by Sören ‘Fantasy’ Vendsahm
As the TI5 competition leaves The Westin hotel and moves to the main event in Key Arena, compLexity Gaming is leaving with some goals accomplished, but a lot still left to grab.
The team that started the tournament as the underdog used the first two days to surprise everyone, followed by two more days to clinch the third place in the group. With big plays, good drafts, great team work and a youthful enthusiasm for the challenges ahead, coL.Dota has shocked the world already – without feeling quite accomplished yet.
During the deciding games on Thursday that feeling was abundantly clear. No big celebration after clinching the Upper Bracket spot, no dancing, screaming or outburst of joy. For the compLexity Gaming crew around captain and drafter Kyle ‘swindlemelonzz’ Freedman it was just one small step on the road to their goal. Key Arena and a date with Evil Geniuses is next, leaving Group A behind with momentum.
The team waits for their first match of the day vs Cloud9.
The last day showed the capabilities of the squad in all positions. Whether it was swindlemelonzz playing big on Shadowfiend, Fly burning everyone down as Lina, more clutch performances by Zfreek on Enigma, Zyzz punching people in the face with Sven or Moonmeander cleaning out the enemy lines with Vacuum and perfect walls – the team showed promises beyond critics imagination.
Against Cloud 9 and fnatic the team came out to play, especially in the series against Cloud 9. compLexity came out swinging with Sven, making EternalEnvy’s life on Gyrocopter miserable two games in a row. Spirit Breaker charging across the map, Dark Seer causing havoc, Centaur putting his hoofs down, Lina setting the world on fire – coL’s aggression was just too much to handle. Even after a miscue in Game 2, leading to a perfect Puck Dream Coil and team wipe, the team stayed level headed and ran the game back with smart decisions and clutch team fights.
coL.Dota plans for their match vs Fnatic.
After that win, the series against Fnatic technically was just for show, since coL.Dota had clinched the third place already. However, the team wasn’t happy with that and took nothing for granted. Captain swindlemelonzz set the tone during the break, telling his team emphatically, that they “play to win every single game, no one cares if it’s meaningless or not.”
And that is exactly how the team played against the Malaysian crew. Everything was jelling. Early kill deficits weren’t bothering the boys and they simply played their winning style of Dota 2. Once more it was aggression, once more the team came out ahead in almost every team fight, every coordinated engagement, all without the tables turning against them. Overall captain swindlemelonzz described that series as their “best yet at TI.” A lot more is still to come though, as Evil Geniuses is next up.
Sweet, sweet victory.
Being picked by EG sets up an intriguing clash between former teammates. In HoN, PPD used to play with Zfreek, Moonmeander and also Swindlemelonzz in numerous teams – even back in the compLexity Gaming.HoN days with Moon. Teammates, rivals, enemies, everything can be said about this duel between the two prime NA teams. No matter who wins, NA Dota will win, as the two teams clash for the unofficial North American supremacy – at least for a few days.
Who comes out ahead in the clash of the two rivals? Will compLexity Gaming continue their roll in Key Arena or can EG back up their pick and walk away victorious? Find out on Tuesday, LIVE from Key Arena in Seattle, Washington!
Asia is an interactive and friendly streamer who has been passionately streaming Dota 2 for over 2 years. She has merged her love for games with her talent at art by bringing new creative projects to stream, from classical and digital painting & illustration to weapon and cosplay design. Whether streaming viewer lobbies, competitive games or creative projects for the community, she always demonstrates an intense devotion to the game and an endless effort to engage with the community.
Hitting legend is a goal many Hearthstone players aim to achieve. While over 20 million players play Hearthstone, only 0.5% of them actually reach legend. Why is this? Well, as we all know, from rank 25-5 you can go on win streaks where you get 1 extra star if you win 3 or more games in a row. However, once you reach rank 5, those win streak bonuses end, and you are forced to grind every game and really earn every single star. You only have to win 26 more games than you lose to hit legend from rank 5.. but obviously this is a lot harder than it sounds. I can go in depth about win rate statistics and how every percent of your win rate makes a huge difference in the amount of games you have to play, but there are many articles already released by great players detailing this and if you are interested in reading up about it, I can provide you with the links.
Figure 2 demonstrates a balanced scale. This is normally seen when you first start your ranking session. If nothing else happened in your day, good or bad, then mentally you will be indifferent. You can even say that the scale will be more tilted to the “Relaxed” side as you have no worries and are ready for some good games. Once you start playing, it will be hard to rebalance this scale. If you win, you will tilt towards the relaxed, if you lose you become more frustrated. However you can rebalance the scale by taking breaks away from the game. Having a breather, not thinking or worrying about the events in the game tends to help.
