Intel Extreme Masters Live Blogging Saturday: Fnatic/Nihilum Eliminated In Group Play

Sunday 10AM US Eastern: Upper/Lower Finals, Grand Finals

The best American RMP team takes on the best European RMP team!  Will XOM play mutilate in RMP mirror, or will he switch to shadowstep for this fight?  Don't miss the epic upper bracket showdown! 

Neither Gravitas nor SK EU has ever won a championship, both lost to loser bracket WLD teams in grand finals before, despite beating the same teams in the same tournament earlier.  Now, without the dreaded WLD team to deal with, who will win it all here in Montreal?

Interview with SK-EU

X6 vs AAA: 0-3

X6 must feel like a whitie caught in Harlem with three RMP teams left in the tournament.  They will play AAA again in lower bracket finals.  This team is capable of playing the largest variety of classes so don't give up on them just yet.  They also have championship experience, something the other three teams do not.

Unfortunately they seem to be married to the warrior/priest/druid comp which wasn't even all that great atgainst RMP in 2.4 (see X6 vs COM in Blizzcon).  Here against vastly improved 3.0 RMP, they stand even less of a chance.  They already lost to Gravitas and SK EU, and they lost to AAA the exact same way three in a row.  Huge DPS pressure on warrior and priest early, swap to the druid and bam, it is a sure kill.

I really believe Blizzard wants to make the game faster paced and flashier, and it is a move in the right direction.  With WOTLK health pools (and nerfs on the big three of DK, paladin and mage), I really believe they will hit the sweet spot between offense and defense and create the ultimate e-sport.  WOW is already the highest paid e-sport outside of Korea in 2008 when it comes to tournament winnings, the future is bright as the 3.0 matches were so much more intense and enteraining than 2.4 equivalents, even if players have only scratched the surface of the new meta game.

Gravitas vs AAA: 3-1

Gravitas defeated AAA 3-1 in group play, mostly because AAA tried to go for a priest kill while Gravitas went on the rogue each time.  This time however AAA went on Gravitas rogue instead.  Even with cheat death, mutilate just does so much damage and Emolol went down for the count quickly in game 1. 

In game 2 Emolol made much better use of his cooldowns and managed to drop the AAA rogue first, only to go down himself a few seconds later.  Gravitas once again had mana advantage and in a mage/priest mirror, Gravitas came out ahead.  Thank god for 3.0 damage!  Old school mage/priest vs mage/priest can last for 20 minutes plus, but here all it takes is a deep freeze stun and it is 4500 damage right there.

Game 3 played out exact same way except AAA managed to drop Emolol a good 10 seconds earlier, but again couldn't keep their mutilate rogue alive.  Their mage/priest were low on mana yet again, and Gravitas took another victory in 2v2.

Game 4, Gravitas decided to mix things up and went on AAA priest.  AAA continued to go on Emolol and they ended up trading both classes.  A 2v2 of Gravitas's mage/priest vs AAA's out of cooldown mage/rogue was . . . no contest as Gravitas advances to the upper bracket finals against SK EU!

SK EU vs X6: 3-0

X6 once again opted for warrior/double healer against RMP, which did not work against Gravitas, what makes them think it will work against SK EU?  I think they will have a better chance going warrior/retribution paladin/shaman and play DPS vs DPS. 

With mage/rogue DPS, their warrior was under huge pressure all game.  He has to stay in one hand and shield mode often and even then he was brought to very low levels until shield wall was used.  This match-up feels totally different from 2.4 days when the priest of warrior 2-healer team can play offensively (and Korean RMP powerhouse COM still destroyed them 3-0). 

Now the RMP team has full control from start to finish with raw damage.  X6's superb defensive got ran the RMP low on mana, but still all it took was a single burst window to bring down their druid in game 1 and 2.  SK EU's swaps are top notch, although I think they can just train the priest and win like Gravitas did.

In game 3 X6 tried hunter/double healer in desperation, but their hunter was nowhere near Cherez's level.  He was opened on before he even got a trap off and two rounds of burst later, SK won the series 3-0. 

The Final Four:

SK-EU
Gravitas
AAA
X6

Three RMP teams, one warrior/double healer.  At least we don't see WLD teams anymore!  RMP matches are actually exciting.  I am not surprised RMP is doing so well, out of all the 2.4 comps, this comp got a huge boost with deep freeze mage and mutilate rogue, while all other old school comps took a dive.

Retribution paladins are extremely easy to pick up, but players like Glickz and Kintt are not going to be able to master the class like a full time paladin player can.  As a result, retrib teams quickly put together still can't beat RMP teams that have played thousands of games together.

It will be a while before people learn the new meta game to challenge RMP, but with WOTLK coming in three weeks, I am not sure if they will bother.

AAA vs Pandemic: 3-0

RMP vs Rogue/Retrib/Druid.  AAA started off on Kintt's retrib paladin the same way they did against Glickz and Fnatic.  Divine shield was forced very quickly, and AAA sheeped Retrib paladin into a fear right after while they brought down Ohnoes.  AAA up 1-0.

