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TI9 Finals: Knowledge, Trust, and the Most Beautiful Dota in the World. Used the fact that they had last pick brilliantly: they moved Gyro to the mid lane and drafted Specre, who is a hard counter to Tinker. Moreover, Liquid lacked the tools to heavily pressure the Spectre early on in their lineup as Void and Tinker are not very aggressive. Non-traditional hero picks are one of the bonuses of experimentation during the TI9 group stage. (Image via Valve) Every year at the International, we’re presented with interesting, albeit strange, drafts that closer reflect our own pub games than they do top-level Dota.

I am certain anyone following competitive Dota for a while has a profound feeling we just witnessed something special and deeply valuable. Not only in the context of the game and the competition, but in the context of human life in general.

OG’s achievement cannot be overstated – they stand on a summit no other team has ever managed to conquer. Holding the Aegis of Champions two times in a row is an incredible feat in any context.

Yet, what makes their story transcend beyond the realm of Dota is that they were triumphant while representing the deep human values of friendship, loyalty, trust, creativity, and humility.

OG are the champions of our community not only because they are the best Dota players. They are our champions because they embody the very best values this game can bring out of us all.

This is the last installment of the TI9 Meta series. I most certainly don’t claim to have complete understanding of the amazing games that the teams played for us. I believe, however, that it’s very interesting to try to delve into the strategic details to fully appreciate the ingenuity of the people pouring their heart and soul into the game.

While thisarticle is about OG, it takes two to tango. I’ll start with the losers bracketfinals because I believe there is a very interesting and significant continuitybetween the two series.

I think the LGD vs Liquid games showcased veryvisibly how big of a role faith plays in drafting and how it can win and losegames:

In game 1,both teams started with a non-surprising meta opening and completed awell-rounded draft out of it. Liquid had Void (the best performing pos. 1 heroon the main stage) and decided to combine it with W33’s Tinker. Tinker isoff-meta right now, but they had played it before, and Tinker is quitesynergistic with Void.

LGD,however, used the fact that they had last pick brilliantly: they moved Gyro tothe mid lane and drafted Specre, who is a hard counter to Tinker. Moreover,Liquid lacked the tools to heavily pressure the Spectre early on in theirlineup as Void and Tinker are not very aggressive cores. Tinker needs time tofarm, while Void is restricted by the long CD on Chrono.

The gamefinished as planned for LGD - Spectmanaged to carry them to victory. What was unexpected, however, was how greatCentaur did in this game. Even after a very rough 0-3 start, he was able to comeback and even was the highest net worth hero in the early-mid game, whichhelped him have an extremely high impact.

In thesecond game, Liquid gave W33 Templar Assassin as the last pick for their team –a hero he’s been quite successful on in this tournament and a good counter toLife Stealer, who lacks the tools to remove Refraction and is vulnerable toarmor reduction.

LGD triedto use their last pick in the same way they did in the first game – by pickinga direct counter to one of the center-pieces of Liquid’s draft. Huskar wassupposed to counter W33’s TA and win LGD the series.

Things,however, didn’t go as planned. LGD’s aggressive draft was slowly building up asignificant resource advantage, but they didn’t manage to finish the game fastenough, Huskar fell-off, and Liquid managed to claim the victory in the lategame with their better-scaling cores.

Thefact that Liquid won a game with TA when she was “hard-countered” gave Liquid alot of faith in the hero and in the next game they drafted her as a 2^ndpick, theoretically giving LGD a lot of time to try to counter her again.

Let’s go a bit more in-depth on TA:

TA is asnowballing semi-carry. She wins her lane, gets her core items, hits a verystrong mid game timing (Deso, Blink, BKB), and ideally takes map control, Rosh,and the game.

The theorybehind countering her with Huskar is that he will destroy her in the lane,which would not allow her to snowball and hit her timing. This would reduce heroverall impact a great deal. (Burning Spears counter her Refraction directly -they remove the charges. Moreover, she has short range, so it’s very hard forher to take last hits without getting constantly harassed.)

TA,however, is actually not as reliant on winning the mid matchup as she once was.She actually finds most of her farm in the jungle – her AoE attacks and highdamage help her clear stacks very efficiently, so even if Huskar beats her inthe lane, she can recover in the jungle quite quickly and still have a decentimpact in the game.

To top itoff, TA has good talents that make her better in the late game than she oncewas. This means that she isn’t as reliant on winning the game during hermid-game timing and she is quite comfortable going late (she certainly canout-scale the Huskar, who is even vulnerable to her nuke damage.)

