3rd 1st

All arccoding to the Plan.

Holy cow crazy finish to a crazy TI. Great write up, it would be great to see more stuff like this for other tourney's and/or select exciting matches, a little media can go a long way.

Truly incredible finish. Arguably the best DotA series of all time, and unquestionably the greatest Cinderella story in this game's history. Congratulations OG!

og!!!!!!

CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBB
HE GETS THE CALL OF HIS LIFETIME

I will still doubt them. Topson and Jerax were questionable in many games throughout the tournament, and while Ceb was undervalued in draft, it should come as no surprise that the final game saw target bans on Ana first and foremost. This was a team that threw their weight behind their aggression; sometimes that meant an extremely risky play from Ceb with mixed results, sometimes it meant Ana roflstomping. It's not that they can't win more tournaments, it's just that it seems like a style that has exploitable weaknesses.

It's also worth noting the teams that they didn't face in the bracket at all: VP, Liquid, Secret, even Newbee could have taken them out given a chance. That certainly could be said of any team that has ever claimed the aegis, but it definitely feels like they benefited markedly more from their rivals fighting among themselves than most teams do. Luck of the draw.

None of this takes away from their victory though; it could even be seen as more impressive because of these points. If you have a weakness, you have to make up for it with overwhelming strengths--clearly what OG did. I definitely foresee losses from mere exhaustion in their future, and at least one retirement, but none of them will see that as failure. They won on their own merits rather than the shortcomings of their direct competitors and 'served justice' to their new rivals. They may never have a better day in their lives.

Side Note: NoTail NoShoes

I say, Ana dodging Echo Slam with Eul's was veeery likely just a very lucky play. I mean, he was most likely expecting the follow up to the initiation, but had no way of knowing exactly when it'd happen.

I still got wet watching it though.

Who is Ceb, all I know is 7ckingMad xD

Very proud of OG but looking back I am even further disappointed in the invites Valve gave out. Very poor choices.

"I will still doubt them" you can win the international and still get criticized by some 2k

the rightful winner of the last TI claims their price this time.

I'm a simple man. I see an Axe and a Spectre in Grand Finals, I can live out the rest of my years in peace.

@CODE

I see you got 8 words into my comment before passing judgement. I make no claims to play like them as it requires both planned action and fast reaction time to play at their level, both of which I haven't the natural talent nor the necessary drive to achieve. That doesn't mean, however, that I have no capacity to make sense of the plays I see. I'd love to hear a logical argument against what I had to say, but your low hanging fruit argument of 'you must be this tall to enter' is flimsy at best. Back your rebuttal up with some facts! I welcome a good discussion.

Now Fly, s4, and cr1t can suck each other d1ck

@Brock Hall

Any given style has weaknesses. I believe that the emergence of the style in a determined context is what makes it effective. During this TI I never believed OG could win the tournament, but in the grand finals I realized they were playing like a jazz quintet rather than just the usual string quintet teams I felt would win (Let's say LGD). Of course it was quite risky and it involved quickly learning from the mistakes, but OGs style proved to be effective and it even gave us the chance to find some new form of beauty in this damn game.

You can still doubt them all you want in a Descartes fashion, but take a moment to appreciate their messy style. They played like Charlie Parker, they might probably have a short life in terms of success in the future but they gave us incredible performances.

Ana eul use was because he got rooted by atos, just as lucky to dodge the echo.

@♥♦ GED ♣♠

A nice meaty reply. I like it. Through discussion we learn.

Your quintet metaphor probably makes more sense to you than it does to me, but I assume you mean the style of Dota they were playing felt akin to old Na'Vi or Fluffnstuff era Liquid. The concept is a variation of a 4 protect 1 where instead of pairing a Spec with stalling heroes like Cent, Silencer, or Tide, you pick aggressive heroes to draw attention and disrupt farming for the other team. 6.79 Naix farm into manmode is a good example.