Practice makes perfect right? The answer is yes… to some extent. Although it is proven that repetition leads to better results, it is also proven that there is a thing called overtraining. Overtraining/fatigue can be a result from practicing or playing anything, whether it is working out, studying, and even playing video games. No matter what it is, if you have too much of it, your body becomes tired of it. Mental fatigue is defined as a subjective feeling of tiredness that leads to a decrease in maximal cognitive performance. You become mentally fatigue when you use your brain power for an extended period of time. So tying this into Hearthstone. Sitting in front of your computer for hours playing high ranked games, constantly making the best decisions, predicting your opponent’s plays, calculating lethal, etc. will eventually make you mentally fatigued.
In an airplane, cruise, etc. auto-piloting is when the computer system takes over the controls and functions automatically without the need of a human’s manual controls. Similarly, when a gamer goes into auto-pilot mode, their sub-conscience takes over and makes the decisions and plays for them, without the gamer thinking through them critically. A player’s mindset can go into auto-pilot as a result of 2 situations. The first being that the player is very used to a certain matchup through a lot of experience and practice that they usually already know what the correct decision is and what is the best way to win. The second situation is when the player becomes tilted, or mentally fatigued. They either are blinded in frustration or their brain is going into a tired phase so that whenever the player makes a decision, they are not actually evaluating if it is correct or not. Auto-piloting is not necessarily bad, however you may be less observant of what is happening and may miss crucial information or considerations that can cause you to lose the game.
So what is the ideal environment to play in and what is a bad environment? An ideal environment is one that is quite, and with as few distractions as possible. When you are playing seriously, all you want is your game and your brain. You want to be able to put all your brain power into concentration of the game you’re playing in and not worrying about anything else. If your surrounding is noisy with a lot going on, your focus can be distracted and cause you to make mistakes. You also want to make sure you have strong equipment and connection to the internet. The last thing you want is your mouse, or your internet to die out on you causing you the game. It’s happened to all of us, and it’s extremely frustrating to lose a game due to an outside mechanical failure. Make sure that you have the appropriate gear and stable connection to avoid these problems. You also want to make sure that you have the time to be able to commit fully into your game. If you have to leave or are in a hurry, you will be rushed into making sub-optimal plays that will not only tilt you, but lose you the game. Knowing that you have all the time you need relaxes you, and helps you make the correct decisions.
This may not relate to everybody in terms of gaming, however everyone can relate to a pressured environment in some way or another such as a job interview, a presentation, etc. I want to briefly talk about a pressured environment that competitive, or full time gamers have to face. This refers to environments where you are playing in front of an audience, such as LAN tournaments like Blizzcon, ESL Legendary, Gfinity, etc as well as online streaming. When a player is playing in front of an audience, their mind set will normally be different, especially when they are new to the scene. The player knows that they are being watched and judged on every move they make. Additionally, money is usually involved, as well as their reputation for their career. Overall a competitive or pressured environment adds a lot of stress and additional thoughts into the players’ mindset. For example, when I got hosted by Dog, increasing my stream viewers up to 2,500, I was overwhelmed and felt a lot more pressure to not only perform well in my plays, but as well as maintaining a good presence to the audience. Another example would be when Firebat was playing in one of his first broadcasted tournaments. He was playing Druid and opened up with an Innervate, however he mulliganed it away which everyone calls it as a misplay. Playing in front of an audience or with a lot on the line can be difficult for anyone, even veteran pros slip up. However this is just something that you will have to get used to from experience. After you go through the first few butterflies of playing under a lot of pressure, you will be able to have a better grasp of your mind set in such situations. This is simply because you just get used to the experience, it is not something you can really mentally prepare yourself, you just have to do it! Once you actually have the experience it will become better, and you will develop a stronger mindset going into a pressured environment.
It doesn’t take much to rebalance your mind set, but the fact that you are able to is very important in the ranked grind. Having control over your mind set is a big mental advantage that will allow you to play at times you are at your best, and reduce the amount of losses you incur. In the long run, you will find that you will be able to rank up faster by winning more, and ultimately you will enjoy playing the game more. Always try to stay positive, everyone losses a game, but keeping a look on the bright side will take those losses and use them to make you a stronger player.
My name is Jordan “TheJordude” Hong Tai, and I am a professional Hearthstone player currently playing for compLexity Gaming. I am a multi legend player that has only missed legend for a couple of seasons. I have peaked at rank 3 legend in NA, but the highest ending season position I’ve finished at has been around 120. I enjoy refining and testing out new decks and playing a lot of ladder. I also enjoy making content through Hearthstone/Esporting websites such as deck guides, reviews, etc. You can find me through these social media outlets: