[gebrankan ownage]

I'm fresh out of the MGDR Internet Cafe 3v3 DoTA tournament and watching the replays here on Brian's PC, and just a few hours ago, we won first place. I mean... HELL YEAH WE FRIGGIN' WON FIRST PLACE! CHAMPION! Here's the story:

I was supposed to leave for Makati (and go straight home to Baguio) , but I decided to hang around a bit longer with Dianne, Louis and Cherrie. The tourney was scheduled April 7, 5:30pm, and Louis and I originally had no plans of joining, since we lacked one team member (the China-man) and we had no one else to complete the team and hopefully match-up against Marksman and the rest of (the real) team Gebranka. But since Dianne was with us later that afternoon, I thought we could draft her and join the tourney just for the hell of it (no offense Cherrie, I trust you in a lot of things, but not in your DoTA playing skills ^^). I figured we had a fighting chance as long as we could compensate for Dianne.

We were practicing our line-up a bit in h5, when something so WTF happened: we were informed that team Gebranka got banned from the tourney. Why? We found out later that a lot of the teams who were supposed to join backed-out at the sight of Marksman, Francis and Celsus ('yun yung WTF - Dianne, Louis and I would've still joined the tourney even though Marksman was there. Laban lang!). For the tournament to continue, more teams were needed to join - hence the ban. I heard it was team Ziggurat who requested the ban on Marksman's team.

With that, Louis and I signed up as team Gebranka with Celsus (we had to sub Cel for Dianne - to Dianne's relief ^^). The organizers allowed the sub, since it was only Celsus joining and not the whole Marksman team. The Clan's name was riding on our shoulders (gah, the pressure!), so we had to do our best. And besides, for me, someone was watching. I couldn't lose. ^^

The Rules: 3 on 3 Teampick, no feeding, no Necronomicon, 2 Mekanisms per team limit, backdooring allowed. Coin toss winner picks which side (Senti or Scourge). Final round is an Allpick match, where the coin toss winner gets to pick the first hero, opposing team picks the next, hero-picking proceeds in turn order until all teams have 3 heroes.

Preliminaries: match against the Ziggurat netcafe team
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We win coin-toss and pick Scourge. Line-up: Me/Medusa, Louis/Lich, Cel/Krobelus. Sentinel line-up: Rhasta, Sniper, Sven. Medusa gets owned in the early game by Rhasta, Lich and Krob successfully control lanes and leave Sniper and Sven severely underleveled - they surprise us by using inefficient builds (Sniper caster build, Sven.. whatever build, Rhasta wtf double-Eul's build). Lich and Krob push different sides in midgame while Medusa is left to farm. By the endgame, full force pushes finish off Sentinel frontyard.

Semifinals: match against a team from Calamba
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We win coin-toss and pick Scourge again changing our line-up to Me/Doombringer, Louis/Lich, Cel/Krob. Sentinel line-up: Rhasta, Syllabear, Morphling. The game was easy, Lich treating Rhasta like a noob, Krob harassing Morph, and Doom level-locking Bear. Rhasta and Morph constantly switching lanes to get away from Lich. Rhasta (who never got above boots, mantles, ciclets, a ring of regen and a sobi mask) constantly being Doomed in every clash. It was a bully-game. We only lost one tower, but not against a decent push, but against creeps we ignored because we were having too much fun. This is probably our best game: best creep stats, towers defended, most frags and least deaths.

Finals: match against Ray, Arct and Dim from Area51
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Area51 wins coin-toss and surpisingly picks Krob as first hero not Lich (we figured it was to deny Celsus his Krob), so -as if we won the coin toss- we pick Lich, Sniper goes to them, Cel picks Shadowfiend, they pick Venomancer last, and I pick Doombringer as planned. Me/Doombringer, Louis/Lich, Cel/Nevermore; Ray/Krob, Arct/Sniper, Dim/Venomancer. We were all able to hold our lanes, though barely, at the start. Doombringer eventually level-locks Venomancer, Lich supresses Sniper, and Nevermore prances around, gaining insane creepkill stats. We were able to successfully incorporate travelling chicken with wards, flasks and townportals in our strategy, and I think it's what gave us the game. We gained the upper hand in lane-control up until midgame (avoiding ganks and ambushes) and started pushing lanes when we got our high-level items (SangeYasha and Aegis for Never, Soulbooster and Mekan on Lich and Linken's on Doom with SangeYasha on the way). From there, it was only a matter of keeping the Sentinel crippled until we could finish off the outer towers.

Although our victory is mostly attributed to not-so-good opponents who've never even heard of the Lich Dark Ritual build, who use inefficient builds, and, of course, the absence of Marksman and Ewan, a win is still a win. And there you have it, GG. GELO!!! Wish you were there. Para sayo laban na yun!

I'll be leaving for Baguio later today, and I know I'll be riding the bus with memories of yesterday still fresh in my mind - with a grin on my face I'll ignore the stupid bus music, enjoying my ride home, and looking forward to spending Sunday in the beach :D