Our day of BETWAY Midas Mode 2.0 semifinals kicked off with a bizarre but entertaining match-up between The International 1-winning Natus Vincere’s roster and the mercenary stream dream team of Sir Sadim’s Stunners. And although the games would be long and hard-fought, the Stunners were eventually able to triumph over the legendary Na’Vi stack.
SirActionSlacks was forced into action by the demands of Na’Vi’s TI1 Stack. (Image via DreamHack)
The day started with several tournament rule changes, as Sir Sadim announced all playoff matches would be played under “Hard Mode.” This would introduce some economic reforms which would increase the cost of some of the most popular heroes in the tournaments skyrocketing into the thousands. The most expensive hero, Tiny, was now 2677x more costly than the cheapest, Clinkz. Bounties were also doubled in price, to make purchasing these heroes a bit more achievable, with four additional bounties added, for a total of 10.
Before one of the most technical and confusing drafts of the tournament, we found out that Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich unable to compete for Na’Vi. As a result, Clement “Puppey” Ivanov made some demands, first asking Na’Vi and the Stunner’s Moonbuck amounts be reset to 250 and 500 respectively. The plan seemed to be force a situation where each team had only one or two good heroes and then rely on Twitch chat to pick the rest.
For their second demand, Na’Vi insisted on tournament organizer Jake “SirActionSlacks” Kanner be their replacement player, with the caveat being that he had to pick Techies. Twitch chat attempted to foil this, using their community ban on the Techies, but it was not to be.
As the draft started in earnest, Sir Sadim’s Stunners used a bounty to allow Twitch chat to pick their first hero, netting themselves 300 Moonbucks, and selecting an almost normal team comp. Na’Vi, on the other hand, spent all their money on Puck, and then demanded that Twitch chat pick them Slarder and Sniper. Amazingly Na’Vi got their draft, with Danil “Dendi” Ishutin having fantastically manipulated Twitch chat into picking them an ideal team. Unfortunately, though the first game loaded with the admin panel, and Troels “syndereN” Nielsen immediately proceeded to press all the buttons.
Because this issue couldn’t be resolved, and the game was eventually played on the normal Dota 2 map, with technical problems further compounded by Discord being down worldwide during the first match. As the match finally started, Slacks on his Techies immediately made his presence known, picking up an early courier snipe and a kill with some help from Puppey.
As the game continued, Dendi began to crush his lane, showing the dominance of Sniper. For the Stunners, Alaan “SexyBamboe” Faraj looked to go for the Dagon and Brown Boots bounty, while Janne “Gorgc” Stefanovski started to get super fed on his Dragon Knight. However, nothing the Stunners attempted could prepare them for Slacks showing off his Techies skills.
But little mistakes started to mount, and although Sadim’s Stunners couldn’t push, their gold lead meant that any time they grabbed a kill or two, they were able to take structures. That is, apart from in mid, where the Techies had set up tremendous amounts of mines. After spotting this minefield with a sentry though, the Stunners pushed through.
Bambo went AFK in river trying to pick up the Fish bounty, giving the Na’Vi stack + slacks a chance. However, they couldn’t, and after five minutes, the Stunners picked up yet another bounty and looked to push into a heavily mined and fortified Radiant base. And after 37 minutes, Sir Sadim’s Stunners picked up the win.
For game two, the Moonbuck amounts were reset to the 250 and 500 level again. Additionally, Techies was banned, and Slacks was forced onto his Omniknight, another free pick for the Na’Vi side. With limited money remaining, Na’ vi grabbed the cheapest hero on offer, Clinkz, and immediately switched back to threats. Puppey demanded “Tiny or the Machete,” from the Twitch chat, who once again caved, giving them the most expensive hero in the tournament.
In game, Na’Vi’s picks looked like they’d be very effective, until almost immediately, their top lane was double killed, and their bot lane Omniknight, played by Slacks, found itself zoned out by Axe. Sir Sadim’s Stunners appeared to get overconfident, and found themselves caught out in several spots.
And these over commitments started to stack up, as Na’Vi began to take the lead. After a messy set of traded kills, they began to take control of the game. Suddenly the power of Na’Vi came online, and the raw pushing power seemed to be too much for Sadim’s Stunners to handle. Even if the Stunners could grab kills, they were losing structures, and the game was counting down to their loss.
Sir Sadim’s Stunners only hope was to scale till late game, and after 10 minutes of furious farming, they finally looked like they could take the game. Every time the old-school Na’Vi stack attempted to push in, the Stunners were able to pick off a single player and scupper the whole thing. With a Zeus able to drop Nimbuses anywhere he wanted, the Stunners had complete control.
Dendi tried to beg his opponents to leave the base alone and win a “real fight.” But the Stunners refused the mercy and finished out the game by diving the fountain and killing Na’Vi on cooldown, wrapping up one of the most chaotic series in Midas Mode history.
