Evil Geniuses: The pride of America

Team Evil Geniuses’ Dota 2 squad is riding high on a string of big victories. They’ve recently taken first place in both the MLG T.K.O Tournament and the Monster Energy Invitational with a combined prize pool of $24,000. They’re making waves and shaking things up not just in the American scene, but the whole Dota 2 world. Now let’s meet the team who are not just making it big on their home turf, but changing how the game is played all over the world.

Artour “Arteezy” Babaev

The boy wonder of the squad known as “A-God” or “RTZ” to his thousands of fans is Evil Geniuses’ Canadian 16 year-old mid player Arteezy. Since hisdominating performance at MLG Columbus as a stand in for Speed Gaming’s international squad, which saw him handily defeat many strong players, he has rose in prominence to become one of the most respected mid players in the world. He is particularly well-known for his very conservative mid-farming strategy, which sees him embark on a war of attrition rather than aggression commonly on heroes heroes like Naga Siren and Shadowfiend.

Peter “ppd” Dager

Evil Geniuses’ captain, like many current Dota 2 professional players, comes from a Heroes of Newerth background. Having started his gaming career in HoN, in late 2013 he made the move to Dota 2. During this initial period in Dota 2 he met his EG team mate Zai when he played for team StayFree. Since joining Evil Geniuses he has taken the role of captain well into his stride, implementing inventive drafting decisions with devastating results for his enemies. With his strong support play on heroes like Crystal Maiden and Treant Protector, ppd is the backbone of team EG in more ways than one.

Saahil “Universe” Arora

Universe is Evil Geniuses’ highly-decorated off-lane player. His constant quality as a player is reflected by the fact that he is one of the select few players in the Dota 2 scene to have competed in all three of Valve’s prestigious Internationaltournaments. His strong, consistent play is probably a big part of why he has changed teams more than others over the course of his Dota 2 career, being head-hunted several times. With his teamfight control on heroes like Clockwerkand Dark Seer often nigh on peerless, Universe it set to remain as an integral asset of the Evil Geniuses team.

Ludwig “Zai” Wåhlberg

Zai is a bit of an enigma in the Evil Geniuses line-up. The only player in the team not from North America, the Swedish player may seem an odd fit for the American organisation. This oddity is compounded by the fact that Zai is not a flashy player, you wont find him on Youtube show reels. But with ppd vouching for him after their past together in HoN, and him sharing common-ground with Arteezy by being two of the youngest players in the scene (he is also 16), he has quickly settled in to the EG team. With his inventive play on up-and-coming heroes like Wraith King, as well as his micro on heroes like Visage, there’s not much chance of Zai being replaced by an American any time soon.

Clinton “Fear” Loomis

Fear is a titanic force in the American Dota 2 scene. As one of the oldest players in the Dota 2 scene, he is known as “old man fear” to his fans at the ripe old age of 26. One of the most experienced players in the whole scene, Fear has a long history in both Dota 2 and the original Dota game. Since 2011 though he has been the stalwart player of each and every Evil Geniuses Dota 2 lineup. Such is his commitment to the team, in different iterations he has switched roles from carry to support and back, while still performing at a world-class level. Now he plays the carry role for Evil Geniuses where he is known for his dominating play on heroes like Sven and Weaver.

Guide time: Dota 2 – Stacking and Pulling

Stacking and pulling are two techniques you can use to weasel yourself a small advantage in terms of gold, experience and even lane control, and usual take place in the opening stages of a game. Stacking involves moving the neutral creeps away from their spawn point, to achieve a double spawn. But why would you want to use this sneaky tactic?

Simple stacking

Stacking has the advantage of a large experience or gold boost in a short space of time, which can be beneficial for carry players if they are adequately farmed. Not all carries want their camps stacked early though! Luna for example is incredibly proficient at taking stacks quite early into the game, due to her ability Moon Glaive.

To explain how this works in game we can imagine two different scenarios. The first is where your Luna has very good farm and gets a Helm of the Dominator early, which she will then use to control a neutral creep and use this creep to stack the ancients. The other scenario is one in which the Luna is under-farmed. In this scenario the supports should stack the other easier neutral camps for Luna in order to enable her to catch up on the farm she is missing by going on a blitzkrieg. Other heroes that benefit from stacking are any jungling heroes or heroes that have area of effect abilities and include Batrider, Axe, and Chen.

Perfect pulling

Stacking can also be used to deny the enemies a whole creep wave of experience. This is known as pulling. This trick is done by firstly stacking the camps (highlighted on the map in light blue), and then pulling these camps into the lane with the right timing. At first this may seem like a daunting task, but there is a trick to this manoeuvre! If you look on the map there are gaps in the tree-line (marked with red on the map). If you fire off an attack at the neutrals at exactly the time that the creep wave reaches these positions then run into the lane with the creeps following (going in the direction of the black arrows) you will pull.