To your point, the question OG was asking themselves is whether it was smart to stick to meta. Sticking to meta is usually the safest method of winning, and I'd say that was still true here as OG had to work SO hard to overcome the greater amount of weaknesses their drafts held (it's insane that they even picked the low winrate Rubick into a Silencer), being involved in 60% of all full game series in a tournament where 73% of the series were 2-0 (not counting slngle elim). It did end up working, but more TIs have been won by perfecting the meta, not defying it.

I think I'm justified in my skepticism of their future as they fit the bill of a post TI slump team, but I feel like I was also clearly giving proper credit to their accomplishments as well. As I said before: None of this takes away from their victory; it could even be seen as more impressive because of these points. If you have a weakness, you have to make up for it with overwhelming strengths--clearly what OG did. I definitely foresee losses from mere exhaustion in their future, and at least one retirement, but none of them will see that as failure. They won on their own merits rather than the shortcomings of their direct competitors and 'served justice' to their new rivals.

Why you go hating on OG??? It is true that they haven't had the best track record when it comes to TI's, but they have certainly been rampaging their way through the smaller tournaments. And all the talk about meta, well, there isn't one really solid meta in Dota. It keeps on evolving and changing constantly, so following the meta is usually good, but once you and everyone else is playing meta, then you need to look forward onto heroes that counter the meta... There is always something that counters the meta. And slowly it will take over as the new meta...

And Jerax is one of the best support players in the world. So just stop with the hate. He saved OG's behinds on many occations in this tournament and without him they would not have won anything. It may be that his Rubick play in game 5 was not spectacular, but his hero was not the best to have in the game. Silencer & Earthshaker is a tough gig to play against on a hero that basically does nothing if you cannot use your abilities.

OG played quite aggressively and it seems to be quite successful at the moment. Even in the shit tier pubs I play, the team that is more active usually ends up with a large advantage when going into the late game and usually wins.

Brock Hall with too much to say again... classic Dotabuff

Batrider threw rod of atos, Ana euled himself to dispel atos which dodged echo slam

@SirFalcon

"Very proud of OG but looking back I am even further disappointed in the invites Valve gave out. Very poor choices."

Valve didn't invite them by choice, they qualified top 8 through the season.

OG proved that sticking to the meta isn't the only way you can win. They took a risk in game 5 even if it meant losing it all after coming so close to winning. That takes balls and I admire that a lot. That made the series even more epic and exciting coupled with the story of how they clawed their way in the qualifiers after having been dismantled as a team. This should also serve as a reminder to other teams that you don't have to comply with what the meta tells you to do, but find ways to make something incredibly nonsensical to work or find a new meta within the current meta. Just like how you would find bugs in every patch, you experiment the F out of everything. Throw crap at the wall and see what sticks. Love that kind of mentality. I've never been loyal to one single team. I rooted for EG, VP, Liquid to win TI8 but safe to say, I'm a fan of OG now. Truly inspirational. Even if one or two of them had off games in certain series, every single player in OG played the games of their lives this TI and I very much look forward to the next episode of True Sight and I hope Notail by that time is comfortable enough to talk about the fallout with Fly.

Hopefully, Topson improves in the coming months and grows into a magnificent player. Ana already showed that he's the most improved. Notail displayed that he's willing to go through any lengths to help his team win. Jerax, personally, the MVP with his important saves and clutch plays. Finally, Ceb with his drafts and willingness to pick up the slack when everybody else is dropping the ball. I'm optimistic, they may or may not win next year's TI, but I think they're looking good in the coming season of DPC. Just hope the fatigue of the Pro Circuit won't affect them that much.

topson ti winner lmao
dude made so much mistakes during the series and still can win ._.

Brock Hall will have a gold pantheon logo behind his name soon, indicating potential 2k TI9 analyst panel.
(This is a compliment, for real.)

@Brock Hall

Your assumption about the quintet metaphore is quite accurate.
Personally, I watch Dota to get my self entertained and OGs unpredictable way to play was great in that sense as old NaVi's style once was.

@µ's SuBi ♪

Do you know how much I would love that? From Dotabuff comments to desk.