Game 2 saw the same pressure on Kintt's retribution paladin.  Again he was forced to bubble within first 3-4 globals by mage/rogue.  Divine shield eventually got mass dispelled but Kintt was already back to full.  The second kidney shot came very quickly as he went down shortly after.  Fear/blind/CS on the druid classic RMP style.  AAA up 2-0.

In desperation, Pandemic dropped Kintt's retrib paladin and brought him back in as priest.  The game started out well with AAA's DPS was under control and Pandemic was significantly ahead in mana.  However in 3.0 a single stun just leads to a quick death as Caal left himself in caster form after a cyclone, and was brought down from 100 to 0 in one deep freeze.

Retribution paladin may look overpowered on paper, but you still need to . . . actually practice the class in live play before you can bring it into a LAN tournament against high end teams.  The latest round of hot fixes seem reasonable, once they nerf the hammer of justice talent from -30 seconds to -15 seconds like it used to be (35 second HOJ instead of 20 when fully talented), I think they are balanced in WOTLK when health is doubled from current levels.  Without snare and healing debuff, the class needs to do serious damage to succeed as a melee class.

X6 vs Got Games East:  3-0

Warrior/Double Healer vs Rogue/Mage/Boomkin, defense vs offense, you would think this match-up favors the tri-DPS team in 3.0, but Happyminti chose to be hemo and could not output anywhere near the same damage a mutilate rogue can.  A bladestorm got both Minti and Sodah to 50% health, a quick intercept right after finished him off.  It is time to go mutilate Minti-sama!  Stop playing 2.4 specs in 3.0!

And he did play mutilate in game 2, GGE dropped the X6 priest very quickly but again, Bladestorm brought all three of them low and X6 warrior finished off Boomkin Sodah literally a second before Minti-sama's blind hit him.  Warrior/druid vs mage/rogue is very different when mage/rogue is totally out of cooldowns and despite an amazing effort from Venruki, GGE went down yet again 0-2.

The final game saw the entire team of X6 hugging pillars against rogue/mage DPS.  Their warrior went on Sodah with a blade storm and followed it up with a intercept kill, while Minti/Venruki could never put a real dent into priest backed up by tree druid.  Why didn't Venruki go arcane for a 3DPS team?  He can at least arcane barrage into POM pyro on someone.

Gimmicky 3 DPS teams have never won a tournament before, and they never will, not even in the 3.0 environment.  I was surprised GGE didn't even try to run Sodah as a tree druid against a defensive team.  I am not sure about GGE's future as a professional team.  Venruki was interviewed earlier and said he didn't want to make roster changes, but in my opinion Happyminti is the type of player who looks good with all the fancy plays + CCs but lacks the offensive pressure of a XOM or Nitrana to win a championship.  Rogue/mage/druid, no matter how you slice it, is just not a very strong comp.
 
The Venruki Interview

Teams Remaining:

SK-EU and Gravitas both qualified for the playoff as 1st place of their groups.

Relegation Matches:

Pandemic vs AAA
X6 vs GGE

AAA vs Fnatic: 3-1

A huge upset as AAA trained Glickz the retribution paladin the entire game with deep freeze mage and mutilate rogue.  Deep freeze stun + kidney shot is an eternity when you are eating massive damage and Fnatic could not find a way around it.  Perhaps retribution paladin is not as invisible as we thought.  The deadly brew talent truly lifted the rogue class.  Druids no longer hard counter us, thank you god.

And because of this upset, Fnatic went from tournament favorites to elimination in group play!  They were tied with AAA with 2 wins and 2 losses each, but because they lost to AAA in their series, AAA takes the third spot, and Fnatic was eliminated from the tournament! 

Incredible!  Both Nihilum and Fnatic out in group play.  I guess these teams are just not as good as they thought without the WLD cheese.  Let's go rogue heroes!

X6 vs Gravitas: 2-3

I am curious why did X6 go with a warrior double healer comp against RMP as 3.0 seems to be all about offense.  Game 1 saw Gravitas training the X6 priest all game and eventually brought him down.  Game 2 and 3 X6 played much better defense and I am amazed by the damage bladestorm does.  X6 with a solo DPS dropped Ely the priest in game 2 and Emolol the rogue in game 3, with very little assist from his teammates long before Ely ran out of mana.

I am not sure why did Serennia-sama cry about warriors being useless when they got their 30 minute timers on 5 minutes now.  Shield wall is amazing against focus fire and bladestorm does amazing damage for a 1.5 minute cooldown.  Sure no one is anywhere near as strong as retribution paladins, but warriors are still in the spotlight throughout this tournament.

I also don't understand why Emolol went shadowstep against a DEFENSIVE team in game 2 and 3.  You can't play against people running 3.0 specs when you are still playing a 2.3 spec.  In game 4 Emolol went mutilate and they just trained down the X6 priest almost effortlessly.  Deadly brew with wound/cripple/mindnumbing shuts down casters completely, coupled with vile poison and 50% poison application rate it is fantastic protection against abolish poison.  That is something the rogue class never had.  As shadowstep, there is just no reason to use a rogue over deep arms warrior.  They have better survivability, better mobility, better sustained damage AND better burst damage than the shadowstep rogue.

