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Our MVP of ESL One Genting is Newbee’s Kaka
With devastating Naga Siren mastery, Kaka tore through the pack at ESL One Genting – here’s why he’s our MVP of the big event in Malaysia.
There’s little doubt that tournaments in South East Asia always deliver the hype. Fans in the packed Arena of Stars for the ESL One Genting tournament were treated to a plethora of epic action across the weekend, with Sunday providing a best-of-five rematch of The International 7 final. Back in August, Team Liquid completed an epic lower-bracket run with a total demolition of Newbee in the final. They didn’t drop a single game back then on the way to snagging over US$10,000,000 between them. This time though – it would be a very different story.
Both rosters remain unchanged since The International. Although it’s become more common for rosters to stick together after Dota’s biggest tournament, runners-up do tend to chop and change in the pursuit of perfection. Newbee, however, stuck together. While Newbee and Team Liquid were always closely matched, the last time that the Chinese team managed to take a game from Liquid was all the way back in April 2017 at the Kiev Major; though they would still lose the series. Even at Genting, Newbee fell to Liquid in the Winner’s Finals of the group stage before eventually securing another grand.final rematch – and this time, they would make no mistake.
It was far from an easy win though for Newbee, with the series going all the way to five games. Some may suggest that Liquid didn’t fully respect the Newbee draft and play style, but they executed it to perfection. As a result, our choice of MVP for ESL One Genting is none other than Hu ‘Kaka’ Liangzhi, who was key to Newbee’s strategy throughout the week – read on to find out why.
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There’s no doubt that all of Newbee played brilliantly. Xu ‘Moogy’ Han was consistent throughout the tournament – an area of his game that has often previously been lacking. Superstar mid player Song ‘Sccc’ Chun often hoisted the team upon his back, and despite constant lane pressure, came out on top and played formidably throughout the whole event.
However, the one thing that truly facilitated everything that Newbee did was Kaka’s performance on Naga Siren. Most Dota fans will share unsavoury memories of Naga Siren being played as a position one farmer, building Radiance and dragging games out for a frustratingly long time, all whilst chipping towers away with illusions before a team’s ultimately strangled into submission.
Newbee took home the grand prize
© ESL/Adela Sznajder
With continued adjustments from IceFrog to illusion damage on buildings and the hero itself, Naga Siren was deemed no longer viable at the top level of competitive play in a core role. Instead, with buffs to regeneration and armour, the hero is significantly more usable as a support. Newbee’s teamfight-heavy style was perfect for Naga, and Kaka used Song of the Siren to absolute perfection to set up Newbee’s devastating combos time and time again.
He played Naga a total of eight times out in Malaysia and won a whopping seven of them. The only time he lost was against Team Liquid prior to the grand final – but it was almost as if the TI winners had forgotten Naga Siren’s potency and lacked a game plan in the match where it ultimately mattered.
But what made the Naga Siren so devastating? When Kaka was using Song of the Siren, he was never too far from Zeng ‘Faith’ Hongda, his support partner in crime. Hunting in a devilsome duo, Faith drafted Disruptor in five of seven Naga Siren victories, and in the other two, another big teamfighter such as Warlock, Tidehunter or Enigma would feature in the draft. Games are often won and loss on big combinations and perfect execution – but the Naga Siren effectively decreased the margin for error and allowed Newbee time and time again to identify, isolate and decimate top priority targets.
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As Naga sung loudly, Newbee would swarm into position perfectly placing their spells to impact the largest possible number of heroes. The Chinese team were also not afraid to use the large cooldown spell for key pickoffs throughout the game, instead of saving it for the most “opportune” of combinations.
One game that springs to mind as particularly memorable was against Vici in which Newbee’s laning stage was fairly bleak. Sccc’s Zeus was a sitting duck in the middle lane and it seemed as if Newbee were being run over across the map. As soon as the two supports – in this case Naga Siren and Warlock – hit level six, the game changed in its very essence. Despite Zeus having very little item-wise, immaculate rotations from the trio of Warlock, Naga Siren and Zeus used Song of the Siren, Fatal Bonds and Warlock’s Golem as well as Zeus’s huge area-of-effect damage output to rip through a Vici team that were comfortably ahead.
There were countless moments akin to the aforementioned scenario throughout the weekend’s play and Liquid seemed to underestimate Kaka’s Naga once more in the final. Be it through arrogance or believing they had a legitimate counter, it just didn’t work out – leading Kaka’s Newbee team to be your ESL One Genting winners.
