posted by Sun_Tzu,
After a two month respite, Chinese Dota is waking up again with the impending G-League finals, which will see the challengers from the west world LGD.Int take on the last of the titans, the mighty winners of The International 2012 and widely regarded as the best team on the planet right now, cn Invictus Gaming.
The Mercedez Benz's cultural center will play host for the event with a nominal capacity of 18,000 seats


The big questions going into the event will be whether iG will continue their flawless rampage through the finals. They've yet to drop a single game, although they did arguably have the easier of the two groups. Meanwhile LGD.Int had to slug it out with not only their housemates cn LGD.Cn, but also ended up dropping a series to cn DK, who were the first team to ban out Chen and Enchantress against LGD.Int. While this tactic worked for DK, it did not last, as eventually cn For.Love were to find out. Will iG have more luck with denying LGD.Int their junglers, or will they not even care, instead forcing the foreigners to play their game on their home turf? Time will tell.

What to expect from the metagame



It's been a long two months, and while the metagame has shifted and trends have come and gone in the west, the Chinese have been taking time off to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Some have been predicting that this might mean a virtual standstill in terms of the metagame for this final, while others have been pointing to how players from both teams have spent time perusing Western replays during their downtime.

One big difference between the scenes so far has been the reverance towards Lone Druid in China, a hero who is likely to make an appearance and bring his trademark pushing power and mid game control. He is an instrumental part in the Chinese formulae for taking the high ground. Much has also been made of the melee vs. melee solo mids which were popular during the G-League, and whether this trend will continue, with the likes of Beastmaster, Brewmaster and Night Stalker being top picks.

Meanwhile some things we may see creeping over from the west are in particular Lifestealer, which LGD.Int have already shown themselves more than capable of running. Clockwerk is also a trend which we may see moving over, with LGD.Int being the more likely ones to pick this hero up. The big question is whether Gyrocopter will make a showing, as purportedly the Chinese teams have not thought much of the hero previously, while his impact during all stages of the game has made him a mainstay of the Western scene.

What do the Chinese think?



Gamefy, the organizers of G-League, did a promotional piece for the event, which did not spare the praise for the their countrymen. They put iG at 6-to-1 odds to take the finals, which would indicate they expect a clean 3-0 sweep of the series. They also compared the players for each position, notably only putting LGD.Int on equal terms in the mid match-up between ru Sergey 'God' Bragin and cn Luo 'Ferrari_430' Feichi, which may irk some fans of se Per Anders 'Pajkatt' Olsson Lille or dk Rasmus 'Misery' Filipsen, who have both been playing exceptionally well since relocating to China.

Our Coverage - Now with 300% more expert opinions!



Naturally our very own au Toby 'TobiWan' Dawson will be bringing you every second of this important event, and along with him providing that mechanical insight only a pro player can we will have dk Troels 'syndereN' Nielsen, formerly captain of de mTw.

But that’s not all! For this event we've convened a special panel of experts to give us additional insight in between the games! The panel will be lead by de Christian 'Epi' Czech and he will be throwing out questions to veteran player de Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbuckers now with eu Fnatic.EU, North American legend us Ben 'Merlini' Wu as well as the former captain and strategian of se No Tidehunter ca Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao.

So don’t forget to tune in at 11:00 CET (estimated) on Saturday, 9th of March, to see one amazing series of games unfold. The start time has been moved forward from a previously reported 13:00 CET, although delays are still possible due to the complex schedule of the G-League finals day.



CLICK HERE FOR MORE G-LEAGUE COVERAGE!



Comments