That’s so funny, Sweden had a similar thing going with Goldie Hawn movies! After The Girl From Petrovka was translated literally (“Tjejen från Petrovka”), the next 8 out of 11 Goldie Hawn movies had their titles changed and translated as “Tjejen som…”(The girl who…) despite having nothing else in common apart from being comedies.
The Big Bounce theory isn’t particularly new, but it’s fascinating to see more recent contributions and work on it. I am happy it still is under active investigation and hasn’t been disproven, as I find the idea of an endless heartbeat of the universe much more beautiful and less depressing than a Big Bang followed by heat death of the universe.
Apparently Rule 34 art of said goblin outnumber art of all the rest of the cast combined. Not a review per se, but… at least the playerbase seem to share your enthusiasm?
A revival would only be the appropriate term for Chinese and CIS Dota, to be honest. SA, NA and SEA scenes seem to have actually developed the last say, five years. Just not enough to offset the downfall of China and CIS.
Agreed! I really hope they take it against Falcons tomorrow (though it will be a tall order). Liquid and GG are probably playing the best Dota right now (and have been for a while), but C9 is definitely the team I enjoy cheering for the most.
You’re right about game one actually, 33 being a complete menace on SK did steal the spotlight a bit, and again there were multiple fights were it felt like C9 were so close to coming out on top.
Liquid especially has a bit of a record of choking in finals/semi finals so it wouldn’t surprise me at all. Though I hope they at least put up a good performance this time, even should they lose.
Sadly probably correct. Hopefully I’m wrong and it’s just a case of motivation, but he has not been looking his best ever since China this year. Based on last year I thought he had a few more in him, but it might be the case that he’s finally starting to slip now. He might have a shot in '26 if Newey and Honda hit it out the park, but that is it.
I can’t believe Basically Homeless was proved right about butt breathing.
I remember reading about these ideas twenty years ago, and it seems we still don’t understand them well enough for it to sound like a great idea. I know, desperate times call for desperate measures and all that and it’s not like we’re not running out of time, but this seems like playing with fire.
So “läderlapp” is an old Swedish slang or colloquialism for bat. Back in the 50s when Batman was first brought to Sweden English literacy was a lot worse than it is now, and translating titles and names were much more common. A direct translation of Batman would be “fladdermusmannen” - which is a very unwieldy name - so they settled for a then-more-common slang for “the bat”. It does sound a little better, though it would have been best to just do what finally happened from the 80s and let Batman remain untranslated.
Liquid ended up taking it 2-0 versus C9, but there were moments during the second game where it looked like C9 could almost hold their own. I hope they stay a bit longer in the lower bracket, I still really enjoy their drafts and gameplay.
Liquid though, woof. They look unbelievably good right now and Nisha looks in absolute top form. Is he the best player in the world right now?
I would call it a mix of sealioning and concern trolling. Also be mindful of direct accusations as this person also enjoys reporting people for the slightest perceived rules infractions.
Not included in the headline: new players will now only be matched with other new players until they achieve 4 wins. I don’t think this patch will have completely solved matchmaking (since they already admitted last week that MMR was not working well and that wasn’t addressed) but I think stuff like this, the behaviour system and low priority queue will have a great impact that was sorely needed.
That’s possible, and that’s always been a thing at TI. If a team has a specific and weird playstyle and hero pool and is forcing other teams to adapt to them, that often ends up being a huge advantage. Not just by forcing mistakes, but also opening up drafts by forcing respect bans.
I do think Liquid are favourites, but I hope C9 puts up a good fight. No[o]ne has been looking hot, and I really like the supports on C9. Fishman is a really interesting player and Kataomi had some insane games in the group stage.
Isn’t orange good and green bad in terms of colour blind friendliness? I might have been misinformed.
Been looking forward to that all week, they’re my favourite teams to watch right now. C9 have maybe been the most interesting team of the tournament for me, doing stuff like Watson Invoker and picking Winter Wyvern and Bane.
Matchmaking changes should be good, that’s the first thing that stood out to me. Lots of good changes like the behaviour system and low priority queue. Lots of map changes too, will have to go in game to get a feel for those. The change from Orange lane to Green seems random to me, anyone have an idea of why this change was made?
Must feel shitty for Logan, too.
Tough for BB team, but Falcons are just a size too big for them. They did put up a better showing in game 2, but even then it felt like there was a gulf of skill between the teams. Falcons demonstrating Centaur’s cart as a Doom counter was cool to watch. It’s too bad they’re this good, as I deeply dislike Saudi sportswashing.
I’m afraid that’s just reality. I think as far as China goes, a big part of the decline is due to mobile gaming becoming the de facto most popular type of gaming there.
The pro scene also feels very different compared to say, 8-10 years ago. I can’t explain in words how much I miss The Summit.