A mistake committed often by newer players is attempting to pull with only one stack. This error is often overlooked but it is quite fundamental because you end up with the opposite of lane control. You don’t bring the creep wave back to your tower, you push. This happens because usually a single spawn of neutrals won’t be able to destroy your creep wave entirely and a few will be left over increasing the size of your creep wave. This is fine if you have strong pushing heroes on your team and you want to get early towers, but usually what you get is pushing the lane your carry is farming in.

This mistake is damaging because it has three separate negative effects. Firstly you don’t deny as much experience because your creep wave isn’t completely destroyed. Secondly it prevents your carry from getting farm easily because the creep wave is moving away from the safety of his tower. Thirdly and most importantly it pushes the creeps up to the enemies towers, meaning they can get more. The message to take from this is: don’t single stack pull.

Chain-pulling for chumps

But if you have an ability that removes trees (including tangos) up your sleeves there is another trick you can use to avoid the dreaded jumbo creep-wave, and that is chain-pulling. Chain-pulling is using one creep-wave to take out multiple camps. The technique pulls the creeps from one camp to the initial camp which is fighting the creeps you pulled (the two highlighted in white on the Radiant safe-lane above the light blue camp). You don’t have to stack the subsequent camp you are pulling to, but you do have to be able to destroy the trees. This is so that you have enough time to transfer the creeps from one camp to the next.

A chain-pull then is achieved simply by using a tango to destroy a tree at the back of the initial camp (light blue), and pulling the above camp (white) down to the first camp. This must be timed so that while the neutrals from the (white) camp are attacking your pulled creep-wave, the last creep from the first spawn-point (light blue) dies. This process can then be repeated to kill nearby camps. It’s not simple, but with practise it’s possible to destroy up to three camps on the trot, getting your heroes farm and experience they might not usually be able to get.

These are the basics of safe-lane stacking and pulling, but there are more difficult pulls (shown in purple) for you to master which can be chain-pulled to further maximise your gold and experience intake. When these techniques are fully utilised they can be used to give your team increased map control and increase your chances of eventually winning the game. Especially when you’re playing support the safe-lane pull is one of the key weapons in your arsenal to take back lane control. To get yourself and your carry much needed levels and gold, these are tactics which shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Easy Guide to E-sports Jargon.

Whether you’re a noob (new player) or a seasoned veteran of E-sports, jargon is everywhere in this gosu (highly-skilled) hobby. Here are just a few of the terms that we think are needed to enjoy the basics of E-sports. They’re handily separated into general and game-specific phrases.

General Phrases

• Frag – A kill
• GG – “Good game”: used at the end of the game usually in a sportsmanlike manner, like tennis players shaking hands.
• gl hf – “Good luck, have fun”: another sportsmanlike term used at the start of the game, also as a tip of the hat to your competitors.
• Mana/energy – Ammunition for magical spells/abilities.
• Noob – New player, usually the person saying this doesn’t like you.
• Uber – German for super, used to describe something epic.
• OP/broken – “Over-powered”, refers to a part of the game the commentator or player believes is unnecessarily strong.
• UP – “Under-powered”, the opposite of OP.
• Nerfed – Anything in the game which has had its strength reduced, often these are spells/abilities/strategies that were considered to be “OP” by the community.
• Stomp – A decisive or one-sided victory, like taking candy from a baby.
• On Tilt – Taken from poker, this phrase refers to a player that is performing badly.
• All In – Another one from poker, a strategy usually used as a last measure which either succeeds fabulously or fails miserably.

Starcraft II phrases

• Micro – “Micro management”:  Controlling specifics units or small groups of units.
• Macro – “Macro management”: Management of overall economy/strategy, rather than controlling specific units.
• BO – “Build order”: This means the order in which the player constructs his buildings, which indicates the strategy that the player is going for.
• Timing attack – An attack aimed to coincide with specific temporary strategic benefits.
• Gosu – A Korean word which originally meant highly skilled, but is jokingly referred to as an acronym of “God of Starcraft Universe”.
• Foreign/Foreigner – Any non-Korean professional player, South Korea is the cradle of Starcraft II, so players not from Korea aren’t received fantastically.

Dota 2/ League of Legends phrases

• Gank – A surprise attack or minor skirmish meant to kill a player.
• Heroes/Champions – Units controlled by the player in the game.
• Team-fights – a full-scale battle between most of the players of both teams. Usually awesome.
• Ultimate – Each hero/champion has an ultimate ability which is usually their most powerful, used properly they can be devastating in team-fights.
• Push – A strategy which revolves around taking strategic objectives rather than killing enemy players.
• Split-push – A strategy which revolves around different players taking different strategic objectives at once.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive phrases

• ‘Nade/Frag – A grenade thrown to kill an opposing player.
• Flash – A grenade which creates a flare of light, which can blind your enemies.
• Smoke – A grenade which creates a billowing cloud of smoke that a player can hide in.
• Fast-plant – A strategy in which the terrorist team quickly try to plant the bomb, a “smash and grab” style strategy.
• Eco – When one team is losing they sometimes have to buy cheaper weapons than they would usually because they have less money, this is known as an “eco round”.