@♥♦ GED ♣♠

I'm a big fan of old Na'Vi too. And new. I don't care, put some players behind the logo and I'll root for them. It's my team for whatever reason and I'd welcome anyone except EE and Loda to play for them. And Sumail. Jerks.

The guys played an incredible tournament. Their series had great dota, fun non-meta drafts and even some drama. The finals were 5 very competitive games. As far as OG goes, lads, win or lose after this, leave it alone. They were superb.

waiting for meta analysis, will Mirana get a hammer?

ana carried OG that's it...notail playing carry was what the problem was with OG...topson is utter trash relatively speaking, he rage quits pretty much every single game he goes up against miracle solo mid...if OG want to look at a period of continuous success they need to get rid of topson for sure and need to make sure ana gets enough rest and doesn't go on year long sabbaticals again.

ceb on pos 3 is fine though he's not on universe's or s4's level he gets enough done for ana to carry the game but lightning won't strike twice and now that OG are TI winners they pretty much have a target on their back just like liquid last year.

Liquid got found out against LGD and EG at TI. Their 5 on 5 team fighting approach was ripped in those 2 series and they will have to adapt. Just the same way teams will now be looking to shut ana down early on and that means OG will have to be more flexible in their strats and also will need a mid capable of picking the game up if ana gets shut out.

@Sleight of My Fist In Your Face

Ana was able to carry them in the late game because the rest off the team did a great job creating space for him in the mid game. So ana was able to find farm and catch up although he often got trashed in laning phase. Topson had many really good games especially on his Invoker. And the whole team had an insane teamfight execution which made it possible for them to win fights in the midgame although they were really far behind.

Interesting that a team can completely destroy upper bracket and win TI and then still gets flamed :D

No one took OG seriously and that's why they just flew straight under the radar for many teams when it came to analyzing and counter drafting..they took everyone by surprise which was why they managed to outplay other teams because they were basically underestimated.

Other teams will not make that mistake again. Topson's failings will cause OG to lose many games in the coming season and their focus on team fighting is not that hard to counter, just ask liquid what happened against lgd and eg.

Also no one's flaming OG. It's just a matter of fact they they over performed hugely and odds are that will not happen again unless they seriously evolve their play style. Scrub.

Sleight, you have issues. Topson utter trash (relatively speaking :)). He plays not only his first TI, but first LAN. Wins it. Utter trash (relatively speaking). I suggest you take a long, hard look at yourself. Wait, wait, wait... Don't just reply to this message. Take that look first.

@sleight hahaha 2.7k dissing the TI winner classic Dotabuff

Maybe next year you can show him how it's done lel

sighhh 2 normal skill heavy weights talking to me...god im so embarrassed..the 2nd retard mentions my mmr which was last updated '12 months' ago and conveniently leaves out the fact that im ancient 2...lmfao cute kids these days playing dota

Dude your such a lame fuck hahaha.

For all those flaming OG, you must understand that Dota is not a game of only skill or reaction times or last hitting proficiency in lanes or anything of that sort for that matter. In the end it is a team game with so many random things involved, like decision making, team fighting, so you must appreciate the way they played as a team and carried "each other".
Like PPD said, "the reason noone has ever won TI two times is because there is certain amount of luck involved in that randomness, and chances of that happening two times is very low."
Also, like Notail said, "Dota is a funny game, anything can work, anything can happen."
In the end, just like BullDog says, They are a Tea Eye winner, and you are not. Their names are written on that Dota Map on which you spend thousands of hours of your life and will be there forever.
So, stop acting like a douchebag and enjoy the game. Good Luck, Have Fun. Coz Having Fun is the most important part.

can someone please tell me why its the sub-legends on here always spouting philosophical bull shit? I mean seriously what's up with these scrubs?

Congrats OG!

@Sleight of My Fist In You...
Because this is the Internet. Everybody can do anything they want. But who cares, this is a dead game thou. ((Why am I still following d2 news and trends ffs even though I've quit.

@Brock Hall
I respect your passion towards Dota. *Press F*