This is going to be a long post. If you don’t have time to read through it all, just watch the video I made at the bottom, thanks.
Since this is my first season in RD2l, I will give a quick introduction about myself. I’ve been playing Dota on and off for almost 7 years now (from Dota1). I don’t play ranked much (I have 6 ranked games since 2016 and have like 15 in total since 2014) and preferred having fun with my friends in unranked. I was at that point where my interest in Dota 2 was slowly fading and when I was browsing Reddit Dota2 I saw a post for a Dota 2 league for redditors. I hated playing SoloQ and have way more fun playing in 5 stacks competitively in small tournaments. Even if we lose, it was fun playing Dota the way it was meant to be, as a team game. I signed up for RD2l and quickly forgot about it. It was only when Tree sent me a friend request and told me to get on discord that I remembered about Rd2l. So I think that’s enough about me, I’ll start off with the player reviews
Truckwaffle:
One Line comment: Down to earth
One of the strongest assets of Truck is he eats bans like no other. Some games the enemy team uses almost all their bans on him which opens up a lot of our other comfort picks. As soon as I got on team discord I was welcomed with a meme that Cerys posted about Truck having a hero pool of Alch, Riki, Weaver and Clinkz. I was confused at first but then realized ‘twas not a meme when our scrims started as enemy teams always kept banning his 3 invis heroes. He can also play a mean Trollwarlord, Luna, Lifestealer and *drum rolls* void. No seriously his Void was extremely good in our first few games hitting amazing 4–5 man chronos. But then when we have a bad game on a hero, and we lose confidence in our ability to play that hero. I think bar the one game, he played really well on void. I like the Truck/Tree combo as both of them act as playmakers that dictate the tempo of the game. Both of them usually get a shadow blade or blink and kill heroes on opposite side of the map. Also as Tree and Cerys mentioned, the guy is incredibly PMA. Dota can be a very toxic game that brings out the worst in all of us but not Truck. Sometimes when we are 2 rax down, almost all of us lose hope but Truck would say the game is not over yet and that one line definitely helped me think the same. Also he appreciates a lot of stuff other players do, and simple appreciations like “Nice job”, “Good kill” goes a long way in boosting morale during games.
Note to Drafters (If truck decides to not captain):
Most of our games, we leave him alone in the offlane in a bad matchup and he still catches up. He is the type of carry player you want on your team if you have a superstar mid that you want your supports to focus on helping.
Personality: 100/100 Skill: 90/100 (90 because laning is your weakest part and this meta is defined by lanes)
KBX:
One line comment: Underrated and quiet
When we started our scrims, I knew I as a support had to understand who to enable the most in a match and understand the play styles of our players. It became quickly evident that I HAD to enable Treebeard as he was the one who acted as our playmaker/ Tempo controller. The result was One support focused on helping the offlane and one helping the safelane which leaves mid alone with no wards. We did not give him any help whatsoever, yet he has done well in the lane beyond what we expected of him. Being Low ancient in a league where teams often have their star immortal/divine players in mid can be very scary. He did not feed much kills to the much higher ranked players and often got something out of the lane. But his strength lies in his mid to late game play. KBX was very quiet during games but he did communicate important stuff like cooldowns etc which is all that matters.
Note to drafters:
Pick KBX if you want to focus on the side lanes and want a mid that will do decent in his lane against anyone. Has a small hero pool (around 10 heroes)
Personality: 95/100 Skill: 85/100 (Map awareness is your biggest weakness)
Treebeard:
One line comment: Ancient 5? LMFAO. God player right here ←
We all know his medal is a lie. If I had to rank him, he would probably be around Immortal ranked 1000, maybe higher if he actually tryhards. No really, I am not exaggerating when I say Tree is probably one of the most skilled players I’ve played with. I can totally understand why Truck first picked him too. He was the core of our team and does most of the shotcalling along with Truck. He has a good sense for the flow of each game and often makes plays around the map. He absolutely destroys his lane in even matchups and does much better than we expect even in bad matchups. I can keep praising him but I’ll try to talk about something else. It is true that he calls everyone shit in his pre game scouts but he was never rude to us. Even when we made mistakes, he would just say “you should have done that instead of this” and not bring it up again. He does not whine about your mistakes which made him lose lane and often gives valuable advice to supports on where to play on the map and where he wants vision, what he wants to do in the next 5 minutes etc.
Note to drafters:
He is the superstar kind of player that you want to draft your team around. Enable him and he will carry you the game. That’s what worked for me atleast. He is very similar in playstyle to Optic.33 where the offlane is the real carry and playmaker.
Personality: 95/100 Skill: 100/100
racc9:
One line comment: I will make every item and spell build work because I am ben “god” dotes.