So, theoutcome of game 2 gave Liquid the confidence to draft TA as a 2^ndpick. What worse can they throw at her than Huskar?

LGD wentback to a lot of comfort picks for their last game (most notably Somnus SF andFY Rubick), but this time around it was Liquid who used the last few picks inthe draft brilliantly. Winter Wyvern was an underused hero this TI, but ColdEmbrace is a hard counter to Void’s Chronosphere. Moreover, the long-rangeWinter’s Curse is a great setup for Ravage (a devastating team-fight combo wemanaged to see). To top it off, Liquid got their hands on a last-pick WraithKing. After Mineski and Infamous dropped out of the tournament, Wraith Kingstopped being as highly contested, so he managed to slip through withoutgetting banned. WK is great against Chrono and the nuke damage of SF - if LGD’scores blow all of their cooldowns on WK’s first life, they wouldn’t have theresources to kill him a second time.

The plan worked out, and Liquid managed to claimthe series to the immense disappointment of 18k Chinese fans in the arena.

So, by the end of the loser bracket finals,Liquid had two wins with TA. One versus a last-pick hard counter (Huskar), andone where they 2^nd picked the hero.Needlessto say, theteam acquired a lot offaith in TA in this meta.

Moreover, in game 3 vs LGD, Liquid claimedanother convincing victory with Tide, giving them a flawless 5-0 record withthe hero.As a consequence, TA + Tide became apivotal part of their grand finals strategy.

Being very confident in those two picks played abig role but sadly for Liquid – not a positive one.

In game one,Liquid used the fact that they have last pick to get a win with Meepo.

Meepo wasLiquid’s checkmate (cheesy) last-pick which they had successfully used this TIand he fit the game very well: OG had decided to give Ana’s hard carry Spect atry, and Meepo counters Spectre’s slow tempo very well. He out-farms herseverely, takes over the map (leaves Spect little space to farm), and breaksthe base before she is able to come online.

Even thoughLiquid won the game, it certainly didn’t go as planned. OG were able to stallthe game for a long time and Spect reached the breaking point in which Meepowas no longer the strongest hero on the map and OG were ready to secure thevictory.

After amisplay on their part, however, Liquid used TA + Meepo’s very high buildingdamage to run down the mid lane and evaporate OG’s Ancient. OG were too slow toreact and lost a game they had a firm grasp on.

This game was all about the Meepo strat versusthe Spect strat, so it’s unlikely that Tide and TA’s impact came into question.It seems they did their part adequately, so Liquid preserved their confidence inthe two picks.

Consequently,in game two, Liquid opened up with Tide + TA as their first two picks.

OG, however, had a very different approach tocountering TA and Tide than LGD.

Youwouldn’t traditionally think of a Lifestealer + TA + Tide lineup as a slowlineup. In fact, all three cores have a very strong mid-game timing.

In the early game, however, Liquid actually hasa slow and passive draft.

Aswe already mentioned, TA wants tospend the early game farming the jungle until she has a few core items. Shewants to fight after she has farmed Deso + Blink, and ideally even BKB.

Tide isn’t aiming for an item timing (although theutility items certainly help), but what restrains his aggression is the huge CDon Ravage. He can afford to play aggressively with Ravage, but once the spellis on CD, he usually also wants to use Anchor Smash to farm waves and camps.

Lifestealer doesn’t have a big CD and he can certainly beplayed aggressively, but the meta pos. 1 Lifestealer goes for Midas and usuallylikes to farm undisturbed until he gets Radiance.

Lastbut not least, Liquid have a pos. 4Enigma. As we all know, a dedicated jungler makes your lanes weaker.Moreover, like Tide, Enigma likes to play around an ultimate with a big CD.Finally, Enigma also needs items to fight comfortably. A long-duration BlackHole is almost impossible without BKB versus a good team.

So, OG countered Liquid’s lineup by drafting ateam with a much, much higher tempo.

None ofOG’s cores needs expensive items to start fighting. Ember just needs lvl6 and ahigh-enough level in his other spells to start searching for kills. Monkey Kingis essentially created to run at heroes thanks to Jingu Mastery, and all heneeds to succeed is some control from his teammates. Their position 4 hero, theTiny of Jerax, is the opposite of what Liquid have. While Enigma wants to farm,all a pos. 4 Tiny wants to do is to play aggressively and attempt to get kills.It also certainly helps that Omni is there to protect his teammates with hisspells when they decide to play overly-aggressive.

