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Our MVP for the Dota 2 Asia Championship is Boboka
IG’s surprising victory created some new stars in the process, and one of them is our MVP.
With just two majors this season, some in the Dota scene were worried that there may be a lack of tentpole events compared to previous years. Fortunately, Perfect World came along and brought back the Dota 2 Asia Championships, which has acted as something like a third major and now everyone's happy.
The event came to an end last night after a solid week of action. Twelve of the best teams from around the world competed at the event, battling it out for a share of the $611,000 prize pool. Eventually it was Invictus Gaming who ended up taking the win, beating OG in the final.
Heading into the tournament IG were considered underdogs, as the team has not been at the top of the scene for some time. However the latest iteration of the roster that includes Fu ‘Q’ Bin, who led CDEC to second place at The International 5, and Dota legend Xu ‘BurNIng’ Zhilei found some form just at the right time, and dominated OG in the final, showing that they are a real threat to anyone that gets in their way.
While Q and BurNIng are two well known names, the rest of the IG lineup are relative newcomers, having come from IG Vitality. At DAC they showed that they should be considered some of the brightest talents in the Chinese scene and look set to have long careers in front of them.
All of the IG players played incredibly well throughout the tournament, as did the OG players for that matter, but for us one player stood out above the rest and that was Ye ‘BoBoKa’ Zhibiao.
His support play was top notch throughout, and he proved to be one of the better Monkey King players at the event, while his Riki play helped to finally beat OG in the final. There was a lot of good play throughout the week, but that performance in the final was what sealed him as our MVP for the Dota Asia Championship 2017.
We probably should start with the Riki play in the finals. After getting dominated by OG in the winners’ bracket final many thought this rematch might go the same way. OG looked strong and showed no signs of slowing down, while IG looked as if they just didn’t know how to beat them in their previous meeting. However one pick helped turn the two games in IG’s favour and that was a position four Riki.
Until IG picked him in game one of the finals Riki had not been played at the event at all, so this was a risky pick. However Boboka executed it perfectly. He may have only had three kills, but he totaled a massive 20 assists, perfectly playing the position four role where he enabled his cores to help spike their net worth.
However it was game two where he really shone on the hero. With OG picking up Enigma the Riki pick was almost inevitable, but we didn’t expect him to shut down the Enigma quite as well as he did. With JerAx trying to jungle the Enigma, Boboka proved the bane of his existence, sapping XP and taking away last hits. By the time the jungling Enigma had midas, Boboka already had Phase Boots and an Aquila, and was more than capable of taking down the Enigma with a little help.
Remarkably, in this game Boboka didn’t stop at one Aquila – he ended up with three, allowing him to continue to menace throughout the early and mid game. It did impact his late game potential a little, but as the match was over within 31 minutes that really didn't matter. Most players in that situation would have gone for a much safer route, going for a more standard build. But Boboka knew that with a constant growth in power he could dominate the game, and that he did. He ended with nine kills, one death and 21 assists. Not bad for a position four counter-jungling Riki.
While it was in the finals where he shone, Boboka performed consistently throughout the rest of the competition. His Monkey King became something many people feared, which resulted in more than a few first phase bans for the hero. Elsewhere his Earth Spirit was up there with the best, with some saying he could become the next great player on the hero. When he managed to get an Aghs on Earth Spirit, which happened a surprising amount, he became near unstoppable, forcing teams to target him instead of the cores in the fights.
What really stood out to us was the way in which Boboka was willing to change his item builds. While most players have one or two go to builds for each hero Boboka seemed more than happy to try out whatever he thought could help him win that game. His hero pool may not have been as varied as others in the competition, but his builds meant that his opponents never knew what to expect. One game he might rush an Aghs on Earth Spirit and the next he might whip out a surprise Glimmer Cape – you just couldn't predict what he would do.
Prior to DAC there was a good chance you wouldn’t have recognised Boboka’s play from the next up and coming Chinese star, as there are a lot of them right now, but with this victory he has shown he is someone who needs to be on your radar.
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