Sunday at 19:00 League time the Pick League XII Grand Finals began, where  MYM and  Fnatic battled it out in a best-of-three format. Due to the overwhelming response of positive feedback from game #2, myMYM has decided to feature a comprehensive game review of this nail biting Grand Final.

Since Fnatic was formed around May this year, initially named The Last Try, they have had yet to lose a single tournament they participated in, including Dreamhack Summer, Fnatic PLAY DOTA, and GamesCom 2009, achieving gold podium finishes for all the following events.

MYM, formerly known as Ravens, recently suffered a loss to Fnatic, which consequently lead to this best-of-three Grand Finals. Despite their first loss this Pick League season, MYM also came second in GamesCom 2009 and Dreamhack Summer, behind the likes of Fnatic. Will they be able to break the 1st runner up curse by winning this second game? 

Picks/Bans:

Game 2 history: Replay Available Here

Bans fnatic (Sentinel) MYM (Scourge) Broodmother Shadow Priest Lone Druid Dark Seer Morphling Lord Avernus Undying Shadow Shaman

Picks fnatic (Sentinel) MYM (Scourge) Mirana - - Crixalis / Vengeful Zeus / Warlock - - Spectre / Lion Slardar / Tidehunter - - Tinker

For the most part, these bans can be considered uniform. With that said, some bans may be considered unusual. Broodmother and Lone Druid recently became extremely popular in DotA Pride games due to their effective pushing ability, and as a result were banned in this game. Shadow Priest was most likely banned to counter Fnatic's well-known lane combination of Slardar and Shadow Priest, capitalizing on baby sitting and armor reduction tactics.

Moving on to picks, we see that Fnatic first picks Mirana mostly because of MiSery's mastery of this hero. Next we see that MYM second picks Sand King and Vengeful Spirit, who has also became an extremely popular pick. At this point, it seems evident that MYM is looking for a strong gank-oriented team, similar to the first game. Glancing back at Fnatic's picks, we see one of Loda's best heroes, Slardar. Although Fnatic often lanes Slardar with Dazzle, they decided to substitue Warlock for the already banned Shadow Priest. Lastly, MYM picks up a hero that hasn't seen the light of day since 6.59d, Tinker. MYM's most recent recruit, KuroKy, is famous for carrying with Tinker, so this will definitely be a special treat for all KuroKy fans.

Disclaimer: Time stamps are given in DotA time, NOT replay time.

Early game (1-15):

First blood is drawn only a minute and a half after creep spawn. Vengeful Spirit attains an invisibility rune and ganks bottom where Slardar and Warlock reside. Following a Dagger by Spectre, Vengeful Spirit and Lion land a double stun, killing the Warlock. Earlier, kwom had placed an Observer Ward giving vision of the bottom rune and PusHer attaining it; however, regardless of Fnatic's vision, neither Loda nor Ducky backed up or became more passive when PusHer picked up the invisibility rune.

The invisible Vengeful strikes

Leaving Mirana to solo against a lone Crixalis, Tidehunter attempts to gank Tinker in the middle who gets away with just enough health due to Zeus' lack of mana to finish him off with a chain lightning. Tidehunter continues to roam, ganking bottom this time, where he is again unsuccessful. Due to the series of unsuccessful ganks, Miracle's Tidehunter is still on level 1 at 3 minutes and 30 seconds into the game. After the failed second gank, Miracle decides to stay at the bottom lane where the lane becomes a hot spot where tri-laning, tower diving and jungle party were regular occurences.

As we reach the 7th minute mark, Sand King played by MaNia seems to be doing surprisingly well in terms of creep stats against Misery's Mirana. It appears that instead of going Stats or Caustic Finale, MaNia has maxed out Sand Storm instead knowing that Mirana could not do anything against an invisible hero.

All of a sudden, a big teamfight broke out at the bottom lane and we see all the heroes from both teams teleporting in to kill or save the dying Vengeful Spirit but to no avail. The team battle turned out in favour of fnatic as Tidehunter teleports away and Mirana leaping away from the incoming MYM troops.

Tower diving Vengeful

At the 11th minute mark, fnatic initiates a huge gank with Tidehunter, Mirana and Warlock on the Spectre played by Angel that is still alive despite being the sole late gamer for MYM. With 150 hit points remaining, Angel uses Haunt to teleport to the hero furtherest away from him, Zeus, and successfully manages to escape, all thanks to Zeus' mistake for bolting the nearby Tinker instead of him.

At this point, fnatic has gone into a full ganking mode with Mirana, Tidehunter, Warlock and Zeus roaming the map. The strat turns out to be very successful as they manage to pick off Kuroky and Pusher several times with Misery's excellent placed arrows.

On MYM's side, all the hard farm and turtling is finally paying off we see Spectre walking towards the Secret Shop to get himself a Sacred Relic at 15 minutes.

Mid game (16-35):

Mid game has arrived but we still see KuroKy not being able to farm up the important Boots of Travel for Tinker. This is mainly due to Tidehunter's constant harrassing and Mirana's excellent ganks. KuroKy's Tinker dies for the 4th time to Mirana with aid from Zeus' ulti at the 17th minute mark. This has created a lot of doubts whether MYM's lack of wards is contributing to their early game downfall.

Fnatic is quick in capitalizing their early game lead by making their first push on the first bottom lane tower. Unfortunately again for MYM, the Vengeful Spirit movement speed is no match for Slardar's as he died trying to defend the tower despite standing really far behind. At the same time, MYM's top tower has also gone down but this time, it was denied by Lion.