Besides thetempo of the whole draft, OG also had very good direct hero matchups. Ember isa decent laner against Tidehunter – Anchor Smash deals physical damage, so itcannot be used to remove Ember’s Flame Guard. This means Ana can use it tocontinuously damage Mind Control in the lane. Moreover, Grimstroke is veryuseful versus Tide, because Kraken Shell cannot dispel Grimstroke’s Silence (Phantom’sEmbrace). Finally, OG has Omni to counter Lifestealer and TA’s high physicaldamage output in fights.

By playing extremely aggressively, OGcompletely dismantled Liquid.

(Strategy aside, there is a lot to be said aboutOG’s execution, but more on that below.)

Game 3 was,IMO, the pivotal game in this series. This was the game in which Liquid shouldhave concluded that OG know how to deal with Tide + TA. This was also the gamein which they should have tried as hard as possible to deal with the problemsof game 2 - to secure a great start of the game to prevent OG from playing asaggressively as they did in game 2.

Liquid,however, drafted Tide + TA once again. Instead of Lifestealer, they went withJugg, but Jugg is a similar hero to Lifestealer in terms of tempo and doesn’tmake Liquid’s overall strategy very different. They didn’t have a supportEnigma this time around, but it didn’t make a huge difference.

OG useddifferent heroes but the same ideas as in game 2. They played an extremely hightempo game to break Liquid before they are able to hit their timings.

This timethe main drivers of the high tempo were offlane Enchantress who is very capableof constant pressure right from the start of the game (one of the most fearedheroes in the whole tournament), roaming Tiny once again, and a new brilliantlast pick – pos. 2 Pugna. Pugna is quite decent versus TA in the lane thanks toDecrepify. The spell is also a very good defensive mechanism versus TA’sphysical burst damage and Jugg’s Omnislash.

The key, however, is that after winning the lane,Pugna is one of the best tower-pushers in the game. This meant that eachsuccessful aggressive move from OG cost Liquid objectives and a lot of mapcontrol, which lead to a 2^nd 20-minute victory in a row from OG (andone of the best performances on Pugna we’ve ever seen from Godson).

By the endof game 3, Liquid were finally aware that Tide + TA wasn’t working out forthem. The problem was they had only one game to try out something different.

It was obvious that OG were demolishing them inthe early game, so the logical thing was to make sure they don’t lose thelanes. They left Tide + TA to the side, and opened up with Omni + Chen – twoheroes who can deal with early-game pressure much better.

They leftIo out of the bans, probably because they had confidence they have a chance tocounter it after successfully countering Secret’s carry Io strat.

Ti Pick

They beatSecret’s carry Io with Meepo, but OG wisely banned Meepo in the 2^ndban phase, so Liquid had to think of something else.

One of thereasons why Meepo is theoretically good versus a carry Io strat is because hehits his timing before Io. A pos. 1 Bristleback with two healers behind him(Chen + Omni) might have a similar effect. He is able to fight from very earlyon and could possibly break the enemy base before Io is ready. Chen + Omni will make him nearly immortal with the heals, but also with a Pipe and the magic resistance auras from creeps that Chen can convert and bring with the team (Io mainly deals magic damage with his Balls and Aghs).

As we know,things didn’t go as planned. Topson’s Gyro proved to be a big problem, Liquidwere unable to break the base, and once Io hit his Agh’s + lvl15 timing (andGyro got Diffusal), OG took the game, the series, and the Aegis of Champions.

A lot of people are saying that letting OG pickIo was an obvious mistake, but in a way, Liquid had to try to beat it. There are simply not enough bans to get ridof all of OG’s strategies. The problem was, however, that this game was anelimination game for them. IMO, a quicker realization that they need to changesomething fundamentally after game 2 would have given Liquid at least one moregame to try to figure OG out. For example, something they didn’t have a chanceto try was to let through OG’s late game strats (Magnus) while banning OG’shigh-tempo heroes. There is no guarantee that this would have worked and theseries could have still ended 3-1 for OG, but at the same time one more attemptto figure them out is insanely valuable and it could have made the series morecompetitive.

Watchinggame 2 and 3, it felt like pro Dota has gone a full circle.

In aconversation with Puppey a long, long time ago (before TI3) he mentioned thatone of the biggest innovations of pro Dota was the realization that objectives areway more important than kills. In fact, his main role in the old Na’Vi team wasto control the tower-diving davai spirit of the CIS players and to make surethat every aggressive move they make leads to objectives and map control.

