Alienware Arena 2010 Day 1 Skirmish:
Kingsurf vs DES
A short skirmish a regional powerhouse and one of our home teams. Onto the picks and bans!
From the looks of the draft, it is clear that KingSurf wanted to finish the game quickly, depriving their opponents of three carry heroes in their ban and quickly picking up another two carries in their lineup. DES on the other hand banned three ganking heroes in response, limiting KingSurf's choice of gankers and then going out of the way to pick up four more ganking heroes in their team makeup. With the draft set in stone, team DES looked like they were going to dominate the early game with intensive ganking from their caste of Sand King, Puck, Demon Witch and Admiral Proudmoore.
The game started with both team's side lanes jockeying for lane domination. Team DES sent off the Demon Witch and Sand King to the bottom lane in an attempt to put a lid on the Shadow Fiend's farming capability. However the Lion and Sand King both lost the advantage when the baby-sitter Earth Shaker forced them both to engage the Shadow Fiend and himself, causing Demon Witch to be reduced to half it's life and taking another quarter out of the Sand King's full health bar. With their health points points reduced by such numbers at level one, they had no choice but to hold back and watch the Shadow Fiend level up. The Shadow Fiend and Earth Shaker combination eventually claimed the first blood from Sand King.
Over in the middle lane, Necrolyte faced off against Storm Spirit. Both of them found no advantage against each other and were at a standoff. This was quickly remedied when KingSurf's Tiny arrived on the scene. Despite missing his Avalanche against the Necrolyte who was being pulled towards the Storm Spirit, he landed the killing blow. Shortly after Necrolyte went down, Demon Witch was brought down by the Earth Shaker.
On the top lane, Team DES's Admiral Proudmoore and Puck could only damage the lone Crystal Maiden but possessed no snaring abilities to seal their kill.
With their bottom lane heroes under-leveled and KingSurf unwillingly to give away any freebies to them, team DES's game play started to roll downhill. 10 minutes into the game, the kills score was 12-1, in favour of KingSurf.
There were very few engagements in the game as team DES's were not pro-active in roaming the map to assist their beleaguered team mates. Heroes were returning back to their original lanes in futile attempts to regain lost advantages and King Surf wasted no time in claiming these precious kills with their active roaming.
On the 11th minute, team DES were rewarded for their now-too-late roaming efforts (combination of Admiral Proudmoore, Puck, Sand King and Demon Witch) by dispatching both Tiny and Crystal Maiden on the top lane. However, not wanting to make things any easier for team DES, the duo managed to take down the Sand King with them.
2 more minutes later, team DES scored a short lived victory with a series of well placed and timed spells, maximising stun time as well as damage on the Tiny and Crystal Maiden in middle lane. King Surf was quick on vengeance 30 seconds later as they routed the congregating Scourge force at their tower. With the timer at 15 minutes, the kill count was 21-7.
KingSurf's Shadow Fiend proceeded to acquire his Eye of Skadi during the 20th minute and both teams gathered in the middle lane for what was the last "real" engagement between the 2 teams.
The Storm Spirit racked up a whopping 25 charges in its Blood Stone and KingSurf showed no mercy as they mowed down the Scourge forces. The Storm Spirit eventually died as it's over confidence convinced him to Ball Lightning himself all the way into the Frozen Throne and then being promptly dispatched by the Demon Witch and Admiral as they unleashed all their spells and abilities onto the Storm Spirit.
That said, the game was already over for the team DES as KingSurf snuffed out the last pockets of resistance in their base and proceeded to dismantle to Frozen Throne. Kudos to team DES for displaying sportsmanship and not giving up all the way to the end.
Congratulations to KingSurf for winning this game.
