Teamo Day 1 - Accursed

Right from the start, there's room for improvement. We head out for the mid-lane scuffle, which is fine, but we make the common mistake of overstaying before splitting off to lane in no particular order. Our goal at the start of the game should be to clear the first wave of minions, get a pick or deal damage if we can do so safely, and rotate as soon as the wave's clear.


I must apologize here, for not thinking to suggest a pro-style four-man rotation. I've been wanting to try that, but I never think to bring it up. It's a strong, relatively safe approach that forces the opponent to match you or suffer. I think it would help us, especially on maps like Spider Queen.

Now, I was going to watch three games and break each one down, but the first one took too long and my writeup got crazy long. Plus, watching one loss and seeing why we lost was pretty cathartic. The others don't bother me as much now. I think we should have won this game, but also believe we deserved to lose for making too many unforced errors. The play-by-play treatment is sure to bore most people, so I'll list the key points at the start.

First, me. Ohmigosh. I think I played well in the early game, aside from a few missed heals, but overall my Malf needs serious work. I can't get used to having activateables. I need to either burn them into my memory or choose other talents. Pretty sure we'd have won if the only thing that changed was me pressing 1 and 2 periodically. I broke down over time, wandering out of position at key moments, but I think my biggest problem was having unused talents.

General tip. When facing Kerrigan, there are two things you need to do. Keep moving and dodge to the side. Over and over I saw people caught in the stun because Kerri would either drop it without a pull and catch stationary targets, or do the full combo by pulling directly in front of her. Every single time, we ran away in a straight line.

We chased too much and fought too much. Fights often went well, so it was tempting to keep it up. Our opponent wasn't good at staying alive, even with skills like Taz'dingo and ancestral healing. But they were kinda good at killing us, when we gave them a chance.

Don't sleep on Abathur. His lack of a body helped us win most of the team fights, but we didn't take his pushing seriously or give him any reason to fear being on our side of the map, even with Zeratul around.

I'm a terrible Zeratul and I could be wrong about all of this, but I think ours was too passive. He needed to do more consistent damage, weaving in basic attacks, instead of dropping his combo and jumping out until his cooldowns refreshed. Also, he didn't roam much. I think he should look for ganks and mismatches. Watch every lane and call none of them home. If you seem to appear at random, it strikes fear in our enemies' hearts.

We have to stay together. We did far better in fights when we were all around (as long as we weren't standing in Kerri's spikes) in a solid formation. We should always be looking to keep frontliners up front and backliners in the back. Obvious, but you tend not to think about it in the heat of battle.

We should call more things out. Enemy positions, how we're approaching an objective, whether we want to fight right now, etc.

Game 1 - Cursed Hollow

We go with Rexxar, Sonya, Falstad, Zeratul and Malfurion against Anub'arak, Kerrigan, Zul'jin, Rehgar and Abathur. Bit of a strange composition for both teams. We have double warrior, but no true tank, and our frontline isn't designed to stay up front for any length of time. If the bear dies, we need to disengage. Anub doesn't specifically counter us, but we don't have enough basic attack damage to hard counter him. Their frontline is stronger and built to dive, with way more CC than we have. Three stuns and a slow vs. our one stun and a root.

Still, we have them outnumbered six bodies to four in most cases, allowing for quite a bit of kill potential. This match should come down to our ability to control the objective vs. Abathur's ability to split-push.

At level 1, Falstad takes Seasoned Marksman to make Anub's life a living Hell. Anub elects to shield his beetles against ability damage, forgoing the usual Dampen Magic/Nerubian Armor. Rehgar buffs the frontline with Lightning Bond, a great source of sneaky damage.

We send all five to the middle lane, while the Anub'athur duo head bot, basically daring us to score a kill. Kerrigan dives and dies. All too easy. We take substantial damage from the Kerri stun and Zul's axes, but it's nothing Malf can't handle. The wave cleared, Falstad flies top, Rexxar goes bot and we're off to a fine start. My only nitpick here is that we could have clearly communicated what was happening. Fal and Rex are good solo laners, easily the best on our team, and the remaining three can cover mid well enough. Zeratul can also roam at this point, which is probably the best move. He's scariest when you don't see him.