The International 2013

Ten young people sit down to play a computer game, but this isn’t just for fun, they are playing for over 1.4 million dollars.

The two teams of players are sat in two sound-proofed booths, to make sure they can’t hear the roar of the commentators or the crowd during the games. Behind these booths lie masses of wires, indiscernible to the untrained eye, yet placed so the staff who hurry to and fro can tend to the vast amount of technology. This tournament is taking place in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, the home of the Seattle Symphony, which seats 2,500. It’s full. This might not seem so impressive at first, 2,500 people for a total prize pool of over 2.8 million dollars? But this isn’t simply an American event, the clue is in the title. This is The International, the third yearly international tournament of American games developer Valve’s Dota 2. The proceeding are being streamed via the internet in English, Chinese, Korean, Russian and more to over 1 million viewers.

We’ve entered the world of competitive gaming, known to those involved as “e-sports”. In this realm players, commentators and even journalists aren’t referred to by their birth names, but their online nicknames. Estonian player, Clement “Puppey” Ivanov is team captain of Natus Vincere, one of the teams in the grand finals of the tournament. Twenty-three year old Puppey, at over six and a half feet tall matches his stature with a blasé yet determined personality. When asked about his opponents in the grand finals, he remarks casually: “you know, they’re the best team in the world… right now”. This laid back attitude epitomises the mentality of team Natus Vincere (often shortened to Na’Vi) and is partly why they are considered to be fan favourites.

It might seem ridiculous that such vast amounts of money are given as a prize for such a primitive pursuit, but gaming has come a long way from the days of Pong. The game that is being played on this stage is Dota 2, the sequel to the hugely successful Defence of the Ancients, which was a community-made modification of another game, Warcraft 3. Dota 2 is being developed by Valve corporation, the company behind the massively influential half-life series of games, and the developers of the world’s foremost digital distribution service, Steam. It’s hugely popular. With over six million players, and a peak of concurrent players (the total amount of players online at any one time) of over 600,000, it’s no surprise that Dota 2 is one of the most played and talked about games in the world right now. The CEO of Valve, Gabe Newell, made a bold statement at the the British Academy Games Awards. He said that Dota 2 is so large, that when the game receives an update, over 3 and a half terrabits per second of data is downloaded by users. To put this in context, he explains that 3 and a half terrabits per second “is about two percent of all mobile and land-based internet activity”. When Dota 2 releases an update, according to Gabe Newell two percent of all internet activity is simply people downloading the update.

The numbers are massive, which prompts the question of what kind of game is drawing all this attention? Dota 2 is an ARTS, or action real-time strategy game. This genre is itself an amalgamation of two different genres, action and real-time strategy. An easy starting point is to think of the game as a mixture of the cerebral strategy of chess with the fast-paced action of a sport like basketball. Similarly to chess there are pieces with different strengths and weaknesses, but unlike chess there aren’t only six types of pieces, there are hundreds. Before the match begins, both teams go through a drafting stage in which the two team captains take turns in picking five pieces for their team, and banning the other team from picking certain pieces. After all the pieces are picked, both teams engage in a battle to destroy the opposing teams base. There is no single sure-fire way to achieve this goal, allowing for many different approaches. Whatever the approach, the action is visceral and intense, with the potential winner of the game changing from minute to minute. It’s this surface-level action that gets the attention of so many players, but the vast complexity that is lying beneath is what keeps them interested over the long term.

Team Na’Vi’s approach is all-out aggression. Jonathan “Loda” Berg, one of the players from the opposing Swedish team Alliance, claims that “playing against Na’Vi is exhausting”. From the moment the final game begins Na’Vi wages unrelenting war upon their opponent. After each strategic victory they yell out to each other, revelling in the destruction they are wreaking upon their enemies. One of the commentators Ben “Merlini” Wu, says that this style is the reason why Na’Vi are such fan favourites. As the final game reaches its crescendo, the cheers from the crowd and hoarse commentators breach the booths. The best-of-five match is tied up at two games each. The atmosphere is tense. Will Na’Vi be able to break through Alliance’s defensive style? Or will Alliance fend off their attackers, in order to claim the title? Then it happens. Na’Vi make a crucial mistake that leaves their base defenceless for a short time, but just long enough for Alliance to deliver the final blow. They’ve just won over 1.4 million dollars. How does Puppey, the defeated captain of Na’Vi feel? “Most of the games were likely to be a stomp (a one-sided, decisive victory), the one who gets the advantage is going to roll with it. The fifth game was a pretty even game, with all sorts of crazy moves, and yeah… crazy.”