AWKWARD ZOMBIE

daisies, that's sweet. I hear plenty of people who were spam-refreshing the page and still didn't get a ticket.

HECK YEAH! I've been told the lines are crazy, but there's definitely some stuff I want to get and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the workshop artists and designers.

A friend of mine and myself were both logged onto my Ticketmaster account to try to get the tickets - he was able to get through when I wasn't. We were incredibly lucky. I'll be going with him, another friend of ours, and hopefully Tuxedo Mask (unsure because we don't know what his situation will be like once he moves back to the States - if he'll have time, etc). I've had people warn me that TI is basically lines and lots of sitting down watching Dota 2, but I expect that and going at least once knocks one thing off my bucket list.

yea there was an article saying how they need to change the Secret Shop. this shouldnt be stand in line all day for t-shirts and digital items

Soooo, any thoughts now that we're heading ever closer towards TI5?
EG, Secret, C9, VG, iG and LGD seem like the top contenders so far. But the fight for the other invite spots/qualification in Europe/CIS seems like it could be become very interesting with Alliance, Burden, Navi, NiP, M5, Polar, HR and Empire all being able to take games off of each other. Out of that group Empire and Polar definitely have had the most consistent results though. But, valve might just invite all prior TI winners despite their lack of results the last year.

After DAC, I definitely think the West has a good shot at winning TI this year.

man alliance have finally got there shit together it seems like. they have lost a couple matchs but they are doin WAY better than before. im also rooting for leviathan (jenkins, the new dendi pudge woo woo) and void boys, tho i think lev have a way better shot.

also dont previous tourny winners of the TI get auto invited? so like IG, Navi, Alliance, and Newbee would all get auto-accepted if im not mistaken

I think that used to be the case at least, but I think quite some people might get upset if Navi and Newbee get straight invites in over more deserving teams (and even alliance is still questionable for me, they've just had a succesful streak but that doesn't really make up for the rut they were in last year). Such a format doesn't really make sense with how volatile and susceptible to roster changes eSports teams are and it's not sustainable in the long run anyway. Are you going to have half the invitees be former winners in a couple of years? I don't mean those teams don't deserve a spot in the event at all, but they should prove their worth in the qualifiers.

my invite list would look something like:
EG
Secret
C9
VG
iG
LGD
ASUS.Polar
Empire

They are the teams who have been consistent enough to warrant not having to play through qualifying matches. That leaves the remaining 8 spots for teams who make it through qualifiers. With so many qualifiying spots I'd also try to set up a fairly match-light qualifier so that qualifying teams don't get burnt out on the main event.


In the end though I highly doubt Valve is going to want to miss out on the viewership Navi and Alliance bring with them.

that is true, but then if they keep that formula, they can possibly have even more qualifiers for say the top tier people that already won a TI. 10 years down the road (if we are still on dota 2 and not 4) you have some of the champions fight for the invite, then the losers have to go through the qualifiers


also is admiralbulldog not on alliance anymore? i saw him as a standin for secret i think it was

We might even be on 6.84! jk

Yeah bulldog is a free agent atm, Alliance is

Loda
Pajkatt
Niqua
7ckngMad
Akke

atm.

kinda hopin he goes to secret at some point, he was doin mad work on that clockwerk

just watched HGT earlier vs IG. man they just trounced them like hell with that necro pick. kinda sad that got knocked down by ehome

I guess he'd replace zai then as their offlaner? Not much chance of that happening, zai and rtz seem to want to play together, so you can't kick one without the other. Secret also went through some trouble stealing zai from EG, so they won't be keen on letting him go. Can't say I'd agree with trading zai for Bulldog either :P.

Was he standing in for zai? I don't remember.

Seems it was s4, I assumed it was zai since you mentioned clockwork. s4 is probably the most likely one to ever get replaced, he's unbelievably good (the official best mid in the world) but very prone to choking. If they replace s4 with bulldog it would probably involve a role reshuffle though I'd guess
rtz mid
kuroky safelane carry
bulldog offlane
puppey+zai support

yea wasnt zai support on EG as it was anyway? cause Universe is the offlaner for them

Heh, the salt resulting from the summit 3 redemption vote is quite tasty.

wait IG won? really? those assholes?

i guess i too am a little salty now lol