Team Smart Went Crazy

 
             Hey guys, PPD back with a long overdue blog, I have been pretty turned off to the idea of writing these but I was bored and felt slightly ambitious for some reason. As you all know Infused decided to drop HoN in order to invest all of their time and money into Dota 2. Even though we were disappointed, we understood their decision and couldn’t really blame them. This eventually led to our disband after having to use our 6^th man + a ringer in the ESL finals vs. Trademark eSports. If you can’t get your main 5 to log on for a 5k euro tournament then there really isn’t much hope for future endeavors.

What I’ve been up to lately (gaming wise):

-          Playing Dota 2 in the NA Dota League

-          Forming a new team under the tag of SwC/PMS

-          Learning how to draft/change the metagame

Dota 2

  When I first loaded up Dota 2 and played my first pub matches I was disappointed as to what my great Warcraft 3 custom game experiences have become. However the more I played Dota 2 the more I adjusted to the engine, the new heroes, and items. Playing public games was and still is a rather painful experience but being able to play in the NA Dota League has allowed me to play alongside the best players the North American scene has to offer. Playing amongst big names like Snoopy, Jeyo, PIG, Bleek, and many more unmentioned. I’d like to thank Sender, Waytosexy, and Sneyking for vouching me into this league as it’s been a lot of fun when I’m not playing HoN.

New Team

Smart Went Crazy (SwC) is the new team I am currently forming. As of now we have a solid 4 man roster including Chubbychris2, Fajn`, Semijew, and myself.The team name if you are curious is from one of my favorite bands, Atmosphere. If you've been watching me stream you have probably heard some of their music. Link to the song is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV2u5RLAGOo .

-          Chubbychris2 – Chubby has adjusted into our team’s main carry player from the ganker/tank role he played on former-INFS. Chubby is an incredibly strong player and can match up against any other top teams carry/mid player.

-          Fajn` - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Fajn is undoubtedly one of the best jungle players this game has currently. His tempest is pretty much auto banned every game we play and I would consider him in the league of jungle players with Zfreek and Fly.

-          Semijew – Semi is the heart and soul of this team, he is adamant about having good coms, keeping us positive, and having fun. Semi can play any role whether its suicide lane, carry, or even support. He’s the guy who plays the hero nobody wants to and can always be expected to do an excellent job. Overzealous at times his aggressive play style keeps all of our games active and interesting = ).

Learning How to Draft

  I’m not going to lie and say I’m a great drafter. I think I do an ok job and always give my team an opportunity to win. However through watching replays and re-evaluating our matches I have noticed many mistakes and have made note of them. My team is luckily very helpful to my decisions and it’s nice that they understand the difficulty of choosing the right heroes for the right situation. The tank meta-game is no doubt, annoying to say the least. I will do my best to change the meta-game and end this atrocious style of game play!

Summary

 I think our team has a lot of potential. In this past week we finished 3^rd/4^th (no third place match) in both the Fnatic Play tourney as well as the Its Gosu Invitational. We’ve yet to break into the money but we’ve had some very strong wins over teams like LION, Its Gosu, and Jah & Friends. Fray has proven too been our nemesis defeating us 0-2 in the last 3 series we’ve played against each other. Once we solidify our 5^th player (Still Searching!) and figure out the playstyle that best works for us I expect us to match up against top tier teams like Fnatic Raidcall, Frenetic Array, and HoN Portal.