The Goof
Hi guys I'm Goofy! I've always been really competitive and finally found another outlet when I got started with the amateur NA scene just 3 months or so ago and I'm not very good at networking so I'm sure not many of you know me yet. My plan when MMR was released was to quickly reach 5k and then go look for a team. That quest was easy enough with my prior Dota and Hon experience so you could say that my journey actually started on reddit's find a team forum. I happened by chance onto some people who were, by my standards, extremely well connected. A few team iterations and tryouts later I finally found my home with the Infernal Dong Lords and we've since competed in several tournaments including Cevo and of course Secs and Tecs. We were really solid at making semi-final finishes but we'd always get knocked out by the same four or five teams every week. SNA Vas Avi No Earth Spirit etc! That was okay for me, and with each game I felt like I learned a lot and just playing against these guys was a really cool experience for me. Anyway my team has fallen apart and all of that is in the past for now so I'm on to my next adventure!
The Preface
There I was in between tournaments sitting on a 5250 party rated account. Queues with my friends would take 20 minutes off prime time and yield 5 point games or even games where we lost points for winning. I decided smurfing for the benefit of my party was a good idea and that's where this new journey all began. This new "Smurf" account was quickly ruined for its intended purposes and now sits at 4800 party mmr. Far from excellent but now certainly useless in lowering an entire parties average mmr down any significant account. I considered switching back to my main, but then I had this thought. What if I could start my next journey back to competitive with a leader-board run on this new account from the 3600 or so MMR I received the account at. Could I do as well as Juice or whoever? Has my time playing competitive made a shitty pub player? Is there even a difference? Three days ago I decided to answer this question the only way I knew how and I'll be documenting my results here! Hopefully... unless I embarrass myself and go into hiding!
The Beginning
Here we were at 3.8k or so from the odd game or two I'd play solo as sniper to shoot people. I started with a simple strategy to get out of this bracket. Select a pushing mid that can have a high impact and end games quickly, we don't have all day for the 3k bracket after all. My first choice would have been my love Jakiro but we'll have to save him for later for fear that I would get trolled for picking Jakiro mid in this bracket. So... I decided on Death Prophet not the most noble of hero selections, but we're out for efficiency in this bracket and I'm no Arteezy.
So here is my first page, I wish I had the discipline to only play solo DP to make these easier to read, but I'm a moron so you'll have to bear with me!
Okay so this isn't the very beginning, but lets face it I'm fucking disorganized. It started out strong no solo losses yet with a few more solo wins on the page before! I tried to focus on winning my lane. I didn't gank much and my build focused more on me than my teammates. What I mean is that I think I've purchased mek maybe once in my 36 or so games up till this point. I definitely am not a professional and some of these games were extremely hard to carry. Finding the right balance between helping your teammates and using them as bait, or even just resigning yourself to the fact them some of them are going to be useless is difficult.
Here's the most recent up to date dotabuff page:
Now I'm aware this probably wont be very impressive to most of you as I know juice went basically undefeated to 5k. What a freak. All toll I'm something like 30:6 right now. I'm not here to tell you it's easy. I think maybe 50% of my losses were winnable by a superior pub player but I just couldn't spin them to my advantage. 3 of these losses intentional feeders -> abandons and in 2 of them I managed to lose my lane trying to secure a sizable enough lead to balance out the things happening elsewhere on the map. I'm not sure if this is even the right mentality. Perhaps it's just best to wait for the other team to make mistakes and capitalize. In the end I'm still not really sure and I feel like I got through it too quickly to even have any solid insight on the matter. What I do know is at this rating to increase your rating quickly you need to take the game into your own hands and win before your teammates have the chance to throw. That is not to say that this is how improve at Dota, but to quickly remove yourself from the bracket as someone who doesn't belong I think it is entirely necessary to play this way.
This morning I decided to sit here and write this before playing and this where the account currently stands:
The Wrap Up
All in all I think the most discouraging part of this journey so far was getting flamed in the low 4k Bracket. I feel like this is probably the flamiest trolliest bracket I've encoutered so far(4000-4300). I really hope people can learn to get along there but I think the problem is there is a lot of overlap between naturally skilled casual players and super tryhards aspiring toward esports who just aren't where they want to be yet.
Anyway excuse my formatting and writing skills this is my first time blogging on TL and I just recently passed retard English at my university. Just wanted to share with you guys even though writing may not be my forte.
The Plug
Not sure I'm allowed to plug my stream, but If you guys have any questions about anything at all ask em here or check me out www.Twitch.tv/Goofy_dota