Kerrigan goes top upon reviving. She or Anub would be excellent gank targets. 2v1 is much better than 3v2, especially when you know the healer is mid. Mind you, this sort of analysis is far easier while watching a replay. I don't pretend to know what to do in a game most of the time. Zer stays mid and jumps Zul, who only has to leave the lane briefly thanks to Rehgar and his own self-heal. Meanwhile, Rex nearly kills Anub. If Zer jumps in there, especially after Anub burns his only escape just to get back to the middle of the lane, that's a dead bug. Then you only have Aba, who can't directly oppose a push. In hindsight, this was a chance to put early pressure on a lane and make Aba work to hold his position. Simply knocking down the wall and towers here opens a clear path for Zer to wreck Aba.

Once Rex hits bottom, he can see mines, locusts and a hat on Anub. Clearly, Abathur's in this lane. I don't recall whether anyone called out his location here or at any other point, but it's a good idea.

So, mid's a stalemate, and we're winning bot. Sort of. OK, it's about even. Zer heads top, where Kerri is outplaying Fal. On her arrival, an overextended Fal barrel rolls to prevent ravage. Then, with his escape on a long cooldown, he aggressively pursues his opponent, falling prey to the Kerrigan combo. Still fearing ravage, with good reason now, he escapes again, tapping the well to recover. Fine, fine. Lesson learned, Kerrigan's dangerous, even to a ranged attacker. Keen as I am to see a slug sweat, all either of our solo laners need to do is soak safely and minimize pressure.

Instead, Falstad goes back in, hard. He closes to melee range for lightning rod, Kerri drops everything on him, and he dies to her as easily as she died to the five of us in mid. Zer is too late and can only cover the lane until Fal's return. One alternative would have been for Zer to hide in a bush while Fal pulled a B&Z. Best case scenario, Kerri overextends and dies again. Worst case, Fal's probably not dead.

Ker and Zer head mid, separately, while Reh goes top. Poor rotation there (Ker/Reh), and it only gets worse in a minute. Sonya gets caught in the combo and has to flee. Fortunately, they lack the damage to reliably burst us down. I root Ker and Zul while Zer comes in to give them something to think about as they tunnel vision on Sonya. Unfortunately, we lack the damage to reliably burst them down, and everyone gets away.

The first tribute spawns at 2:30, as always, and this one's way down bot. Our three mid all tap and head down. Fal's a bit far to join us and flight's down, so he should stay top. Keeping Reh there or pushing is as valuable as anything.

Catching up with bot lane, we see Anub doing all he can to impale himself upon our gates. To his credit, his bullish efforts run Rex out of mana while helping Aba build a nice minion push. It's a credit to Rexxar's strength that he's able to withstand the 2v1 so well. But now he's in a bad spot. He's already tapped, so he needs to hearth, but he can't leave Aba and the tribute's coming and... Meanwhile, Anub limps away to hearth, knowing his lane is covered. We probably should have adopted a 2-2-1 split here, daring them to push mid in exchange for shoring up bot. Between 2v2, 3v2 and 2v1, the latter's your strongest push.

To recap, we each have one top. Our team has four heroes near the trib, theirs has two. We should take it easily, zoning Ker and Zul so Anub and Reh can't get there in time. We don't know Anub hearthed, but this would be a great time to share his low HP with the team so we know not to expect him. Or to laugh when he runs in to die.

Up top, Fal cuts Reh's health in half, so the shaman taps and heads for the tribute. Fal also heads down, so now you have two of the slowest heroes in the game crossing the whole map for a fight that's as good as over.

Both teams have reached level four at this point, the second talent tier. Aba takes the attack speed buff, Anub continues with a beetle build, Sonya targets Anub with focused attack, and Zer goes the other way with grim task.

