What we can learn from NiP’s victory against heavy favorites EG:

Some betting sites put EG as 80-20 favorites against NiP. Bearing past results and games in mind, as well as the fact the NiP are playing with a stand-in, this was not a huge surprise. Sumail seems to be in peak form, and when the young prodigy flexes his mechanical muscle, surely no one can stand in his way.

The analysis and commentary team at the major also gave the impression that they believe EG is the better team. After game one, (in which EG completely stomped with the help of Sumail’s brilliant Ember) this belief was reinforced. During the draft of game 2, the analysis desk reached the conclusion that NiP had the better draft.

Nonetheless, everyone was inclined to believe that EG will take the game anyway. Only BSJ gave his prediction to NiP, but he gave it so that “if NiP wins he’ll look like a genius” – i.e. he still believed EG has the better chance but wanted to go against everyone to make things interesting.

Let’s agree that EG is mechanically the better team for the sake of argument. If this is true, how did NiP manage to beat them and can we replicate what they are doing in our own games?

The skill difference is rarely that high

The gap between individual pro players is minuscule. This is most apparent when an established captain takes a young pub star under his wing. All of a sudden, the pub star who found little to no success in the T3 scene can stand his own against the most established pros. W33 and Miracle are a great example– when they played for Balkan Bears, it was apparent that they are good, but most people didn’t think they are at the level of the top teams simply because they weren’t winning. After they got picked up under established captains, however, they quickly became two of the top mid players in the world. All they needed to start winning was a nudge – some guidance, experience, structure, etc. The skill was already there.

Sumail vs Fata

So, the overwhelming majority of people would agree that Sumail is a better mid player out of the two. How much better, however? As seen from this series – not much. PPD provided Fata with a slight advantage in one way or another in the mid lane in game 2 & 3 to leave a lot of punks unsatisfied. The German veteran was able to deliver big time. In game 2, Fata went 12-1-11 on his DK, while Sumail had the uninspiring stat of 3-5-5 (more on the matchups and play below).

It is crucial to realize that this is true in your pubs as well.

The extremely high (or low) brackets, where games tend to have bigger MMR spread, are an exception. In all other brackets, however, where most of us play, the players on both teams (including yourself) would be of a very similar skill level. Your ego doesn’t like to admit it, but you are in fact not that much better than the guy you just beat mid (on the positive side you’re not that much worse than the guy that just beat you). What allows you to do well is simply that you have better circumstances for the current game than your opponent. Small advantages are all that’s needed to allow one guy to snowball and go 15-5 while the other goes 5-15.

To win consistently against players who are on your level you need to learn to ensure you have these small advantages that tip the scales in your favor, similarly to how Fata had the scales in his favor against Sumail in games 2 & 3.

When this is true, it cannot be overstated how important lane matchups are.

Lane matchups matter a lot

So what did allow Fata to carry the game on his DK while Sumail struggled on his QoP?

As the casters noted, this matchup usually goes in favor of QoP, but DK is a hero who never really loses his lane because of his sustain and ability to take last-hits with his nuke. This is simply how the matchup works. Even if Sumail is the better player, it would be very hard for him to change this outcome.

Sumail actually did try to do it – he invested an unusual amount of points in his Shadow Strike to try to overcome the Dragon Blood HP regen and to win the lane convincingly. He won his lane, but not that convincingly – Fata still found his farm.

More importantly, everything in Dota has costs and benefits. The additional points in Shadow Strike help in the lane, but they also prevent QoP from roaming efficiently from early on because she needs more levels to max-out her nuke damage. Sumail’s game plan on QoP is to stomp his lane, start roaming and snowball out of successful pick-offs. He wasn’t able to stomp the lane and his (late) rotations easily got foiled, which means that no matter how good he is he couldn’t manage to have a big impact in the game.

After the lanes, Fata was able to do his job brilliantly – he became a fight initiator with Shadow Blade and a frontline tank later on in pushes (great when combined with KotL’s Agh’s).

Besides the actual matchup, Fata also made small incremental adjustments that gave him an advantage:

For example, a decision he made was to invest in Bottle. DK usually goes for Soul Ring because it results in more mana sustain (DK already has the needed HP sustain to support it). With Sumail’s constant harass, however, every bit of HP is precious, and the Bottle gives Fata a slightly easier time in the lane.

Another harder thing to observe is how he used his Breathe Fire. Usually, with DK you want to secure a last-hit while also harassing your lane opponent with every use of the nuke. In this game, however, it becomes apparent that harassing Sumail was very low on Fata’s priorities list. He simply used Breathe Fire to secure the last hits from safety (especially the ranged creep) in order to receive as little harass as possible while doing it. He knows he’ll not really be able to win the harass war vs QoP – his only job in this lane is to secure his own farm and levels.

