iLTW breaks down the ESL One LA Grand final with OG

1st map

- OG opened up with Beastmaster and Pangolier - these heroes would most likely occupy 3-4th positions. However, you still banned Enigma in the second phase. And, looking back at the map number 5, it was for a reason. Did you know something others didn’t?

- It’s Ceb’s big signature hero - and, additionally, a pretty meta pick of this patch. We assumed that it would be an Enigma as a 2-3rd. After all, they have 2 offlaners on the team.

- Did OG make a mistake with their lane assignment? TB on top vs BB, Beastmaster on mid against DP.

- They thought TB would have enough armor to comfortably lane against Bristleback. I quickly realized that they were mistaken as I had an experience of laning on TB against BB and not seeing any difference. To be honest, if their TB had a good laning phase, if their idea worked out, they’d actually feel absolutely fine and have a clear shot at winning. But in reality, they lost the game before the second minute.

- Why did you opt for the Bottle?

- The game went surprisingly well. I killed TB two times and decided to grab the Bottle for Runes. But that’s rare, very rare - that’s the best possible scenario.

- OG tried to make a comeback through the Jungle stacks - there were a lot of them, and you even contested some. Does this strat even work in 7.26?

- Yes, it works all the time. Stacks give way too much gold and exp, and there’s currently a mechanic where you stack for the guaranteed neutral artifacts on the 7th and 15th minutes.

- At 13:15 mark, your team uses Smoke on top of enemy vision and goes to gank TB in his jungle. You remained on top lane under the enemy tower. Whose call was that?

- That was my hero’s powerspike. I had to do that. I can’t just leave and farm the jungle even if my team goes for a play. Opponents need 4 heroes to kill me and Pangolier’s ult on top. That’s just my hero’s strength.

- You went into Highground with the first Aegis, OG defended, killing your entire team, but got only 2k gold for that. Would you have a big problem after that if you were still playing on the previous patch?

- No. That was a drop in the bucket for them. They needed way too many items to be able to fight us. Our heroes were way too good against them.

- Suma1L went for Daedalus build on TB. Is this a default build against tanky heroes?

- Daedalus with Beast and Vengeful Spirit is a comeback-oriented build, but I don’t think it was the right call to buy it in this game. Satanic and Rapier, even some Silver Edge would make it way harder for us. But that’s just my opinion.

2nd map

- What went wrong in the second game?

- I started off laning top with Oracle against LC and SD. That wasn’t good. He should’ve gone bot against the duo of Grim/Ember and poised to completely dominate that lane. We should’ve played for bot and leave me alone on top. That didn’t happen since we didn’t realize that in time, but when we started reviewing the game, it became obvious.

- 7:00 mark. Three of our heroes, including No[o]ne, are on the bot. You’re on top with a TP and an ultimate. Did you have an idea to teleport bot and push the tower through the form?

- I didn’t want to. I only had Soul Ring and that’s it. Maybe we could’ve made something work on bot, but letting Ember Spirit poke at us on bot didn’t seem that great.

- 10:30. No[o]ne gets ganked on mid as you’re closing in. You arrive and use your form when No[o]ne’s already dead. Resolut1on and Zayac arrive, but Black Hole is on cooldown. You still refuse to fall back and force a fight. Whose call was it, and did it work out as planned?

- Perhaps it was my call. But doing that was just absurd. Not much else to say.

- Could we still win after that?

- It was tough. They became much stronger and started snowballing. They took control over the map on the 14th minute.

- What needed to happen to give us a shot at winning? 5-men Black Hole?

I don’t think we had any chance after that moment. Their Dark Seer got his Guardian Greaves on the 14th minute. They just ran around the map and there’s nothing we could do.

3rd map

- This map was the only time in the entire series where both VP and OG had fully-fledged late-game carries. In theory, who would have the edge in the lategame?

- Void always has the late. But OG would never let you reach that late, plus we played poorly in that game.

- I wanted to ask you a question regarding your item build: you had Hand of Midas and Maelstrom. Why is that?

- I wanted to at least get to midgame against them. Didn’t work. Manta/Diffusal Blade would’ve made a great build, but I just wanted to farm.

- What would be the perfect lane assignment in this game for you?

- Void against Pango, not against the tri-lane.

- No[o]ne got picked off on mid twice at basically the same spot. Was it because you couldn’t get the mid T1 down?