Kerri has ample time to tap before rushing into a fight she can't win, but why would she do that? Pretapping is for lesser beings. She uses the extra time to sit in a bush, as if we would've seen her ride in from that angle anyways. Sonya goes the wrong way around and almost gets away with it. Eventually, Kerri dives in to chunk her, only to get rooted and die uselessly again. Anub shows up and now we've taken so long fighting that Fal and Reh arrive. I screw up here, failing to heal Sonya at all as she absorbs more and more damage, falling to Anub and Zul's basic attacks. There's no way we should lose anyone in this fight, not after Kerri falls.

It's 3v3 now as Zer hangs back looking for a kill. It's worth noting that in Kerrigan's death recap, Zer is credited with the most damage dealt. 266 from singularity spike and 441 from basic attacks. Zer's a strong attacker. He does more DPS than a full health Zul (albeit not as much as Zul with reduced health) and Zul is shredding us just by axing all over the place. Fal dives in, can't get out, and they cut him down. Zer comes in after to kill Zul. Again, I fail. There's not much I can do against focus fire, but I repeat my mistake of healing Rex, who needs health but isn't in immediate danger, instead of prehealing a squishy target at full health. At least I'm not healing the bear.

I also forget I have roots? apparently? At this point, the fight's going poorly and I panic, running from Anub and healing myself. And I keep casting moonfire. That's a bad habit. Before 10, you need to conserve mana. Now I'm out and basically useless. I can't help thinking we'd have been better off pushing mid and top while Rex delayed the tribute or simply gave it up. Amazingly, Kerri, Sonya and Fal all revive and return to the still ongoing fight. I shudder to think of all the minions dying with no one around to gather xp. Even Abathur's not soaking, his hat a constant presence.

I manage to sneak the tribute while we zone the enemy, Sonya dying valiantly to keep them at bay. Amazingly, four minutes into the game, neither team has claimed the vision circle on their side of the map. And with each team gaining two levels in the fight, we're now 6 and Zul hasn't taken his level 4 talent.

Rex gets jumped by four as both teams hover around bot lane. Conveniently, the second tribute spawns there. Also convenient: all this dying has left our team with full health and mostly full mana. If we weren't down a talent, we'd have a strong advantage for this next fight.

Reh takes farsight over cleanse. He's more afraid of Zer than any of our CC. Anub gets more beetley (surprise) and Zul gets more deadly.

Then he gets dead, running out to bait us into a nonexistent ambush. I miss my roots, but it doesn't matter. Zer and Sonya are all over him. Bonus: we take negligible damage. Now it's 5v3. Anub walks into us and we focus him down. I land some good heals, then Kerri falls to the roots. The day is won. Laughably, Aba keeps dropping mines around the tribute, where we can see and target them before they activate. I'm so sad that we lost this game. Some days, I think I can hang with gold/plat players, some days I think a cat walking across the keyboard could beat me. When your opponent makes this many mistakes, your comp doesn't matter, you just have to make fewer mistakes.

I make a mistake by taking cleanse. It's a handy ability, but I suck at using it. The team makes a mistake by ignoring Aba. Fal goes top, Zer and I go mid, Rex goes to steal some giants, and Sonya hesitates. Bot, the most important lane right now, is abandoned for half a minute. I have to say, I don't know why I'm mid with Zer, my worst possible lane partner. Also have to say I like Rexxar's camp steal, simply because it results in a hilarious interaction with Kerri. We steal their vision, which is why Rex feels safe on their side of the map, so Kerri goes to take it back. Watching the replay through her eyes, we can see she catches a glimpse of Rex, but she doesn't notice. He scoots in closer, and she doesn't twig to it until the map flashes "HEY THEY JUST STOLE YOUR CAMP BUDDY." It gets better, because Rex can hold his own against Ker and, oh by the way, surprise Zeratul. They don't get the kill, but it's nonetheless funny.

Sonya acquits herself well in the bot lane, even when Anub'ahat shows up. Rex and Zer join in to chase him away, which would be so much cooler if the trib didn't spawn top. I can't say this is a bad call, it's just not a next level expert call. We knew the trib would spawn top, so we should've concentrated our forces mid/top. Maybe leave Sonya on clearing duty. The bigger the wave, the better she is at clearing it.

