I agree 350 dmg with low cooldown is sick, but when on support, hard to get the mana items necessary to be able to spam (lvl 1 bolt is 75, lvl 4 is 135!). I'll probably experiment with it more, since it's a really fun way to play support when solo q pubbing.

I just caught the liquid vs fnatic bo3 from weplay and holy ****, clutch rubick plays from mss (mojostormstout). Game 3 ended when he stole rp and returned it hitting 4-5, this is after the two teams managed to get on somewhat even ground with era's rapier gyro.

Yeah this is true. Mana is a problem. I normally go for observer wards, courier, 2 branches, 2 clarities and 1 tango for a start and then I try my best to get a sage's mask as fast as possible by pulling jungle creeps. The 50% regen is my go to solution for intel support heroes since they already have high mana regen. Sometimes I end up building an eul's or a refresher with it depending on how the game goes.

BTW there is incredible news on the dota 2 client.

'Finally, to directly tie fan interest in Compendiums to the players themselves, we’re going to redirect 25% of the revenue directly into the prize pool. That means the total $1.6 million prize pool for The International is now just the starting point.'

LGD.cn lose their direct invite to the international because of a roster change. Tongfu invited instead. WTF is this ****.

Super rad that they are increasing the prize pool like that. I hope other games/events can eventually do the same thing.

Tobi, Ayesee, Draskyl, LD, Lumi, all officially invited to cast @ ti3

Godz is going to be on the panel.

They can't let LGD.cn do it with no repercussions because then all the teams would do it.

They are gonna roll the qualifier anyway so I don't think it's a huge deal. I'd be massively surprised if they didn't get at least 2nd, and then they are a pretty big favorite vs. whoever is 2nd in the west.

Altho, with the same roster as last year, don't think they are realistic contenders for 1st. Unless DD is super super good, which is doubtful considering he retired for a while.

I highly recommend getting the compendium now since Goal 1 was reached, 125% BP Booster (225% total rate) that lasts until the end of TI3. Mine says 96 Days remaining right now!!

I'm gonna get the compendium as well. Who are you voting for in the all star game?

430, dendi, mushi, iceiceice, chuan, yyf, xy, puppey and 1 more imo. Doesn't matter what order they are in, that game will be awesome.

I haven't filled anything in yet, but I already have the compendium just because I autopurchase all the tourney stuff.

I'm planning on filling out the brackets later today, I might post my finished brackets here.

Might be fun to do a $5-$20 bracket ala march madness. Could use PayPal and keep the price lower for more entries and to keep it safer? I'd be down.

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EG vs TL going off now. game 2 includes a slark and PA. looking forward to this.

I'd definitely be down for this as well. Anyone reputable wanna escrow? This is where everyone gets a rando team right?

BTW Skywrath Mage has moved up to 1st tier pick/ban in pretty much every match now (western though). Slardar has also been getting some play by TL

I really wish I could play a game with you guys but I'm from SEA so the ping is going to be a huge problem.

wow, just realized you can pick Drow in CM now.

A bracket is where you pick the winner of each match before the tournament starts (what you were thinking of is a sweepstake). Doing that for group stages + a double elimination bracket is kind of crazy though, so I'm not sure exactly what Wraths had in mind. I'd be interested though, although probably dead money as I don't watch any of the Asian scene.

Also I'm guessing you meant slark, not slardar? The nuke removing napalm is weird, since basically no other skill in the game does it (eg rage doesn't remove the stacks). Makes me wonder if it's a bug and might get fixed, although it is fun to see new heroes being picked.

you guys ever party up to play pubs? a steam group maybe?

Don't think it's a bug imo. I love playing Slark and that sounds about right to me in terms of how the skill should work.

Slark is so good imo, he has all 4 skills that synergize incredibly well. The nice thing too is that not one of his skills is particularly great, so he's a good choice vs Rubick. I played him vs Silencer mid the other day and having two easy spells to dispell his stuff was great too.

there's a 2p2 room that some people join in dota. i haven't been playing much lately, but you should find others in there.

he's still doing it! mss just stealing every damn rp and landing amazing counter rps. He's the most successful standin I've ever seen.

I think teams right now are unsure how to handle playing against skywrath so they just ban him, I remember when sven was a top pick/ban for a while and then wasn't really nerfed much but is barely seen now.

I'd also be dead money, but meh I like watching the games and this would make it that much more exciting. Here is a 16 team double elimination bracket: http://www.printyourbrackets.com/pdf...teamdouble.pdf

Not sure how scoring would work for the Losers Bracket but I guess we could discuss that? My first thought would be to just go 1,2,4,8,16,32,(64 if needed) winners bracket and .5,1,2,4,8,16,32,(64 if needed) losers bracket. We wouldn't count the 32, and 64 point games twice.

The problem is that the double elimination bracket doesn't start until after a group stage, where the group stage determines who plays who in the bracket (and who starts in winners bracket vs who drops down to losers immediately). It might make most sense just to have predictions for the group stage, with all games worth the same. That provides 168 potential decisions I think (2-0, 1-1, 0-2 for each pair of teams in each group) and that would probably be the most manageable way of doing it.

The only sensible way of extending it beyond the group stage could be to predict who is in the last few games of the bracket, so maybe WB semi-finalists, WB finalists, WB winner, LB finalists, LB winner, overall winner, with these having more weight.

The point doubling thing isn't good, it makes the early games meaningless. A better way is the fibonnaci sequence, 2 3 5 8 13 21

my eastern all star team

Burning, Mushi, YYF, Chuan, Net

honorable mention iceiceice

I tried to make a western all star team but I ran into some trouble.

Ah, I didn't even realize there was a group stage. I like both of these ideas. How long once teams get past the group stage before they play dbl elimination brackets? Would it be feasible to see the teams that make it to dbl elim and then submit brackets?