Monday, September 25, 2006

DotA - WGT Chennai 2006

Intro:
WGT is an international gaming tourney. Its one of the world's largest game tournaments held in 26 countries around the world. Its a rapidly growing tournament that has attracted the elite players to compete against each other for the title of World GameMaster. WGT has come to India or atleast to the Southern part of India. And I’m sure that it will extend to entire India next year. Now that the official intro is over, lets move on to our article. This is basically about WGT Chennai DotA, 2006, but with a difference. This isn’t gonna be like the text heavy articles (like my last one.. :p). This is gonna be a simple picture cum text format, showing or rather introducing to you, the influential players involved in the DotA division of the tourney that happenend in Chennai on 15th, 16th & 17th of this month. I chose this style for my article coz, this is the first national level DotA tourney & unlike CS, most DotA players haven’t met eachother & are unaware of the number of teams & players available. So, here is a quick intro to the Chennai DotA players… Say “Hai”…

The TEAMS:
There were totally 6 teams for DotA in Chennai. We expected more number of teams, but when it comes to grand tourneys, good teams join their best players together to form a single team. Hence, the number of teams that participated were almost half the total number of teams available in Chennai in normal times. The teams were Gdn, Roar, GO, Birds, BFG, and BD. I’ll start off with very quick intros to BFG & BD and then I’ll move on to others.. Here are short links to the teams u wanna go to, if u don’t have the time to check em all out….

BD:
First & foremost, v have BD. I think the name was derived from their captain’s nick, though I’m not sure. He is called ‘Blue Dragon’. They are a bunch of gamers who are regulars at the café ‘Zap’, where the tournament was held. They usually participate in most of the local DotA tourneys here. Its lotsa fun playing with them as BD has a good sense of humour & these guyz crack jokes throughout the game, regardless of the situation. I mean, its nice to have a relaxed environment during a tough tourney.

BFG:
Next we have, BFG. ‘Best Five Gamers’ is the expansion. They were an interesting group, mainly because, a few of them were meeting eachother in person for the first time!!! Actually, they are a bunch of online players, whom everyone knows very well online. But we got to meet them for the first time in WGT as they have never participated on LAN tourneys before. Their game was so damn different from the usual tournament games. Their line-up was different. Their style of play was different. U could call it the ‘Pub Style’, but it sometimes worked, or rather should I say, worked pretty well. I mean, its not everyday that you see Doom Bringer soloing in mid against Silencer & getting kills.. :s They played pretty well for their first try. They are a group to watch out for. Gokul is the player in their team, who registered his team & was basically there from the start. He is good. Actually, he plays online a lot. SandyChikku joined them from another café as he too plays online a lot. But unfortunately, I don’t know much about the other players..

Gdn:
From here onwards I’ll give the names of all the players involved with their pics. & we shall continue in the reverse order of the final positions in WGT. In simple words, Gdn came Fourth..  Since this is my personal team, I can explain a little bit more about their personal style too. Gdn means Guardians. Gdn is headed by Spk & consists of Arch3r, Maximus, TD (myself) and Siva. Then there are other players in our team who never make it to any tourneys. They are Wolve, 00, . & Scribbler & Anton. Spk is Praveen Kumar & is the elder most player in our active team & therefore is also our leader. He is our replay addict & therefore also our knowledge bank. Arch3r is Raja & he is a gaming prodigy, but is a dumb kid in real life. He is the addict Agi player who knows nothing but hitting last shots. He has been cursed so many times online for ksing.. (Kill Stealing). Then v have our good old Maximus (real name: Vijay) who is simply a gaming addict. Or rather a multiplayer gaming addict. He loves playing online & when he practices a hero, he becomes a God with it. He is best left alone.. Hai!! I’m TD. My name is Deepak. I juz love playing games and in DotA I like to be the team’s ‘Sacrificial Goat’.. :p Siva is simply Siva. He is a new recruit in our team as we had to pick him up juz weeks before the tourney since we lacked players. He is a nice guy, but needs to learn a lot about DotA.. :p Then we have . (pronounced as DOT)..:p His name is Ganesh & is our Guru in Gaming. He kinda retired now. Next is Wolve (Karthik), Vijay’s big brother. He is a good player but the Big Bro has lotsa arrears in his college to attend to & hence stopped attending tourneys.. :p 00 (Riaz) is working now & hence stopped playing. Scrib is rather a famous personality online & in our forums. He has too many nicks like Mad, Abk, Bak, Riddler, etc…. Since he wasn’t even able to stick to one good nick, we kicked him out of our active team :p He is a good gamer though. Anton is the type u call ‘World’s Child’, coz nobody knows where he is or when he may come. He comes & goes as he wishes, but is a superb gamer basically.