I completely agree with Treebeard’s player review. racc9 is THE most nicest person I’ve played Dota with. He does not get mad at all during games even if Truck/Tree or anyone else make mistakes. Not getting mad should not be confused with not caring at all and putting in no effort. He tries his best to win and has a pretty big hero pool. Him+Tree in the offlane was our success combo for the first half of the season with Tree on Axe or LC and racc on Sky or lesh and they just destroy every safelane even if it’s a trilane. He comes in clutch and makes plays constantly. He does very unique item and skill builds but mostly makes it work E.g: He made max power cogs clockwerk work somehow.
Note to Drafters:
racc9 is the type of pos 4 you want to draft if you want to draft a greedy pos 5. I am naturally a pos 4 player and so it sometimes shows in my games where I don’t buy wards as much but racc9 got me. This does not mean he has only wards, he somehow finds farm and items and still helps with warding and smokes. I feel we both complement each other really well and I’m sure he’ll complement any other greedy 5 you draft.
Personality: 100/100 Skill: 93/100 (93 because sometimes you seem to space out and walk in with low hp and die xd)
Cerys:
One line comment: Rapidly improving Archon sandbagger
Cerys is my pos 5 buddy with whom we often swap encouragement. We usually switch games and so I have not played much with her except the games where Tree didn’t show up and I played offlane or when racc didn’t show up and I played pos 4. I do always watch the games though and Cerys often gets the job done. Nothing more nothing less. You give her Oracle, she will save your core; You give her Warlock and she will get a good fatal bonds ult off. She is massively underrated for her badge and I would say she is probably high legend in skill level. One thing I do want you to work on is your positioning in teamfights. You sometimes like to get into the thick of things but as a support it’s better to stand at the very edge, use spells, back off and wait for cooldown. Outside of Dota, she is a great teammate who provides the right amount of cheerfulness, memes and encouragement in our team. She works really hard and always wants to learn and that’s something I love and respect about anyone.
Note to drafters:
Drafting Cerys for pos 5 is generally a very solid idea. As I said, she will get the job done. But one thing which helped cerys (and me) play better in our team was Truck/Tree constantly telling her where she should be on the map and captaining in general. Pick cerys along with a solid in game shotcaller and she will be a real value pick.
Personality: 97/100 (97 because sometimes if we lose bad enough, you turn into a different person and question why you play dota. Don’t, everyone gets stomped every now and then) Skill: 80/100
Sharingan(myself):
One line comment: Pos 4 player who loves to be flashy
I feel like this was the ideal team for me. I wanted to be on a team that is chill and friendly but also very skilled at the same time. They should be open to discuss mistakes after a bad loss but also provide encouragement after good wins. Each player should be able to carry games on his own when others have bad games and also be able to work as a team to pull off incredible comebacks from mega creep situations. I will really miss this team and I really hope I can play with any of my teammates again next season. I only wish Truck picked me more Rubick (if only the hero was not so bad at laning but I feel I did not show what I am capable of yet on that hero). Also I’ve seen my name pinged on discord a few times, so I’ll answer some common questions. I can play every single hero in the game including Meepo (actually one of my favorite heroes), Chen etc The satanic on io was a really fun scrim we had vs Clare where I got good levels on Io and got the gpm talent early. I had a maelstorm and took the Attack tethered ally target to help my carry lifestealer beat a PL lategame. I remember one lategame fight where Truck was dying and I turned on satanic and clicked one PL among many and somehow I found the right one :D (Lifesteal doesn’t work on illusions if any of you are wondering) and that healed my lifestealer from 5% to 100 and won us the fight. That was one of my favorite moments in this season.
Note to drafters:
I would love to play along with a sacrificial pos 6 support (to complement my greedy playstyle) and a solid in game shotcaller who has a idea on how to play Dota; Not just randomly saying “lets smoke now guys”. I want a captain that understands power spikes, dead lanes, and generally when the draft gets over, have a mental image of how the game should go. Truck and Tree both did this and I would love someone else to do it too next season. Also as Redground said in his review, I like players who push the limits of their hero, not just be content with using their spells and surviving. I feel everyone on this team pushed the limits of their heroes and that’s very important to winning.
Also here are some really old Dota 2 montages I made when I wanted to get noticed by some of my local Dota teams:
Captains can use this as a measure to judge my skill level and I’ve only gotten better since making these videos 3 years ago.
Personality: I’m generally quiet but will use mic for calling out important stuff
Skill: Depends on the shotcaller I play with
Also as a Tribute I made a montage video for my awesome teammates, surprise guys! (Sorry if I left out lots of cool plays you would have made, I was only able to remember and find replays for some games)
It was really nice playing with you all and I hope I can play with any of you next season or if not, play with new people who are as awesome as each of you are. Like Joker from team redground, I recently moved from India to USA too and I don’t have many friends here, so it’s really nice I got to know some people here even if they are online. Until next time guys.