Natus Vincere facing up against the new team full of old favourites 
Team Tinker. The Bo2 series was a veritable back and forth between the two teams, with aggressive play ensuring decisive victories from both teams resulting in a surprisingly exciting draw.
This adorable Basim courier has been added to the ticket, as well as a fantastic loading screen.The clash between
Na'Vi and Team Tinker in tonight's D2CL match up was sure to be an eventful one, with both teams notorious for their aggressive play styles and off-meta drafts. Team Tinker entered the series on the back of a solid winning streak, having won 6 and drawn 2 of their last 8 matches. Na'Vi on the other hand, still adjusting to their new lineup, have had a somewhat rockier road of late. With a few outstanding performances, reminding us why they have been one of the most consistent tier 1 teams in the scene, followed by some shock defeats to newer, less experienced teams. Of course recent performances only reveal so much when teams of this calibre and level of unpredictability lock horns. D2CL Game 1: NaVi Dismantles Tinker
Draft
Team Tinkershowed their hand early with their first bans and picks, eliminating their namesake as well as Skywrath Mage in the first round and picking up Razor and Enigma for an obviously teamfight oriented opener. The rest of their draft followed a similar format of favouring team fight and counter push, while eliminating controllers and pick off heroes that could work in synergy with Na'Vi's Mirana pickup. NaVi on the other hand banned out the Lycan and Nature's Prophet in the first round, clearly seeking to avoid the deathball push that has become synonymous with the current meta. Laning Phase
Leech Seed and Arrow secured first blood Na'Vi managing to block the pull camp which would later result in 
Per Anders 'Pajkatt' Olsson Lille having serious lane control and farm issues on his Razor. Within the first 2 minutes of the game Razor fell to a fairly simple Leech Seed/Arrow combo from
Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich's Mirana and Artem 
'fng' Barshak's Treant Protector. This early aggression from Na'Vi was an indicator of things to come, with the support rotation of the Treant and 
Ivan 'Vanskor' Skorokhod's Rubick wreaking havoc on the lanes of Team Tinker. Despite several ganks from Na'Vi ultimately ending in failure, with
Sam 'Bulba' Sosale's Enigma narrowly escaping a Doom in the Radiant jungle with the help of 
Wehsing 'SingSing' Yuen's Venomancer, their constant aggression succeeded in shutting down the cores of Team Tinker. By 8 minutes in, with only a 2 kill lead, Na'Vi were pulling ahead by 3.5k in gold and experience.Team Tinker attempted to engage their teamfight capabilities on several occasions but to no avail, with Na'Vi making excellent use of Moonlight's Shadow to withdraw from would be ganks. At one point round the 10 minute mark this allowed Vanskor to evade a gank from the Enigma and Venomancer, providing a window for
Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin's Storm Spirit to move in with Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov's Doom and secure a free kill on Bulba.Mid Game
As EGM falls, Pajkatt faces four Jerry 'EGM' Lundkvist and Pajkatt left them exposed to Dendi's Storm Spirit from behind, with him bursting them both down during the Treant ulti. Slow TP reactions from Bulba and 
Max 'qojqva' Broecker's Magnus led to them ultimately falling as well, making it a 4 for nothing trade for Na'Vi, and providing Dendi with the gold burst needed to pick up the fastest ever BKB on record on a Storm Spirit. From that point the game began to spiral out of control for Team Tinker. With no way to lock down the Storm Spirit, and severely under farmed cores, they appeared to have no contingency plan for dealing with the NaVi draft. Despite managing, after much dancing around the pit, to take down Roshan, Team Tinker could not effectively fight 5 on 5 against Na'Vi's lineup. Directly after acquiring the Aegis Pajkatt lost it to Dendi's Storm, beginning a teamfight that would result in a 4 for 1 trade in Na'Vi's favour and a triple kill for Funnik's Doom, giving him the money to purchase his BKB, essentially making him unkillable.