- We had a tempo draft in this game, which means that we had to play very aggressively before the 15th-minute mark. We had to get the mid T1 with Invoker 100%. Perhaps we should’ve kept mid vision up to avoid situations like these. No[o]ne decided to contest the Rune on the 16th minute - it was obvious that he would become a target sooner or later, moreso so during the night time. We didn’t play objectives right in that game. I would even go as far as saying that this game was my fault. I didn’t make the call to get the bottom tower in time.

- Did you have a chance to comeback after the first Roshan?

- There were, but fighting them was a challenge. We needed to lure them into our Supernova and Mars’ ultimate. You can bait any other team, but not OG. They just have N0tail warning them: “They have Chrono, they have Mars’ ult. Don’t run into them.” They just played this game better and fought better than us.

4th map

- OG picked Abaddon as carry. Were you surprised?

- Their draft was a risky one with an emphasis on map pressure. They wanted to play the same way their previous roster - with ana and jerAx - used to play, but it’s hard to do with two stand-ins. Perhaps they could close the game out in 10 minutes, but they let up the pressure at some point. They killed us on the 9th minute in our triangle and pushed down mid. They should’ve continued taking the game to our side of the map.

- 11th minute. 33 teleports bottom and starts taking the tower. That was a mistake from him. He should’ve known that on the “OG level”. He should have stayed mid and completely ignored the bot tower. This game was very unique, where Ceb and him should’ve pressured us with Dominator. Our TA couldn’t leave the base at all, couldn’t farm the jungle and they knew it. But then Abaddon teleported bottom which allowed us to strike on mid and turn the game on its head. If 33 simply stayed mid on the 11th minute, we would have zero chance of winning the game. TA can’t farm against Abaddon, ES, and Enchantress. We couldn’t fight them at all. In this game, I had to split push top, Resolut1on - bottom. We had to pull OG away from TA and let No[o]ne get some farm.

- Did No[o]ne overperform in this game?

- No[o]ne wasn’t half bad in this game, to be sure. But the point is - if OG played better, No[o]ne’s overperformance wouldn’t have mattered. They’d just play on our territory at all times, randomly get No[o]ne once and instantly end the game. And TA wouldn’t have solo carried 22-0-12.

5th map

- Again we see OG three-manning, again pressuring you. What did you have to do with lane assignments?

- Moments like these are my responsibility. I had to realize that they could three-man on me and cut me off. I needed a good start on BB. What I had in that game was absolutely unacceptable. I had to tell Roma to swap. Thing is - his Pangolier doesn’t need a good start as much as I do. His hero will be useful regardless because of his abilities, whereas I need quick items. What we had at the beginning of that game was a huge pain. But I can’t just go on bot willy-nilly as all that would accomplish is screw up Roma’s lane, giving us 2 weak heroes instead of just 1. That would’ve made the game unwinnable.

- 20:30. Your Oracle and Pango had no ultimates, but you still forced a fight vs OG. Whose call was it? Was it the right thing to fight without 2 ults?

- We just got Crimson, so it was my call. We had no other choice but to try forcing something in that game.

- Ceb reviewed this game on his stream and mentioned that this map had 2 teams with no damage, and that sustain was the decider.

- Perhaps he is right. Their Ember deals a lot of damage in teamfights, but that’s just one hero. We had many heroes with a bit of damage. Sustain decided the game.

- What was your midgame plan?

- We erroneously believed that they’d end the game if they take Roshan. However, all we had to do was push the lanes out and get our builds up, and OG would’ve lost even with Aegis. Had we managed to get AC on the 27th minute, they wouldn’t be able to fight us at all anymore. But we were too nervous.

- What allowed you to win? Better draft?

- Our picks were much stronger than theirs. Let’s just look at 28:30. Ceb uses BH, they kill three heroes and I survive. They take Roshan, everything’s looking bleak. Storm loses Bloodstone charges.

- As soon as I got AC, I realized that they can’t take our towers down. They can’t kill me, they can’t kill our towers. All they can do is jump on our supports and take them down under Global Silence. They had 3 Blink Daggers and Ember Spirit. They would’ve been able to do that quickly, but, perhaps, they were too afraid. Our draft wanted prolonged fights, theirs - engaging and getting kills before Roar/Black Hole expire. We utilized our gameplan, they didn’t.