How Puppey shut us up – such a genius that he learned to win even with MidOne

November 19 Clement Puppey Ivanov put all the critics in their place: Team Secret earned a second slot from Europe on ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 in Dota 2. But this was one of the most difficult qualifications, where during the lower bracket the team beat O.G. And Entity. Few could have imagined (especially the author of the article) that Puppey with such a lineup would be able to qualify for the tournament right away. How a team that was flying away from Alliance turned into a monster destroying Entity with a score of 2:0 – in the Cybersport.ru material.

An instructive story in three acts

Puppey is a genius

This statement has never been questioned by anyone, but it would not be superfluous to voice it once again. Secret didn’t just win the slot, she improved significantly over these few days, and each of her next matches was more confident than the previous one. But the team started the qualifiers with a 0:2 score from OG, where Puppey and company had almost no chance.

However, yes, Ivanov managed to properly prepare the team, especially with regard to strategies. During the qualification, the team tested 37 unique heroes, including Pudge, support Ogre Magi, Clinkz, Riki, Drow Ranger and other not the most popular characters.

At the same time, Puppey was able to use the breadth of the pool correctly and surprised not only with the heroes, but also with the very ideas for the game. The first map against Entity was indicative in this case.

All the heroes in the draft were aimed at strengthening Muerta in one way or another. As a result, in the 25th minute, having, in fact, no advantage in gold (Secret was leading by about a thousand, which can hardly be called an advantage), the team simply went forward. And he didn’t stop at the T2 tower, but climbed to a hill and demolished the side. The Secret heroes literally stuck around their carry, not leaving his side for a second. Crystallis received all the auras and buffs in the world, and his teammates received protection, because Entity was simply unable to fight against such a Muerta. And this plan worked one hundred percent.

At the same time, Puppey was clearly not mistaken in Miroslav BOOM Bitsane. After an unsuccessful last season, the Secret troika is now in excellent shape. In every second game, he literally dominated his lane, driving the enemy carry so deep into the forest that he then could not find his way from there to a normal network. For example, this is what BOOM did with Team Tickles.

And yes, during the qualifiers, BOOM showed that he now has a well-developed pool. And the main thing is that he can easily alternate the roles of a “troika”-carry with an emphasis on physical damage and crazy KDA and a “troika”-assistant, who on Tidehunter collects all possible team artifacts and takes all the opponent’s damage. Of course, this is primarily the merit of BOOM himself, who has not been getting out of matchmaking lately: in three months there were only six days when the e-sportsman did not play Dota 2 (and in one day he could play up to 18 games). However, it is worth giving credit to Puppey. The Secret captain had already played with Bitsan and was hardly satisfied with him last season, but he still believed in the player and helped him open up now. Well, how Ivanov knows how to find the key to Remko at the right moment Crystallis For Aretsu to play like a tier-1 carry is something beyond comprehension.

MidOne is still the weakest link

Perhaps at ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 itself Zheng MidOne Yek Nai will also be able to silence critics, but so far he is extremely far from this.

This title remains generally relevant. In fact, Secret’s path in the qualifiers could have ended in the first round of the lower bracket, where Puppey and company met Alliance. The first map was lost without a chance, the second was taken out by BOOM and Crystallis, and the third… Oooh, what a game it was. Another 80-minute fight that Secret carried out with weights in the form of MidOne.

One could say that he simply did not exist on the map, but then who was Alliance constantly killing? This Clinkz had problems in everything, from the pace of farming (he began to sag even when Secret was in the lead and dominated the map) and the final amount of gold (the worst in his team) to the number of deaths (a third of which were generally unfounded and happened somewhere in enemy forest) and terrible positioning in battles (which caused the remaining two-thirds of deaths).

Of course, everyone has bad games, but in the case of MidOne it happens too often.

The mid-laner Secret is mediocre in all respects: in terms of KDA, he was inferior even to Puppey; in terms of the number of deaths, he was, again, surpassed by Yamich; in terms of the average number of GPM, he is only third, as well as in terms of finished off creeps. It’s clear that when you have a “three” Lone Druid finishing a map with statistics of 13/1/16, it doesn’t matter at all how many creeps you killed and what you did on the map in general. However, you cannot always rely on this.

Yes, MidOne had successful matches, for example, on Queen of Pain, where there was gold and a beautiful KDA, but even there he was not the main hero (and also lost the line), because, in fact, the victory was brought by the indestructible Crystallis on his Monkey King.

And so, in fact, in every game: Secret won thanks to strategies and alternate dominance on one of the two side lines (sometimes on both at once), but not thanks to MidOne. And something will have to be done about this if the team expects anything more than just second place in the qualifiers.