Sand King stunning away from incoming hammer

Another team battle broke out in the top lane where a well placed Infernal by Warlock disarrayed the battle formation of MYM causing Vengeful, Lion and Spectre to go down all at the same time. However, MaNia teleported in for a revenge mission and baited well for Tinker to teleport in with his newly bought Boots of Travels but unfortunately, he missed a really close kill on Zeus and Slardar. Spectre on the other hand, was still unable to farm the 1500 gold needed for Radiance recipe as he is still on 800 gold after dying in the team battle.

Bolted Spectre

With the aid of a well placed Observer Ward by Ducky, fnatic managed to kill MYM's Flying Courier as it was gliding back to base. Fortunately for AngeL, he had already received his Radiance recipe, therefore losing no items from the fallen courier.

MYM finally managed to perform a successful gank with the help of Spectre on Tidehunter and Zeus in MYM's jungle while Slardar was left fleeing. On the other side of the map, the overconfident Sand King fell once again to Mirana and Warlock although he nearly pulled a fast kill on Warlock.

At 25 minutes, Mirana managed to pulled off an amazing arrow on Tinker and follow up with a double starfall. However, the dying Tinker lasered the Mirana as his last salvation and it was good because Mirana missed 2 of his shots, allowing the Tinker to escape successfully. However, MYM is not done with the Mirana yet. With the help of Goblin March and Spectre's Haunt, Mirana went down on the last tick of Spectre's ultimate. The incident proceeded with a little trash talk from Misery.

Misery missing twice

Spectre's illusion chasing Mirana

Despite his feeding 1-6 start, the Sand King has finally managed to obtain a blink dagger and managed to surprise the Slardar farming on the bottom lane although he was in his own tower's comfort.

Just when we thought MYM was about to make a comeback in the game, Warlock's cliff ward and Mirana's Diffusal Blade managed to pick off Spectre in their jungle once again. While Spectre's death-timer was still ticking down, fnatic assembled in mid and took down the second mid tower and subsequently the second top tower.

At the 34th minute, another game altering event occured. Sand King was once again picked off by the roaming Fnatic heroes and Fnatic quickly slayed Roshan and gave Aegis of the Immortal to the irresistable Slardar. The decision to give Slardar the Aegis is an obvious one because of his importance in team fights.

36 minutes statshot

Mid-game is concluded with the Roshan kill. From the statshot above, we can see that Fnatic has double the total hero kills compared to MYM and all their heroes were more farmed up overall, Zeus with an all-important Guinsoo for Spectre and Tidehunter with Khadgar's Pipe. On the other hand, MYM is not far behind as Spectre and Tinker were beginning to get huge.

Late game (36-52):

At this point in the game, Fnatic has destroyed all of MYM's tier two towers, while MYM has yet to make a dent in Fnatic's tier two towers. Fnatic then made their first move into MYM's base with Aegis Slardar leading the pack. The team battle turned out in favour of MYM due to Slardar moving away from the pack to unsuccessfully take down Vengeful and Lion. The team battle then dispersed with both sides down losing nearly all their heroes.

Look at how far apart MYM heroes are to avoid AOE combos.

Aegis Slardar goes down

KuroKy utilizes Boots of Travel and Rearm to push several lanes at a time gaining entire map dominance. An impressive counter push by MYM soon after turns the tides of battle and prevents Fnatic from attaining any Barracks.

Following an exchange of a Tidehunter for a Spectre, Fnatic once again attempted to push and this time they went through the middle. Although the Lion was arrowed relatively early into battle, Vengeful sacrificed himself by swapping his important teammate to safety and the MYM counter attack began with an perfect Epicenter and Burrowstrike from Sand King. At the same time, Spectre has revived and enters the battle via Haunt. Slardar and Mirana quickly retreated.

While Slardar was farming at bottom lane with his low hit points, Tinker teleported in and picked him off. MYM was on rampage mode now and while having the upperhand in numbers, they pushed down the middle lane swiftly. The defenders of Fnatic, namely Mirana and Tidehunter, tried their best to defend the tower but to no avail. However, for some unknown reason, Zeus decided to teleport into all 5 MYM heroes and obviously, he died in seconds giving MYM even more time to push into the base. MYM took down both the barracks in mid and retreated.

Zeus suiciding into 5 MYM heroes

After destroying the middle Barracks, MYM collaboratively defeats Roshan, giving the Spectre Aegis of the Immortal. Assembling quickly Fnatic gathers to Roshan as fast as possible. Fortunately for MYM, the only hero killed was Spectre, who had Aegis of the Immortal and was able to escape the second time around due to Fnatic being occupied with other distractions.

With the consecutive battles won, the hero kills ratio has been narrowed down and Tinker managed to obtain Guinsoo as well.

From here on, Fnatic just got picked off over and over again by Tinker and MYM finally managed to pull up enough courage to push mid.

Warlock picked off

Tidehunter picked off

A multitude of team fights and counter pushes leads the game to middle lane of the Sentinel base. Loda makes a brave decision to dive the vulnerable PusHer, using Black King Bar to evade disables. Although successful in killing his target, Loda was immediately hunted down by MaNia- and KuroKy without an available Black King Bar; therefore resulting in his imminent death.

MYM instantaneously capitalizes on Fnatic's vulnerability and finishes off Fnatic's base. In this game, team fights and counter pushes late game seemed to be the main deciding factor in determining the winner, which MYM executed to perfection.

Player of the game:  MYM|KuroKy

Although it may be a cliché because of his recent recruitment, MYM|KuroKy has been named the 'Player of the game' due to his consistency and contribution to map dominance. KuroKy's contribution in late game defenses and map control largely aided in MYM's come back. Using Boots of Travel and Rearm to consecutively teleport from area to area, KuroKy kept each lane pushed by using strong AoE spells like March of the Machines and Arctic Blast from Shiva's Guard. Plus, we all know who can be credited if Tinker becomes a more frequent pick!