I keep seeing Zeratul pretap for the objective. Heads up play. Doing that can delay your arrival, but it's usually worthwhile. This one's a bust, though. They outnumber us 3 to 2, with both assassins top. Reh zones me hard and there's no way Fal can go in. We should've called this when we saw 3 bot and gave it up. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Someone pings our camps, so I go help with one. I'm not a big fan of mercs, but this is an OK time for them. You want to get something pushing when you're at 2/3rds of a curse, and these hit their lanes about the time the trib comes up.

Zul is abandoned up top, where he dies to the combined power of Zer, Fal and the roots. We're late to the team fight, but Zul's just late. Sonya doesn't tap at 1/3rd health, but she plays safe and we score a double kill to complete the curse. Now we're 5v3 with Zul just back. Time to push!

Three go bot, where we melt a wall and a fort. Anub tries to stop us alone. It, uh, doesn't work. Kerri thinks about following up on his heroism, but no. In hindsight, we should've pounced her there. We take the fort's tower and meet up with Zer for the kill, but that tower was already dead and Kerri could've gotten away if not for our sneaky stealthy.

We hit 13 and I make the unusual choice to take shrink ray, which I promptly use on Taz'dingo himself, who fades away. Sadly, this is the only time I remember I have that ability. Seriously. The cooldown's shorter than Taz, I could use it every time. FFFFFFFFFFFFFF

With our massive advantage, we take the bot keep and bravely run away, a well-timed gust securing our escape. We're up six buildings to three, each of us having one fort hanging by a thread. Have I mentioned how much I like mule? So much better than a cleanse you never use. I always feel like I need to pick cleanse, but it never works out.

Let's rewind a bit to check the rest of the team. Two go mid while top is ignored. It's a shame we don't hunt Aba up there, but we get so much value from the curse, you can't complain.

Rex and Zer hold their own against Zul and Reh, until Zer lands his combo and backs way off, leaving Rex to die. VP would've saved him.

We aren't getting xp up top (except for buildings), but our siege giants are doing work. Aba can't stop them from knocking down a wall and fort without a single hero to help. I'd love camps if they were always this effective.

Speaking of things that are only effective if you ignore them, Aba lets loose his monstrosity on the top lane. Rex is nearby stealing a bruiser camp (yay!) but he chooses to ignore Aba (boo!). It's OK, though, our next move is to steal their boss. We have no vision of them, but we know Aba's busy and at least one hero is south of the mid lane, where they just took their giants. We also know they have bruisers to deal with mid, though those guys are just going to die on the wall. Not much value there, and it tips them off to our presence on this side of the map. So does killing their mid fort, though. Three of us stop to finish it off and kill some minions, which is good but gives them vision and almost gets us caught in a bad fight.

The bruisers do little damage, but they exhaust the wall's ammo and distract the enemy enough to get us the boss. Zer wisely scouts the surrounding area, though he misses Kerri's approach. No worries. She has no clue what she's doing. We outnumber them 4-3 and she's out in front with her tank trailing. But we're not perfect. Half of us chase and kill Kerri while the other half trap Anub and eat several axes involuntarily. I get caught and killed, a well-deserved first death.

The team splits again. Sonya was off chasing the monstrosity. Thank goodness someone did, even if it got away. Now, she and Zer find Anub and cut off his escape. We have a 4-3 advantage again, this time counting Aba, with a boss pushing, and they had to burn Taz and ancestral to keep Zul alive. We have a good minute or so to mount a strong push. But we don't. The team can't all get there in time, so we mill about and the boss does about as much as that bruiser camp before dying. I blame myself. If I'm alive, I can pass out heals like candy and off we go. Now it's 4 on 4 for the tribute, in their territory, so Anub's getting there before me. Meanwhile, they have giants slowly pushing bot and the monstrosity turns its gaze back upon our top fort.

