casktapper

The biggest hole in any GG argument predicated on pro games is that you can already GG out of games in team matchmaking. Ultimately, if a surrender option is introduced, it means that you will start having teammates spending time pleading that the game is "over" and everyone should just gg rather than play on, even in marginal situations. This happens to a limited degree now, but it would only get worse. I'll happily sacrifice some time stuck in unwinnable matches to avoid spending even more time in arguments about surrendering.

The EG vs DK game was crazy inside the arena. I've been posting some photos from today on my tumble at http://casktapper.tumblr.com

Looks like Liquid will have to play in one of the elimination series in the first round of the playoffs. If they had won against mouz in their last match, they would have guaranteed themselves a spot at the main event. Now they need to play from the bottom of the of the next round of the playoffs. Actually, I guess we know that they'll be playing against LGD tomorrow. Then Na'vi or Cloud 9 and then EG or DK depending on how the last few games play out today.

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/wiki/events/ti4 Answers to pretty much every question you might have. Anyone here going to Seattle for the Main Event?

I'm not going to disagree that mjolnir isn't a good item on sniper, but you're ignoring the -armor of desolator in your comparison. It contributes a 10%-30% increase in damage, depending on the armor of the target. Actually, it's a reduction in damage reduction on the target, but that nets to more damage. And that doesn't apply just for sniper, but anyone attacking the target with physical damage.

These aren't obvious, but they are things that I didn't realize initially - when you bypass a card (as with Femme Fatale) you don't trigger any "when you encounter" conditions on a piece of ice (no Tollbooth fee or Data Raven token) - a run is considered successful before you access any cards, so the trigger for Nerve Agent or Medium happens before you access cards and may affect the number of cards you can see - not a rule per se, but most corp decks will run 49 cards with 20 points worth of agendas, for the most favourable non-agenda to agenda card ratio

It's basically the free bounce on archives repeatedly for a credit and one or more datasucker tokens. It was rampant in the local meta. Of course, H&P creates a lot of new disincentives for running archives, even if it there is no ice protecting it. I think the hope was to encourage some different criminal decks than were already common in the meta. Which was relatively effective.

Ok...I had resigned myself to the idea of missing the draft for the fantasy, but I didn't realize that you could only request one add a day. That's going to be pretty painful. I thought I would at least be able to get my team relatively in shape after the draft.

Nice! I just got back from a Honor & Profit tournament here in Toronto. Only Criminal or Jinteki decks. Special rule against certain card pairs (Account Siphon/Same Old Thing and Datasucker/Desperado - you can run as many copies of 1 card in the pair, but that means you can't put any copies of the other) I ended up going 5-5, though my runner deck only managed 1 victory. One of the losses was because of a misunderstanding around the timing between Account SIphon and Dedicated Response Team. Still, it was a fun day.

I'm playing in a meatworld Android Netrunner tournament on Saturday, so I will be out of the house for most of the day (back around 7 or 8 ET). That and Friday night are my only commitments all weekend.

That is a qualified "best bet". After popping the question in the idlethumbs channel for a couple weeks, I gave up. But it does remind me that I should continue to be persistent.

I don't think that is accurate. I believe a ticket is consumed for any league you participate in. I just double-checked my inventory and my ticket is gone after joining the league this morning. Extra tickets are 99c on the store.

I'd love to get a piece of the fantasy league action as well, if possible.

I'm thinking that we would just try to stick to the default playtime every week to keep it simple.

I have! But you already knew that. I'm playing the MON-EST division. I started off nervous that I would be on the bottom end of the talent pool, but I'm finding myself comfortably in the middle of the pack, if not slightly above average. It's definitely a different experience to be playing in a more formally competitive environment. So far the team I've been drafted on has been very friendly and I'm looking forward to the season. I'd also like to put together a team for the next joindota season. I played in the first season and we were supposed to be in the tiebreaker for division 4, but unfortunately we didn't have consistent attendance. It'll be back to the starter division next season, but it remains to find a team.

Epicenter has a channel time, so you have to let it finish before you blink. You can shift-queue commands, so shift+blink after you start epicenter and it will wait until the channel is over. You can chain that into a shift+burrow strike as well to complete the combo without them really being able to react.

Congratulations. It's that unending learning curve and the rush of well-coordinated team play that makes dota as engaging as it is. I'm halfway through my second year of playing this game and I keep coming back. In fact, so far in 2014, I've played at least one match of dota 2 on 54 of the first 90 days (I have scrims scheduled for tonight, so I know I'll be in-game). For the record, Sand King is mostly a support, though he can certainly snowball into a semi-carry, as you discovered. And he is always a great initiator.

Why do you recommend against least played? I think it's a great mode for people looking to experiment with new heroes, as they won't be matched against players who've played all their matches with their hero of choice, which can skew the effectiveness of early players (or even more experienced players). But exploring the hero pool is one of the most important things in your dota development, so I would strongly encourage it.

If it's anything like other chat channels or guilds I've participated in for Dota, I would suggest just initiating things on your end. People may not be actively trying to form a group, but they are often receptive to someone doing the work for them. I apologize to the regulars if that's bad advice in this context, but in my experiences to date it's been effective. Speaking of which, I'm always looking for new people to play with - it's one of the reasons why I decided to finally create an account on these forums. So, if someone is looking to add another body to a party, feel free to send me a steam invite (I think I should be able to set up a signature with my steam info after I post this). For context, I'm slightly over .500 and fast approaching 1200 matches played. I've got a 3600 rating solo and 3200 in party matchmaking. I'm happy to play any role, though I end up playing a lot of mid and solo offlane with the folks I regularly play with. That being said, I finally did my solo ranked calibration recently and played support 8 out of 10 matches - I also went 10-0, which I was quite pleased with. I'm willing to play with just about any skill level, but obviously the closer we are, the more satisfying the match is for all parties.

That feeling is why most of us keep playing - even after more than a thousand matches.

Hello! I've been listening to Idle Thumbs for a good while now, but after a few reminders recently on the podcast about how good the community was, I thought I should finally register. I'm a long-time member of the Gamers with Jobs forum community. My most played game of the last 2 years is Dota 2, with Spelunky likely a distant second. I've sampled a few other things over that time, but it has been a whole lot of Dota. I thougt I would jump in and see what the community was like.