Irevallo no Battlefuro, A review.

We’re actually a weeb team.

My Pre-season Thoughts

Clarity League Season 0 was my third ever venture into an amateur competitive environment having debuted in RD2L Mini Season 8 Div 5 nearly winning the entire thing without dropping a series but alas choking in the very last 2 series finishing 3rd to then being one of the first teams to get knocked out early in RD2L Mini Season 9 Div 4, I felt that I’ve experienced a big chunk of the spectrum from being part of a division favourite team to prematurely collapsing and ending a season early — all that’s left was finally winning it all and becoming a champion, which is now relieving reality!

I signed up in hopes of becoming captain and thus ticking all the boxes in the sign up sheet claiming myself to be a shotcaller, captain and absolutely anything to do with becoming a team authority. I studied the player draft sheet extensively and quietly scouted every single person in Div 2 and even lurked around the Clarity and RD2L discords to get a gist of who gels well with who to then come up with a hierarchy of players that I wanted on my team including backups with how many coins I wanted to budget for each player — I did the whole ‘shebang’ to really make sure this season was my championship season. The captain’s list came out and my name wasn’t on there, my MMR has once again let me down as having a big MMR discrepancy amongst captains proved hard to balance coin distribution (shoutout to Dazza for providing clarity on the matter) as RD2L was notorious for being desperate for captains I figured me snagging the role was guaranteed. The silver lining? The team I ended up on featured players that were in my top 3 list for each role in LPSD, Irevall and Brainy Gonzo — Batsphemy was like my 6th choice for the 4 role (sorry bat :P) so I knew from the get go that we were up for a hell of a season and I was hella pumped.

The Team Dynamic

Despite being touted as a highly-valuable pos 4 player in RD2L Low Division Mini Seasons, as it is my main role, I felt that the player draft sheet had a massive influx of 4 players seemingly out of nowhere, so I figured to revert back to the role I started playing Dota 2 on — the hard support — backed up by the fact that the Pos 1 player pool consisted of well respected names with very solid dotabuff profiles, it was a no brainer. As the season went on I felt that my Pos 5 gameplay was very quickly coming out of the rust works and I’m honestly happy to make it my main role for the next few months. It was also the season that I finally grew the balls to learn the monstrosity that is Oracle and I really wish I started sooner. Was also a big shame that I only got to play it twice in one series before it got perma-banned for the rest of the season. Anyway, despite it looking like we were effortlessly stomping teams I felt like I was playing for my life every single game. Being the lowest MMR player in the team, I felt like I had to step up and prove myself big time and although it didn’t sound like I was sweating buckets on the mic — I was internally melting and developed massive headaches after most series. I was actively trying to apply game concepts that I only recently learnt with very little practise and I felt like I was overplaying more than I’d like to. There was a point where I felt like I was the weakest link of the team despite winning but LPSD and the rest of the team made me think otherwise and for the rest of the season, my self doubt was slowly fading and my plays were progressively “exuding chad energy” by the finals.

Irevall was my lane partner and boy is he a hell of a player. I’m honestly not sure if the fact that he was decently to crazy farmed almost every game was a testiment to my supporting or simply because he is, once again, a hell of a player. I felt like I could just AFK in lane and he’d still get massive farm out of thin air — or maybe it’s my crippling self doubt and perhaps I actually do contribute to his performance. Regardless, this guy has saved our asses from several bad games along with…

LPSD, if an entire cheese factor were a person — it’d be him. Tinker, Brood and a “very” warmed-up meepo player who is fond of pressing many buttons, you’d think button pressers like him tend to be intense on the mic and talk as if they got a brick up their ass but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. This guy is just straight up chill and just gets kills outta nowhere and you can’t help to exclaim a very calm ‘nice’ on the mic as you see his name on the kill feed. Perhaps the most impressive aspect about his gameplay to me is the fact that he can straight up win bad mid matchups. Now I know jackshit about playing mid and mid matchups nor am I interested in learning so maybe I’m just talking out of my ass and perhaps the bad matchups weren’t actually bad matchups for him but still, the sentiment stands— he wins mid a lot.

Brainy Gonzo is the embodiment of an offlaner. That one chad who commands your team and dictates map movements making you feel like an absolute spartan unit whenever you are in vicinity of him. The guy you cling to as a support in the midgame — as in literally right click on his in-game hero model and you know with every fibre of your being that you are on the right side of the map, on top of two mid catapults and… well… you know the whole smoke ordeal by now. A very underrated trait about his gameplay is his super concise and objective communication. No matter the game state, whether we are severely behind, ahead or even — he gives orders in a tone that makes you feel like you’re winning regardless of the current game state. He doesn’t undecisively whimper nor obnoxiously commands, it is a tone of stillness and confidence that emits a sense of urgency but is also lenient at the same time which is seriously more valuable for teams that you’d think. It’s a small detail that many might not consider as Dota players but having team comms that are both objective and relaxing is seriously game winning.

Batsphemy was the guinea pig of the team in which we experimented with Pos 4 Tidehunter and Gonzo’s personal golden retriever (the joke is that Gonzo leashes him, please laugh I beg of you, I haven’t experience joy since 2018). There’s apparently something with him and 1 button heroes that gel together, specifically Tide and Clock. I must say, as someone who isn’t a 4 player, he cosplays very well. I do enjoy stealing his wards in the shop — some games, it was my personal goal to make sure he didn’t buy a single ward out of pure amusement. Actually, that is exactly the perfect word that describes him — amusing. If he were a Hearthstone card he is definitely the Annoy-o-Tron.

Closing Remarks

I have so much more to write about but seeing as I’m writing this on my birthday I think I’ll give it a break and actually go celebrate it. Becoming one of Clarity League’s first ever champions without dropping a series is a pretty sick early birthday present and thus I leave the rest of you with a present as well — a low production quality team highlight montage of what was an epic final series with Team Mewes. You guys put up a hell of a fight and I seriously commend every single one of you!