The story of Alliance at The International 4

It's that time of year again. Time for the world cup of  Dota 2 - The International 2014

Today is the last day of the group stages. Sixteen teams have been playing round robin games. At the end of these matches, the bottom six teams will be eliminated. Playoffs next week determine who takes home five million dollars. Last year, team Alliance was crowned winner with a dominant performance, earning them a status as first among peers in elite dota competition. Since then, they've had a bit of a rocky road, as Valve documents in this short video. This year, they arrived with high hopes to repeat their success. However, the first three days leave them with a 5-8 record. Today, they played two do-or-die games to either advance to the playoffs or go home.

Game 1: Na'Vi vs. Alliance

The time for innovative or clever picks is over. Alliance decides to eschew the current meta and returns to their winning strategy: "RAT dota". Avoid big fights or engage in distracting skirmishes while pressuring towers all over the map. In this game, this is achieved on the back of Naga Siren, who does two important things: she creates illusions, and freezes enemies with her Song of the Siren. Her Song of the Siren allows her to safely escape enemies, or to lock them in place while her teammates set up the fight. More important are the illusions, which are temporary clones of the hero with the same stats, though they do less damage and take more. Furthermore, enemies gain no gold or experience for killing illusions.

The effectiveness of illusions is multiplied once Naga Siren can afford a Radiance (typically around the 20min mark). (#1 team VG won four of their games before the 20min mark.) This item does constant damage over time to all nearby enemies, so Naga Siren and her illusions can push out lanes or farm neutrals at four spots simultaneously.

Na'Vi make good progress in the early game, but they cannot prevent Naga Siren from farming up her Radiance. At this point, the ritual is complete, the portal is opened, evil has been summoned. Though Na'Vi are expert at fighting from behind and making bold plays to get one or two unlikely kills before suddenly turning games into running riots, Alliance gives them no opportunity.

For the next 50mins!!!, Alliance strangles Na'Vi out of map resources while Naga Siren illusions chip away at objectives before Na'Vi can react. All the while the hero builds bigger items, making the illusions so strong they can go 1v1 with Na'Vi heroes. By the time Alliance officially wins game 1, the game has been over for a long time.

Game 2: Alliance vs. EG 

Twelve months ago, EG were such an inconsistent team, someone put up a website: "How many days since the last EG throw". Last month, they bested  Na'Vi, DK, and VG to win The Summit, then took 2nd place to iG at ESL One. Unlike many western teams, EG successfully adopted habits of successful Chinese-style dota: play defensively, work the map, work the objectives, don't make mistakes, build a safe lead before pushing for the win. In this game, they go with a surprise pick Omniknight, the first of this The International 2014. With defensive abilities like a heal, a magic immunity, and a damage immunity, this hero runs counter to the current fashion of heavy lockdown and heavy damage.

Omniknight allows EG to engage on their terms. Their backs to the wall, Alliance goes for classic Alliance picks. [A]dmiralBulldog gets his favorite hero, Lone Druid. He had played over a thousand Lone Druid games before ever joining a pro team. This hero has a bear summon with tons of HP and bonus damage to buildings. Oh, and it can carry a Radiance. Alliance also grab Chaos Knight and Io. This muscle-and-support duo can teleport all over the map to get kills and objectives, and was part of their winning line up in last year's grand final.

This game was also a long one, but in close contention. EG gets many important pickoff kills while bringing a hard-to-crack teamfight. Alliance engage in skirmishes with little success. However, whenever the dust clears, [A]dmiralBulldog is at the EG base knocking down buildings. Both teams take racks. However, bit by bit, EG's small gains build to an insurmountable lead. Alliance is the first to run out of buildings to trade. After 47mins, Alliance tap out in a heartbreaking defeat. EG win game two. The dota royalty are eliminated from the International in the group stage.