In game two of TI9’s grand finals, however, OGwere diving the enemy base when the enemy T1 towers were still standing, whichseems to run contrary to the every basic principle we know about Dota.

Theindividual play of everyone on the team was top-tier, but it seemed that thisis not the key to their success in this seemingly insane playstyle. They stillmade mistakes and died every once in a while, but this didn’t seem to shift themomentum too much.

I believe there are two main factors that makethis possible:

Not a stock photo, but OG during the draft.

OG arefully consciously aware of the timingsin the game. They know when their team is strong, and when the enemy teamis weak. The easiest example is the Io Agh’s + lvl15 talent timing: regardlessif they are ahead or behind, they know that they are strong and they startplaying aggressively to take control of the game when they hit it.

The samerule fully applies to game 2 and 3 of the grand finals. Even though the laningstage isn’t even over yet, they know Liquid need more space and time to comeonline while their own lineup doesn’t. Because of this, they are comfortable tostart playing hyper-aggressively far earlier than anyone anticipates them to.To make sure they use their advantage to its fullest potential, the pressurenever relents even after the occasional misplay and death (dying once doesn’tmean your timing window is over just yet).

Ingame 2, they dove behind all possible towers simply because they had terribletower push, and diving was the only way to continue applying pressure duringtheir timing window. Takingrisks and diving towers was a way better option than playing safe and lettingLiquid’s cores farm their jungle undisturbed. In game 3, thanks to Pugna, theystill played hyper-aggressively, but managed to take objectives along with thekills.

Thesecond and arguably the most important part of being able to play thisaggressively successfully is complete trust in your teammates:

Forexample, when you play Omni together with a tower-diving core, you become extremelyaware of just how short-range the spells of this hero are. There is no way toplay safe with Omni when your core wants to play aggressive. Often in pubs, ifyou’re uncertain the aggressive playstyle is the right thing to do (i.e. youdon’t trust your core), this would lead to miscommunications and deaths. Ceb,however, managed to always be in range to help out his teammates, even whenthey were diving towers T2 towers at 10 minutes in like madmen.

Thesame applies to other more unusual situations. 1v1 mid matchups tend to bequite clinical in Dota. Two heroes try to out-play each other for last-hits andharass. The only thing that disrupts this is the occasional gank rotation bythe supports, but even this interruption is temporary. When your position 4Tiny stays in the mid lane for extended periods of time and chases the enemyhero behind the tower Tossing him around like a Basketball, however, the usual1v1 mid situation flies out the window. Topson, however, seemed to be quitecomfortable in this strange state of affairs and was able to trust Jerax andmatch his aggression very well, which led to a big advantage for OG. The twoplayers were able to play off each other very well and the enemy midlaner wasmiles away out of his comfort zone.

Ina nutshell, as N0tail himself said – “everything can work in Dota”. If you havea clear idea about what you need to do and if you fully trust in the decisionsof your teammates (this means to continue trusting in them even if their ideasoccasionally don’t work out), the result could be quite beautiful.

The Dotathat Liquid, LGD, and most teams in the world are playing certainly looks more understandableand clinical than what OG are doing. That’s why everyone on the broadcast teamliked the idea that Liquid are approaching Dota as a science, while OG – asart.

The teamthat managed to give me a similar feeling when I was watching them play wereTI6 Wings. While Wings were able to make this impression mainly with theirinsane drafts, OG (who have equally insane but less diverse drafts) are able togive this feeling with their play as well.

Callingthem the best team of all time is certainly easy with their two consecutivechampionships. In my opinion, however, they deserve this title also because ofthe level of Dota they showcased at this TI. It felt like they are a few levelsabove everyone else both strategically (knowledge) and in terms of team playand execution (trust).

OG certainly raised the bar a lot and showedthat things are possible in Dota none of us have ever imagined.

I hope their incredible examplemanages to inspire a lot of us to chase our dreams and to try to find the next level in whatever we aredoing. Equally importantly - to remain humble, and to tryto be good people along the way!

Thanks you forreading! It was an absolute pleasure covering this TI and I hope some of youfound my articles insightful or at the very least - interesting.

If you are one of these people, give us a followon our social media (below) to stay in touch when we post something new!

The International (TI 9) begins August 15, 2019 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, China. Eighteen teams from the six global regions will battle for their share of the ~31 million USD TI9 prize pool. Europe is the most represented region at this year’s event with 6 out of the 18 teams representing the region. The second most represented region is China with 4 teams.