Birds:
Birds came third. They are a bunch of gamers from a different café. I believe they were basically formed by Jiiraiya, who is again a famous personality in our forums & online. They played pretty well. Jiiraiya is well versed in the strategies involved in DotA. This is mainly because, he has spent hours together practicing & trying different combos. He plays a lot against teams like Roar to improve his strategies. Basically, it’s the strategy that wins you the game. Next, you really should check this guy out; his nick is ‘GoD MoDe’ & his real name is Ben Anra. The guy plays damn well with Necro’lic. He farms well with most heroes. Then there is Punisher, who again farms like crazy. When these guyz finish farming, you very well know that the game is over. GG time!! Others are Rashneeth, Alex Thomas and Sami.

GO:
Everyone knows them as Agents, but they recruited a few new players & became GO. They are the favorites from ‘Zap’. They are the most successful team in Chennai till date, as they play both DotA & CS and a few other games too. Their main strategist is Jai Prasad, also known as Burn. He is mostly their mastermind. He is a GodLike Gamer… His team plans & strategies are very good & his microing skill is again, excellent. Then they have Ghillli (real name: Zaki). He is this tall, well built player whom u don’t wanna mess around with. He was very famous for his farming and his role in the team with Treant (an old strategy by the Agents). Then we have Shawn, their team leader, who plays online a lot & knows most of the Big Shots… His real name is Narayan. He simply, plays a lot. Abilash is their new recruit. I think he was recruited for his incredible skills with Necro’lic. And I don’t doubt that, he is amazing. The guy simply gets 3 Heart of Tarrasque (HoT) and suicides into the enemy fountain & gets triple kill as the fountain hits him… It’s a sad sight & u don’t wanna see that happen to your team. Then they have Vasanthik. GO must be edging to comeback in the Grand Finals as they won once & lost twice to Roar in WGT. Keep an eye on these guyz in the Finale…

Roar:
Last but not the least, the Winners of WCG Chennai, 2006 - DotA Division – Roar. Its headed by Erised (Rahul Hinduja). He is a crazy gamer with lotsa time in his hands. He goes all out when it comes to gaming. He contacts people & arranges matches & can be seen very active in our forums (mostly fighting with Tanya)…. He knows his game & has become famous for his Jakiro gameplay. Then comes the, quiet & dangerous ‘DemiGod’… As the name suggests, he is exactly that. U wouldn’t wanna play against him unless u were looking for some real tough challenge. He is a ownage ‘Chen’ player & is known for his amazing microing skills.. His real name is ‘Abhinav Subramanium’. These 2 take a lane together & that lane is mostly raped by em… Then v have Medi, the Chinese guy, who is an amazing Agi player. His name is Anthony Chang. They say he was a noob when they chose him for their team, but no one would say that now. When he farms, he farms.. Next on the list is Necron (Kashif Ahemed). He usually plays ‘Bane Elemental’, (that’s my Hero.. :@) and lanes with Sk. Nightmare & 2 ultis.. I don’t even wanna think about it. Then we have Phobia (Zayd Tanveer). He plays Crixalis (Sand King) mostly, but got really famous for his play with Enchantress in the finals. 2 consecutive games with the same hero in finals & came up with HoT both the times. Its sad to see a HoT on Enchantress with Repel in an early game push. :’( That’s what u call a GG… All in all, a pretty good team who have all the chances in the world to become the WGT champions in India.

Final Comments:

“Both Talking and Writing are signs of those who have failed. Those who are engaged in fighting have no time for these and those who are successful keep quiet. –Lusin”
Sadly, this is my position right now. But anyway…..

Take this also as my credit line as I thank the WGT site for most of the pics that I have used here. This is rather like an introduction to the Chennai DotA Gamers. And be sure that you will be seeing more action from these guys… I’ll get more infos next time & if possible, we will get a short interview as well. Hope to meet these guyz again in another National level DotA event. If I do go to Mumbai to witness the Grand Finals of this event, I’ll get you guyz a good story basically about the event. This time, I had to concentrate on my team & therefore didn’t even witness the entire event. That’s why I had to format the article this way. Anywayz, till then, have a Great Time Gaming…. Good Luck & Have Fun!!!