Late Game
With Na'Vi commanding a rapidly growing 10k gold and experience lead, Team Tinker began to fall apart. Their map control became non-existent, with those who attempted to scrounge what farm they could out of the lanes being punished by superb Sacred Arrow's from XBOCT, and excellent rotations by the whole of Na'Vi. Finally, after detecting Na'Vi's move to take Roshan and realising that it would be a game-ending Aegis, Team Tinker made a 5 man movement to contest at the pit. Fantastic positioning from Dendi caught out SingSing's Venomancer, initiating a teamfight that resulted in a full team wipe and the GG call from Teamerino Tinkerino.
Turning Point: Destined from the beginning
The Turning Point for this match really occurred in the final stages of the draft, and the early laning phase. Team Tinkers decision to run a very teamfight/semi-push oriented lineup was clear from their first 2 picks. Na'Vi immediately sought to counter this with single target, pick off style heroes. Team Tinker attempted to ban against Na'Vi's pick off strat, but failed to fully block it.
Their final-round Death Prophet ban seemed like an odd choice too. The insanely popular hero of late was conspicuously missing from the draft until then. Death Prophet did not synergise with Na'Vi's aggressive, gank-oriented draft and allowed Dendi's Storm Spirit through, which seemed like the much more obvious choice.
Team Tinker's inability to counter draft against Na'Vi's pickoff lineup set them up for failure in the early laning phase, handing an immense lead to Na'Vi's snowball lineup. Pajkatt had the second lowest farm on a pro Razor in the 6.81b patch at the 7 minute mark with just 8 last hits.
I think that the fault with Team Tinker's draft lay in trying to find a balance between team fight and push strat without commiting to one or the other. This left them lacking in control in their teamfights, and unable to fully capitalise on any space they created.
The Na'Vi bans limited their options as far as a full push strat were concerned, but with the Death Prophet in the pool right up to the final bans, it is curious that neither team took this hero earlier. Despite this seemingly meaningless error, Na'Vi executed its draft perfectly and took a well-deserved win.
D2CL Game 2: Tinker Turn the Tables
Draft
Game 2's draft started off looking fairly similar, with Team Tinker giving a respect ban to XBOCT's Mirana and keeping the Skywrath out once again. Na'Vi opted to ban out the Lycan and Nature's Prophet yet again, recognising the danger of a push strat potentially coming out of Team Tinker. Na'Vi kept to their mobile, pick off style strat, again picking up the Doom in the first round (although this time for XBOCT). Equipping Dendi with his infamous Queen of Pain, Na'Vi looked set to continue their pattern of aggression from game 1. Team Tinker again favoured a teamfight lineup, risking Pajkatt's unsuccessful Razor from game 1 for a second attempt. However in game 2 Team Tinker did a much better job of drafting for the aggression of Na'Vi, picking up the Wraith King for SingSing and qojqva's legendary Batrider.
Laning Phase
XBOCT's Careless positioning gives first bloodAround the 4 minute mark, XBOCT made a greedy attempt at using his devour right underneath the watchful gaze of the Wraith King and Jakiro who immediately punish him for his over extension, taking firstblood for Bulba. Less than 2 minutes later, XBOCT falls again to a perfectly timed Leshrac stun followed up by Ice Path and Wraith Fire Blast to finish him off, forcing him to swap lanes with Funn1k's Puck. The added control element of the Team Tinker draft in this game has already begun to pay dividends.
While Team Tinker seem much better able to deal with Na'Vi's lanes in this game, they are by no means dominating. Dendi continued to pressure Pajkatt at mid, while Funn1k got good early farm at bottom as Qojqva's Batrider moved into the jungle. The game is much more evenly matched this time, with both teams securing fairly good farm in the laning phase. Vanskor executed a daring solo dive into the dire jungle to pick off a low HP Batrider, delaying his blink. However, Na'Vi's draft is clearly designed to secure an early advantage through aggresive ganks and pickoffs, and in that sense they have not met their full potential in the laning phase.
