IG.V UPDATE
Before I get into this story, I just want to update on some of the news from yesterday. I mentioned that Invictus Gaming Vitality was disqualified for abusing a patched bug which was absolutely disgusting. It seems that Valve agreed with me and a large portion of the community, as that disqualification has been deemed invalid by Valve, and they will now automatically be advancing to the closed regional qualifiers. I just want to say that I appreciate all of the people in the community that spoke out about Perfect World's horrifying judgment call.
Wind and Rain vs. Alliance
The most exciting series of the open qualifiers so far came from a place that I certainly didn't expect. Wind and Rain is a collection of mostly North American pubstars like Ritsu and Forev who registered to enter the European Open Qualifier. They found themselves matched up against Alliance, the winners of The International 3. Just recently, Alliance bid farewell to one of their oldest legends, Jonathan "Loda" Berg. There was still a community rooting for a resurgence of European Dota 2 talent in the form of the new Alliance roster, which makes it all the sweeter to see how it all ended.
Game One
https://clips.twitch.tv/CheerfulPlayfulBoar4Head
Game one of WaR vs. Alliance was a very fun, solid game of Dota 2. We saw WaR sort of struggling in the early-to-middle portion of the game. The Skywrath had a great time setting up kills along with the rest of his team, particularly the Beastmaster. All the way up to the 45-minute mark in the game, we saw Alliance's Phantom Assassin and Nature's Prophet leading the net worth charts handily.
https://clips.twitch.tv/FilthyPatientVelociraptorDatSheffy
And although Alliance managed to break high ground in the top lane and even secure a barracks in the bottom lane, Ritsu's Troll Warlord quickly got out of control and started carrying the game on his shoulders. We also saw a lot of work being done by Bryle's Dragon Knight due to the level 25 talent that makes Dragon Tail stun for 5 seconds. That disable lasted long enough to get the first kill on Phantom Assassin and secure the game in the end.
Game Two
Where Game One was a game of amazingly skilled Dota 2, game 2 was the funniest game I've ever seen. Alliance played very well as a whole, putting so much pressure on WaR that they could never even think about making their own plays. The only problem was Alliance's Qojqva on Lone Druid. This guy fed so many spirit bears and so many Helm of the Dominator creeps that he alone was keeping WaR in the game. There was a point early on where Forev's Mirana actually had the most net worth in the game despite losing the game in every other aspect.
https://clips.twitch.tv/ThankfulLittleGarlicDancingBaby
Qojqva's feeding wasn't quite enough to give WaR the game though. The Chen and Lone Druid simply set the tempo of the game too high for WaR's lineup to keep up with. Alliance basically won through the draft.
Game Three
But you know, those first two games were pretty much what you expect to see from Open Qualifier games, to be honest. Game Three of WaR vs. Alliance, on the other hand, was the best game of Dota I've seen in a while, and an ending on the caliber of NaVi vs. Alliance back at TI 3.
https://clips.twitch.tv/PerfectPrettySangUncleNox
The story of the early game was lots of pressure being created in the top lane, forcing rotations by Alliance constantly. The problem with that is that Ritsu's Lifestealer ended up being completely left alone for the entire first 15 minutes of the game. So while Alliance was getting kills and an overall gold advantage, WaR was funneling a lot of gold onto Ritsu and Bryle's Monkey King.
https://clips.twitch.tv/EnchantingTenaciousZucchiniPogChamp
Alliance kept up the pressure for the rest of the mid-game and secured a very large advantage. Any play that WaR tried to make seemed to all turn on them somehow, and it seemed as though Alliance was going to take the series 2-1.
https://clips.twitch.tv/PopularShakingBaconSmoocherZ
This advantage continued far into the late game, it just seemed that no matter what WaR did, they just couldn't get a foothold in the game. It wasn't until around the 50 minute mark that WaR's heroes finally started trading evenly in fights.
Most Important Clip -> https://clips.twitch.tv/FantasticBraveBottleCoolCat
But nobody could really recognize just what was happening until the very end. Three heroes had fallen without buyback on each team, and miCKe's Ember Spirit was trying to destroy the throne. Naga Siren scared the Ember and stalled all of the creeps, using Song of the Siren, just long enough for Ritsu's Lifestealer to arrive.
Ritsu uses his ultimate to finish off the last of the creep wave. Kitrak, playing Jakiro then respawned while Ritsu was fighting boxi's Brewmaster. Kitrak was able to hit an Ice Path along with a Liquid Fire on the ember. Liquid Fire cripples the attack speed of heroes hit by it, so miCKe's Ember couldn't end the game. With the Radiant Ancient at sub-1000 health, the creeps finish off the Dire Ancient on the other side of the map. Alliance is now eliminated from this Open Qualifier.
Alliance Are Back!!! In the Trashcan LUL
I've tried to highlight some moments in the game that I feel illustrate the tone of the game, but it is the most entertaining Dota 2 game I've seen in ages, I recommend you watch the entire thing if you're interested.
Watch GranDGranT's cast of it here
It's hard to even really express how badly Alliance messed up the third game. Wind and Rain were only ever in Alliance's base for a total of 3 seconds. This means that Alliance simply failed to control their wave to the point that the creeps alone took the tier 3 tower, the barracks, the buffer structures, the tier 4 towers, and the ancient. All without any help from any heroes. Must be soul-crushing for Alliance, but at least it gave us one hell of a Dota 2 game.