posted by EskayDota,
Liquid's second place finish was better than expected before their roster switch – so how did w33 help?

The Liquid special



This isn't the first time that Team Liquid have recruited new blood to win a competition. After experiencing roster issues with Sam 'Bulba' Sosale, they looked to a man by the nickname of Gh, at the time a highly skilled pub player with little LAN experience, to take the helm. They looked completely refreshed, and dominated the competition in ways people hadn’t seen Liquid play before.

With the addition of Omar 'w33haa' Aliwi, Liquid have the first player to hit 8k and the first to hit 9k MMR with Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi. He fits into their style of play on paper by being a flashy mid laner with a diverse hero pool, much similar to the description of Miracle- in the OG days. In theory, the players have a lot of overlap in terms of hero pool; Invoker, TA and SF are both played frequently by the two.

But how did w33 do in his maiden voyage leading the middle lane of the Liquid ship? Some people would say that he didn't particularly play well; viewers are very used to seeing w33 dominate and perform at the highest of levels. He'll always be the one with no deaths, a bunch of kills and the one making sweet, sweet outplays. However, this time, he fulfilled a slightly different role.



How did he change their playstyle?



Realistically, having Miracle- play carry consistently changed their playstyle in a minor way. Similar to s4 taking Puck to the offlane, we saw a few heroes he occasionally played previously mid in the safelane – Ember or Arc. These would often be complimented by one of Lasse 'Matumbaman' Urpalainen’s more classic mid heroes; Viper, Lone Druid, Necrophos and of course, Brood.

Instead, from w33 we tend to see more traditional mids such as Templar, Invoker, or his Windranger. Teams could tell that some of these were worth respect banning, which of course in turn meant that Kuro S. 'KuroKy' Takhasomi had more heroes to draft with, most likely giving Liquid drafts they wanted more frequently. The teams they were playing against would occasionally prioritise banning Windranger or Meepo, meaning heroes like Chen or Io would get through for Kuroky or GH respectively.

Teams understand which heroes w33 can play as of course, w33 has a pretty extensive professional history. They can research him, but they can't research the strategies that Liquid will put together with w33’s hero pool. With this, Liquid are given some fresh legs to stand on – teams won’t be able to understand them for a while, and with this being their first competition together, allows them even more time to gel before The International rolls around.


w33 remains calm in the most vital part of the game and jaunts back to his Illusory Orb after buyback


Did he improve their performance?



Ultimately, it will always be hard to say. Before MDL Disney, Liquid were always a top 6 / 8 team, and their expectation was realistically to be a top 3 team. Obviously in the last Major, those expectations were met, but before MDL, they certainly hadn’t been met for a long while now. Coming dead last at DreamLeague was obviously a sign that something was up.

Normally, we'd say that we should wait until the next tournament to see whether they're consistent in their improvements. That'd be the true test of whether w33 has made improvements to the roster. However, the next tournament is of course, The International. Speaking broadly, when teams swap rosters, they don't peak immediately – so a second place finish is almost more impressive when the team have just changed rosters as opposed to a roster that has been together for a long time.



So far, w33 played 8 games with Windranger, 6 with TA, and 1 on the remaining 7 heroes he played at Epicenter. Some were heroes we expected from w33, Timber, Puck and Meepo were all chosen just once with varying rates of success. From the 21 games he played, just 9 unique heroes is really a sliver of what w33 can actually do.

The w33 we know and love



There were certainly some very flashy plays, killing Warlock in the fountain with Puck's upgraded Dream Coil in Game 4 of the finals, or killing Vladimir 'No[o]ne' Minenko mid with TA, we did see the w33 that we're used to. However, people were definitely disappointed to see that he wasn't able to show off his versatility. It’s still early days for w33 and Liquid, so it’s only a matter of time before they figure out something that works properly for them.

Equally, there were moments of either nerves or a lack of synergy (which is entirely understandable for a top player in a new team of equally extremely talented players). W33 wasn't able to dominate games in the way we saw with his time on DC or Team Secret. His impact wasn't quite what people hoped to see.

Photo credit: Epicenter Media


With time, however, that will likely change. He will become accustomed to Liquid's playstyle and the team as people, as will they, with him, in return. We can certainly expect to see big things from Liquid at TI, and they've quickly become one of the favourites to do well with Virtus.pro and Secret – two teams that seem to always falter around TI - not showing their full potential this competition.

What did you think of w33's performance at Epicenter? Have your say in the comments below.



Photo credit: Epicenter Media

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    EskayDota

    EskayDota

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