Mid Game
Dendi gets uber gankedNa'Vi responded by executing some well coordinated ganks with the Queen of Pain and the Ancient Apparition, leading to a pick off on SingSing at bottom after a good TP response from Na'Vi. After what seemed like a good trade for Na'Vi, losing their tier 1 bottom for a kill on SingSing, a Team Tinker rotation managed to come in and clean up both Dendi and Vanskor, leaving the trade firmly in Team Tinker's favour. Qojqva's Batrider made for impressive viewing, rotating constantly and finding farm between ganks. He also managed to evade 2 ganks with insanely fast Blink/Forcestaff reactions to get him away to saftey. A succession of these failed gank rotations by Na'Vi began to open up the gold lead for Team Tinker, although around the 25 minute mark it was still only sitting at 3.5k gold in Team Tinker's favour, with the experience graph going their way for the first time in the match after a pickoff at mid on Dendi was successfuly converted into 3 more kills while defending the tier 1 mid.
Late Game
After a fruitful trade of their bottom tier 1 tower for 2 supports of Na'Vi, Team Tinker moved in to take an uncontested Roshan at the 29 minute mark. Immediately after Roshan the supports of Team Tinker moved into the radiant jungle and placed very aggressive wards, further solidifying their map control that had been carved out by the threat of the double Blink Daggers on Wraith King and the Batrider. SingSing's farm at this point had begin to reach critical levels, and although the kill score and graphs were still fairly even, it was beginning to become clear that Na'Vi may have missed their opportunity to take control of this game.
Just as things began to seem dire for Na'Vi, SingSing was caught out at mid by the entirety of Na'Vi, who were able to bring him down after his Reincarnation to send him back to the well. However the Wraith King ulti did buy enough time for the rest of Team Tinker to rotate to mid and engage Na'Vi, who had used much of their lockdown and magic damage to take out the Wraith King. Pajkatt's Razor opened up on Na'Vi as they scattered, with Qojqva eliminating both Na'Vi supports for a double kill to make it an even trade.
Team Tinker, realising they had the upper hand, continued to press their advantage, giving Na'Vi no room to move around on the map and get the positioning that they desperately needed to pick off some of the Team Tinker supports and regain map control. At 35 minutes Team Tinker grouped up at bottom for a push through the tier 2 tower, which went uncontested by Na'Vi. Team Tinker continued to push toward the tier 3 and highground, with little that Na'Vi could do to stop them. Despite excellent swap timing by Vanskor to save Funn1k from a Batrider initiation, the combined power of the Jakiro and Razor ultimates tore through Na'Vi, resulting in a full team wipe. After 1 more bad trade at their ancients when SingSing blinked in to take out XBOCT, ending in a 3 for 1 trade, Na'Vi call the GG at 40 mins making the series an unusually exciting to watch draw.
Turning Point: Roshan abandon by Team Tinker
The turning point in this game came at the 25 minute mark, when Team Tinker decided to abandon their Roshan attempt and defend their mid tier 1 tower instead. Many teams would have continued with Rosh and taken their advantage that way, but quick responses from Team Tinker secured a deny on their tower as well as a 3 for 1 trade that ultimately sealed the fates of Na'Vi, as well as positioning them well for a successful Rosh attempt later. Althought this point wasn't the largest change in the gold and experience graphs, it was the first point at which Team Tinker brought the experience lead onto their side of graph.
Conclusion
Team Tinker is quickly proving its skills as one of the upper-level teams, taking a game from a high-powered Na'Vi squad. Despite this even trade, the new Na'Vi lineup is rapidly proving its skills as both teams continue a steady march to the upper levels of the D2CL tournament. This clash between two of D2CL's top teams showed that the upper levels of the tournament are surprisingly egalitarian, with both teams taking convincing wins from each other.
As D2CL advances towards the finals, Na'Vi and Team Tinker are undoubtedly looking for the gold. Let us know in the comments who you think will take home the grand prize!
Tristan Willis, joinDOTA's Writer. 3ntr0py has been playing computer games since the Warcraft 1 days, and has been in and out of the Dota scene since Allstars. He now divides his time between studying anthropology, writing things, and playing the occasional game of DoTA, or seven.Location: London, United KingdomFollow him on @3ntropyDota.
Comments