posted by Vekus,
This is it! With a hard fought 3-2 victory over se Alliance, the newcomers eu Team Tinker secure themselves the second spot in the NVIDIA GAME 24 Invitational alongside world Cloud9. But how do the teams actually fair up against each other? Who is more likely to succeed? world Cloud9 was a team that split the fans like no other: you could either hate or love them, with almost no middleground. However, they are also one of the most dedicated teams in the scene, working hard on every single aspect, focusing a lot on timing and efficiency and slaying their foes with the death by a thousand cuts. Things have changed a bit with the recent addition of de Adrian 'FATA' Trinks, shifting their gameplay to a more aggressive style, but more about that later.

Previous to FATA arriving at C9, nl Weh Sing 'SingSing' Yuen took his hat and found a new place at eu Team Tinker, a new underdog, that has to be taken seriously, considering the amount of talent on it.



All-in on Mid



Ah of course this had to be mentioned. The upcoming duel between the ex-midlaner and the recent one, the fight between Sing and FATA, which will make the middle lane even more interesting. Both seem to feature a similar playstyle: heroes that are effective in the early stages of the game, while still making an impact later on.
And in the left corner...
Comparing their signature heroes gives a slight edge to SingSing as he manages to achieve a whopping 70,7% winrate with his Mirana over 75 games, compared to FATA's 61,3% with Puck in 124.

FATA absolutely thrives on heroes such as Invoker, Puck or his recent love Troll Warlord. With an 81,3% winrate on the rather unconventional hero, he shows off how good a meelee hero can be in the middle lane. Despite his rather utility based item builds, often including a Mekansm or a Vladimirs Offering, he manages to dish out quite a load of damage in the midgame, due to his superior control of the hero. But as someone who has a troll fetish he should know what he is doing.

SingSing often opts for more farm intensive heroes such as Ember Spirit, Death Prophet or his signature Mirana. While they unfold their carry potential rather late, he manages to minimize his deaths due to good map awareness, and bring them online earlier than others could. The midgame is where Sing takes over, finding kills all over the map, given the right start.

But how about a direct comparison? Team Tinker leads with a solid 3-0, after 2 wins against C9 in the D2CL and one in the SLTV StarSeries. This makes tonight's games even more exiting, as it gives C9 another rivalry to put to bed. We could take a look at other numbers such as average creep score on the three most played heroes (Sing: 171,4 Fata:202,3) or average KDA (Sing: 3,91 Fata:4,16) but this isn't painting the whole picture. The only thing we know for sure is that we can expect a fierce competition in the mid tonight.

Tinkering about - or not?



Despite their name suggesting it, the Team Tinker actually ignore their signature hero for the most games. With three games on the hero and a 66% winrate, it is a pity that they don't pick him up more often. Especially qojqva thrives on the hero, as he proved today in the Game 4 versus Alliance, where he managed an insane 17-2-6.

For science!
Maybe Tinker just needs some time to be played by TT, as he is definitely worth giving to qojqva (17-2-6 against Alliance) and one of Bulba's best heroes as well, with a 70,6% winrate over 34 games.
Cloud9 seems to like the little engineer more, as they picked him up 9 times during 6.81, however they didn't fair well either, as they could only win 4 times with him. Not to worry for the keen folk tough, just earlier today, 'EternalEnvy' was seen playing a laser-and-rocket shooting ultimate badass Tinker, ending the game with an unbelievable 23-6-11.

Despite not picking Tinker as often as he would like to, TT favours a global strategy, often getting their hand on heroes such as Nature's Prophet and Wisp, alongside tanky cores such as Void, Razor and Death Prophet.
Cloud9, despite their sometimes unusual drafting, rely on heroes with big teamfight ultimates such as Doom, Tidehunter and Enigma to just name a few. Skywrath Mage seems to fit both teams playstyles as he is one of the only heroes picked up by both of them a considerable amount.



In the end, you have no other choice but to watch the grand finals to know who will comeout on top, as each team can win over the other. But isn't that what makes Dota interesting? The Grand Final will be played out tonight at 11:30AM PDT / 2:30PM EDT / 20:30 CEST broadcasted by Aaron "Ayesee" Chambers and Mark "Tralf" Seidel on GAME24 Dota Stream for a total of $15,000!


This article was written by de Markus Fischer, joinDOTA's Senior Writer. Vekus started to follow Dota rather late, as he joined the community in 2012. From then on he tried to get a job in Esports and found it later at joinDOTA. Reallife is mostly spend at university trying to understand physics and running. Avid wearer of Bandanas.Location: Chemnitz, GermanyFollow him on @VekusDota.

Comments