The regular 2018/19 season went the way of Team Secret, who managed to win two of the five majors and end up 2^nd or 3^rd in others. In fact, out of the twelve teams with direct Invites to the The International only 3 teams (2 Secret, 1 Virtus.Pro, 2 Vici Gaming) managed to secure a win at one of the five Majors. TI9 Regional qualifiers were held in July 2019 to determined the six final participants at the event. Two former champions Na’Vi (2011) and Newbee (2014) secured their spot at the event through regional qualifiers. The qualifiers were divided by country: Europe, CIS, North America, China, Southeast Asia. TI 9 European Qualifiers took place between July 11^th – 14^th.

This season resulted in six out of the eight previous Champions qualifying for the The International 2019.

Fantasy leagues and betting providers are buzzing with TI9 betting odds and coefficients already. In order to stay ahead of the curve and prepare our readers for the upcoming festivities we aim to create the ultimate Dota 2 TI9 predictions out there.

Below are our predictions Dota 2 TI9 predictions categorized by odds and value.

Place your Dota 2 TI9 bets with Unikrn:

Outright winner

We begin our TI9 betting guide with the mother-of-all predictions “Outright Winner” of The International 2019. Dota 2 betting sites and analysts are favoring Team Secret as the team with the highest chance of winning. For those that prefer safe betting, our choice is instead Vici Gaming as the team with the best chance at winning. If you are looking to place a longshot bet at a winner and net better winnings look no further than Virtus.Pro. It offers the best “bang for your buck” bet out of the attending teams while also being a relatively likely winner.

As tradition goes, each year thousands of predictions are made about the outright winner and less then 1% percent of the analysis is on point. Taking such high probability of upsets and uncertainty into account, Virtus.Pro is the best value and odds bet for the Outright Winner at The International (2019).

Group Stage

On the 14^th of August 2019, Valve announced the group draw for The International 2019: Group Stage. At first glance, both groups of nine are somewhat equal in balance, making for an interesting opportunity for TI9 fantasy pick’ems and bets. The Dota 2 odds for teams advancing out of the Group Stage and into the winner/loser bracket stage still favor the best performers from the Regular Season.

Group A

• Team Secret
• Team Liquid
• TNC Predator
• PSG LGD
• Chaos Esports
• Keen Gaming
• Alliance
• Mineski
• Newbee

Group B

• Virtus.ro
• Vici Gaming
• Evil Geniuses
• Fnatic
• Ninjas in Pyjamas
• OG
• Infamous
• Natus Vincere
• Royal Never Give Up

A plethora of bets and fantasy picks became available after the groups were announced varying from “Average deaths per player” to “Champion versus champion pick amounts”. Some of these betting categories are so outrageous to predict. A specific TI meta will evolve during the event and game times and player performance will vary greatly based on the evolving meta. We would advise against trying to predict any of these outcomes unless you are a 5000iq 5head.

As for more reasonable prediction categories we would single out:

• Team eliminated from Group A: Mineski
• Team eliminated from Group B: Infamous
• Teams to advance to Winner Bracket out of Group A: Secret, Liquid, PSG.LGD, TNC Predator
• Teams to advance to Winner Bracket out of Group B: Vici Gaming, Virtus.Pro, OG, Evil Geniuses
• Group A points leader: Team Secret
• Group B points leader: Vici Gaming

For a day by day prediction of match outcomes we have prepared the following news articles:

• Day 1: The International 2019: Groups Analysis and Predictions
• Day 2: Coming Soon
• Day 3: Coming Soon
  
• Day 4: Coming Soon

Outright bets

A plethora of Dota 2 TI 2019 outright bets are available at various betting sites. Based on current and past TI9 betting odds and results, we predict the following outcomes:

Region to likely be Champion at TI 2019: Europe
Teams to likely reach Grand Final: Virtus.Pro, Liquid, Vici Gaming
Top team in Region: Team Secret (EU), Vici Gaming (CN), Virtus.Pro (CIS), Fnatic (SEA)
Region of Winner: Europe
Past Champion to Win TI 2019: No
Invited team vs Qualified team to win TI 9: Invited Team

The predictions above are generated based on trends and results in previous competitions and Majors in the 2018/19 season.

Compendium Specials

No Dota 2 TI9 predictions can be complete without the Compendium Specials. Some of the most entertaining bets and predictions can be placed on game time, kill and death averages. We will split the predictions in two categories. Best odds and best value.

Check out our selection of esports betting sites and esports betting bonus offers for the best TI9 betting odds. Place your bets wisely.

Ti9 Hero Picks

Betting Odds