In game three, the matchup advantage is an even better (albeit not that interesting) example. Sumail is playing Mirana – a hero whose biggest weakness in the lane is her very low attack damage (it’s hard to contest last-hits). Fata was playing TA – one of the heroes with the highest attack damage who excels at winning the last-hit war. Moreover, TA has a very good protection against the burst damage of Mirana thanks to Refraction. Because of this, despite on theory being the better player, Sumail wasn’t able to win this lane.

We talk mainly about the mid lane because match-ups are simplest there and the “skill difference” between Sumail and Fata provides an interesting example. Lane matchups, however, are crucial in all three lanes. For example, TB is a hero with insanely high armor, but low HP pool. KOTL can abuse this with the magic damage of Illuminate – one nuke could remove half of TB’s HP. This makes the lane quite hard for the TB player.

Keep the game plan simple!

Hard to execute, gimmicky lineups sometimes trip even the best players in the world.

QoP, for example, is somewhat of a hard-to-execute and gimmicky hero:

You have to stomp your lane with her, which is easier said than done. One mistake (or a good gank by the enemy team) could easily foil your plans.
You have to be successful in your ganks to snowball. One miscalculated aggressive blink could cost you your momentum.

If things don’t go exactly as planned, which is very likely against players of a similar skill level, QoP will fall off. There is a reason she has a low win rate in pubs and often the panel talks badly about the hero.

NiP’s draft was the opposite – very reliable, with a simple to execute game plan, with enough margin for error. It follows some simple truths established even before Dota 2:

drafting multiple stuns and nukes is a great idea and will help a lot in fights
having strong lanes combined with enough late game potential is vital
versatile lineups are crucial, especially in high-skill games

Reliable lockdown: Nightmare + Stomp + Dragon Tail + Fiends Grip

The team has very simple and reliable ways to lock down their targets in fights. This makes it easy to find pick-offs right from the start of the game (you could easily do a Nightmare into Stomp right from lvl1). They have a disable through BKB (Fiend’s Grip), they have AoE counter-initiation (Stomp), and they have the potential to hold 1 person in place for a very long time. Those are attributes that are very useful in various situations.

Damage: Double Edge, Brain Sap, Illuminate, Breathe Fire, Lance

NiP has plenty of nukes which can help them secure kills from early on. All of these nukes are versatile spells on low CD – they could be used for kill attempts in combination with the lockdown, but they could also be used for lane harass, farming, etc.

Once those nukes fall off, PL and DK will have enough items do deal considerable right-click damage.

Initiation: Stampede, Shadow Blade, Blink Dagger

NiP have long-range disables (Bane), and if needed can close the gap as a team very easily with Stampede even if they don’t have items. Later on, they will get SB on DK which is amazing for ganks and Blink on Cent which is very good for counter-initiation, making their initiation potential even better. Again, a trait that is useful in various situations.

Push:

A tanky frontline hero with tower damage – DK.
The constant sustain of KotL’s Aghanim’s.
The save of Bane’s Nightmare
The counter-initiation of Cent’s Blink-Stomp
The potential to disengage with Stampede

NiP’s lineup can easily break HG.

Options (tactical versatility):

The top traits combined mean that NiP’s lineup is great at ganks, team fights and pushing. This means that their game plan will be to search for a few pick-offs and transition them into a 5-man push, which will win them map control and secure them the game. They are not really on a timer – PL and DK scale very well into the late game, which means that they could make some errors and still have a decent chance to win. If things get really hard in the late game, they can even rely on the anti-push of KotL and split-push of PL & DK.

A great example of the team’s versatility is the way PL approached the game. He is the hero on NiP who was countered the most heavily - QoP’s AoE nukes in the mid game, Shaker and Axe’s counter-initiation. If he was the only front-line hero and only late-game damage dealer of NiP, things would be very difficult for him and even small mistakes would be game-losing. In this game, however, he could fully lean on DK and Cent to create space, win fights, and even push. This takes away a lot of pressure from his shoulders and allows him to become the late-game insurance of his team.

Recap

Don’t be arrogant – plan for opponents who are just as good as you are. Walking the extra mile to give yourself slight advantages often makes the difference between winning and losing. Think about lane matchups to give your team the best chance and adapt your decisions and playstyle accordingly.

Have a simple to follow game plan, with enough margin for error. This way you’ll always know what to do and even if things don’t go as planned you’ll always have a chance to turn the game around. Even great players make mistakes, so plan for the unexpected!

If you’re interested to learn QoP in-depth, check out Qojqva’s free 10k word QoP guide! Qojqva has a guide series here, one of the premium guides of which is for DK!