Major miscommunication at the tribute. Instead of setting up safely, we half-commit to cutting them off at the pass. Then we decommit. Rex goes all in. Sonya gets the Hell out. Zer kills Zul, but Ker kills Rex. Sonya goes back in and barely escapes with her life. We're split again and there's no focus. Zer kills Reh and Kerri leaps into our arms yet again, gleefully embracing death. Imagine how well that would've gone with coordination. Alas, we aren't through failing. Three of us chase a dying bug, overpursuing into massive axe damage. Sonya fights 1v2 while Zer and I back off, fearing for our lives. It might have been a winnable fight, especially if I shrunk the Taz, but it wasn't worth taking. We have to chase less. It's the hardest thing to do, backing off on a sure kill, but it's often better to avoid damage than deal it.

Rex takes our boss while the enemy push mid as four and Aba crawls around in the open up top. This move has the potential to win the game, or at least prevent a curse. They're up 2-0 on tribs, but now they'll have to answer our push. If we win the teamfight mid, it's all but over. Sonya's up, time to group and defend. We have all five heroics, while they only have two.

I don't remember much of the chat, but I do recall Fal saying he would get behind them and gust here. I've no idea what we were meant to do after that, but it didn't happen. The team split again, with Fal and Rex behind the enemy and the rest of us in front. They take tower damage, we chunk Ker and kill Zul, but we lose Fal and split again, half the team chasing heroes we can't kill while Kerri limps off to the tribute. We meet her there and easily kill her, but it could've gone better. I nearly die killing the monstrosity. No excuse for that, but I go in expecting Rex to be with me. He goes for bruisers instead.

Our boss takes a tower but does zero core damage. They all pounce and kill it while our team is scattered to the winds, pushing nothing. We should be grouped as five with a purpose. We're winning in every way, but we aren't going for the throat. We walk around doing nothing for a bit before the tribute spawns. Then we get wrecked. I get way out of position, Kerri lands a good stun, I use neither cleanse nor shrink, Sonya dies, I die, we get cursed. Nothing good happens.

We pick a bad fight, 3v4, and lose two killing Zul. Wouldja believe he died to minion damage? Looks like the mage from the bruiser camp got him after Taz ran out. Next thing you know, it's 3 on 3 and we're pushing them back. Anub falls, ancestral too late to save him, and we turn back to deal with Aba. While we can't see him, we should know from his locusts that he's near, and we should hunt him. He has no backup. We could kill him here for a huge advantage. But he's too smart for that, hearthing as our keep falls. Too bad. We run right through his hiding place, never knowing. I foolishly allow the monstrosity to chunk me again. Ugh. I don't need practice healing myself.

Rex tries to solo the enemy boss, which is perfectly safe if they don't notice you for about a minute. So, now we have a boss to deal with. Had the rest of us been there, especially if we'd hid in the bushes, popping out with twilight dream and all kinds of damage, things might've been different. It's far too easy to kill one person with a numbers advantage. We mosey over belatedly and almost get caught in another bad fight. They choose not to push with the boss. Knowing we have to pick one lane to defend, they attack all three. Abathur bot, the rest mid. Then they stop. With a keep right in front of them, sure to fall before we can react, they go after the other boss. As powerful as late game bosses are, this is a mistake. Never stop pushing if you don't have to. Never ask something else to push for you when you have a clear path. Heroes always push harder. Case in point, we kill the first boss before he does any damage.

There are only two reasons why the second boss isn't a total gaff. One, they're going to push with this one. Two, we're up against a wall, so it's hard for them to do anything wrong unless they die. Now we have the decisive battle. All heroes alive. All heroics available. Keep against boss, whoever dies least wins. Defender's advantage if we want it. Can always fall back to the core if you're still alive.

They run ahead of the boss and we have a chance at a fair fight. Sonya appears to lag and shows up late, but we're OK. We chunk Anub, Fal dodges the combo, and Kerri's overextended. There's just that pesky ultralisk in the way. And the boss. We kill ulti, but that's the extent of our focus fire. I miss my roots and accidentally cast TD where it only hits Kerri. Anub stuns me, then I get stuck auto-attacking, the boss roots me, and I die pathetically. The rest of the fight goes about as well and we lose despite dominating most of the game.