats and lane control.



Team Empire made a quick and huge rotation into the bottom lane, including even the Gyrocopter. They grab two kills and close the gap. However, the Creep Stats show Luna and Templar Assassin still keeping themselves ahead of Invoker. Gyrocopter would not be the top of the next worth, to Team Empire's joy.



14:30 After a very prolonged slowpush with no rotations, Team Empire grabbed the top tier 1. Templar Assassin did some damage to the mid tier 1 and the rest of EG did damage to the bottom, but no other towers trade hands.

15:15 Luna used Mask of Madness as Gyrocopter approached, and Rocket Barrage is all that is needed alongside the Mask of Madness bonus damage to blow Luna to kingdom come.



Luna is starting to fall way behind in farm: 5700 compared to Gyro's 7600 at 17:00. Luna is being punished for her very greedy early build. She pushed for Midas and Mask of Madness without even upgrading boots. Any damage output wrecks her, and she needed her team to stay alive and safe.



18:00 Luna is being punished for her very greedy early build. Two EG heroes go down while Team Empire moves into the tier 2 mid. They take it, then take Roshan uncontested.



21:50 Team Empire pushed the high ground in the mid lane. The tier 1 drops uncontested, but Puck blinked and landed a huge dream coil, with five shadow poison stacks on Gyrocopter.

The flying contraption fell from the sky immediately.



Unable to route due to dream coil, Team Empire loses four heroes. In addition, they gave up the Aegis.



24:17 A four-man squad from Team Empire pushed down the bottom lane, eating up towers with ravenous desire.



Puck tried to stop the half of Sand King, Dazzle, Gyrocopter, and Invoker by throwing a Dream Coil to stop Town Portal reactions to EG's push on the top tier 2. The tower went down, but so did Puck. However, Team Empire did not march into the base due to Puck's quick buyback, which seemed to have deterred them.

All said and done, by the end of this push, EG have no outer-tier towers while Team Empire still has two.



25:00 A huge fight on the Radiant high ground leads to Team Empire and EG each losing heroes, but EG was forced to spend several important buybacks.

Team Empire followed it up with an uncontested Roshan.



32:00 After taking the mid barracks relatively uncontested, Team Empire rotate to the bottom lane and take the tower. EG moved forward without buybacks available on anybody but the Puck.



Sand King lands a full-team burrowstrike-epicenter combo. The wave flows out of the dazzle, doing massive damage as all of Team Empire flooded into the base.

Then Gyrocopter dropped, along with Team Empire's damage output. They retreated before razing the bottom.



EG finally had a moment to breath. They moved forward to clean up creeps and pick up the broken pieces of their base. They begin to set a defensive positioning, with Team Empire fading from their vision into the fog. They hadn't lost. Not yet. They saved it, somehow, against odds. For now.

Until the Meteor landed.

Sand King reappeared with a long blink-burrowstrike combination. The entire EG squad, without buyback, stunned out, caught with low-guard, began to die en masse. Team Empire wiped the four team as Shadow Demon escapes to the fountain.

Better make that a full team wipe


Bottom barracks.

They chase any stragglers to the fountain. A buyback is chimed out, but Team Empire doesn't care.

Top tower.

Nobody to defend.

Top barracks.

Nobody to defend.

EG has nothing left. They tap out of the tournament in the Consolation Finals. Strong team-execution has finally led Team Empire back into the spotlight, all the way from the lowest of the low, to play against DK in the Grand Finals.



But DK is rested, with a game advantage, and has watched all of Team Empire's tricks. Tune in later to see if Team Empire has what it takes to become Starladder's ultimate underdog story, or if they'll fall like so many others before the feet of the Chinese superstars.

Images by Meliora.Infinitum and Emeldavi

This article was written by us Gorgon the Wonder Cow, joinDOTA's Senior writer.Gorgon is a shoutcaster and analyst for CEVO, joinDOTA, DotaTRASH, and anywhere a fast tongue with top insight is required. He also like pinball and bellybutton lint. Gorgon is not his birth name.Location: Ann Arbor, MIFollow him on @GoTCoWDotA.

Comments