ESL One Manila

Wow.

So, I just spent the whole weekend at home, watching ESL One Manila live stream on Twitch.

And one of the best DotA2 plays that I’ve ever watched, is this, which happened on Saturday:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipFLGTOR9XU

Like, wow.  I was only initially being hyped up by Tobi (best hype caster ever), and after the match, I have to re-watch the video, read the reddit explanation line-by-line, and watch the video (many many times) almost frame by frame, to be able to actually understand what happened.

Here’s what’s posted by a fellow reddit member on /r/dota2:

Wow, that looked absolutely amazing. I had very little idea of what exactly happened there. For my own sake, I made a short summary of events – hope it will help you too:

• 1. Team Secret run onto Spectre
• 2. Dark Seer vacuums four players from Team Secret
• 3. Invoker throws double Deafening Blast and Chaos Meteor at Dark Seer and Spectre
• 4. Enigma uses Black Hole to catch Spectre
• 5. Rubick steals Black Hole, blinks in, and uses Black Hole on five players from Team Secret
• 6. Nyx blinks in and stuns the five players caught in the black hole
• 7. Tidehunter uses ravage on four Empire players just as Enigma is finished off (Empire dead: 0, Team Secret dead: 1)
• 8. Crystal Maiden gets off full duration Freezing Field on these four players that die almost instantly (Empire dead: 4, Team Secret dead: 1)
• 9. Spectre, Dark Seer and Nyx buy back
• 10. Enchantress joins the fight, Spectre uses Haunt, and together they finish off three low Team Secret players as Dark Seer BoTs in onto Spectre, to quickly push up mid (Empire dead: 4, Team Secret dead: 4)

Some things to note:  Green HP Bars – Team Empire (hero lineup consists of Spectre, Dark Seer, Rubick, Nyx Assassin and Enchantress); Red HP Bars – Team Secret (Invoker, Enigma, Tidehunter, Crystal Maiden, Drow Ranger).

So the main and most heart stopping part is where the whole Team Secret caught Ramzee’s Spectre with Black Hole (advantage with Team Secret now), but end up the Black hole got stolen by KingR’s Rubick and ended up the skill being now used on themselves (advantage swing to Empire), and then after Empire’s stuns went off, it’s Team Secret’s turn to stun them with Universe’s Tidehunter Ravage and killed them off with PieLieDie’s Crystal Maiden Freezing Field (advantage swings back to Secret), and then Enchantress came into the foray and picking up/killing the rest of Team Secret with the help of Spectre who bought back (advantage now with Empire as 4/5 of Team Secret dies with no buyback).  All these – happened within that one minute.

Oh geez.  The play.  So hype!