Game 5 was epic!  X6 went with the ultra violent comp of warrior/retrib paladin/shaman and Gravitas continued its RMP with mutilate rogue (the ONLY way to go).  They forced a bubble on X6 retrib paladin almost right away before he bubbled and got back to full.  With heroism, bladestorm, and retrib burst, Emolol was extremely low but he managed to drop the retrib paladin before he died.  Mage/priest vs warrior/shaman?  Celex/Ely just played too many games together and a quick CC chain on the shaman led to a warrior kill.  Amazing game!
  
Fnatic vs X6: 2-3

Battle of the titans in group A and X6 has the match-up advantage here as I believe shaman is superior to druid in warrior/retrib mirrors.  Glickz took the defensive paladin build with 20 second hammer of justice's while X6 went with the scrub friendly divine storm build but behind windfury + heroism, it doesn't matter.  X6 took a quick 2-0 lead with timely chain crits but Fnatic played amazingly well with clutch CCs thanks to the shorter cooldown HOJ in game 3 and 4 to force game 5. 

The final match saw early pressure on Glickz before X6 went on Hafu and a hammer of wrath finished her at low health.  X6 warrior went down at same time and it was resto shaman + retrib paladin vs retrib/warrior.  Unfortunately for Fnatic, resto shaman got too many buffs in 3.0 and the shaman/paladin team won easily.

Fnatic vs Roccat: 3-0

Warrior/retrib/druid mirror, and Fnatic is simply the vastly superior team.  Despite both teams packing a huge amount of burst damage, you still need CC's to give yourself an edge.  Roccat's retrib paladin clearly has no clue what he was doing and specced divine storm instead of 20 second hammer of justice's (not to mention all the tremendous utilities from the protection tree).  Fnatic prepared a lot for this tournament and they have to be the overwhelming favorite here with European teams never had a chance to play 3.0 on live.  

AAA Agita vs Gravitas: 1-3

RMP vs RMP is completely different from 2.4 days.  Both teams traded priests in the first a few seconds of the match.  A single cheap shot brought the priest to 30%, followed by CS + vanish garrote for a quick kill.  Both rogues went down at same time but Gravitas's Celex had a huge mana edge and was able to finish off the AAA mage.  Gravitas up 1-0.

Game 2 AAA's rogue went mutilate and tried to go on the priest.  Gravitas chose not to play the race the priest game and went on mutilate rogue instead.  Massive damage from rogue/mage took him to 20% in just a cheap shot, followed by a kill shortly after.  Gravitas is still the best mirror RMP team I have seen and I would love to see them taking on SK EU later in this tournament.

AAA went on Ely again and took him to 30% in seconds.  Gravitas couldn't peel as effectively this time but still managed to get Ely out of trouble with sheeps and blinds.  A quick swap by AAA dropped Emolol despite cheat death and AAA took game 3.  Game 4 saw Gravitas going on the AAA rogue again, who blowed his cloak and trinket too aggressively and was dropped in a single stun.  Gravitas wins 3-1.

I can't wait to see WOTLK arena tournaments (once they balance out retribs and DKs), it is going to be absolutely amazing with players have enough health to survive trains but the game will still be much faster paced than 2.4 WLD mirrors.

Roccat vs X6: 2-3

Warrior/retribution paladin/druid against warrior/retribution/paladin/shaman.  X6 is known for being able to play a large variety of comps and it is interesting they are using a shaman instead of druid.  In a fast paced match like this druid can't afford to cyclone and shaman comes with heroism + windfury totem for a massive +46% haste bonus to melee on top of offensive dispels and interrupt.

In game 1 X6 started off too aggressively, their shaman spammed lightning bolts and a few chain crits from Roccat dropped the X6 warrior.  However since then, X6 played much more conservatively and Roccat really had no chance.  Shaman simply brings more table to this comp than druid in a mirror.  X6 took two quick games to make it 2-1.

But the young kid to the block didn't give up and they ran rogue/mage/ret!  Massive damage into warrior and BOP couldn't block damage from mage and ret paladin.  X6 warrior went from 100% to 20% in three globals and he jumped off the bridge in desperation before was finished off by a hammer of wrath.

This is where X6's experience came in.  Again they clamped down on defense.  Warrior went shield from the start and shield wall as soon as they breathed on him.  The new resto shaman with earth shield + instant heal is one incredible healer to DPS through, and even with three DPS Roccat could never put any real pressure through three heavy armor units given two of their DPS's are physical.   

Fnatic vs Gravitas: 3-1

Fnatic scored a historical comeback (winning four games in a row) and denied Gravitas from their HP Blackbirds a couple of weeks ago, how will Gravitas's RMP fare in 3.0 now the WLD comp is dead?  Fnatic as predicted went with warrior/retrib/druid, a comp they played in past tournaments before against certain cleave comps. 

Gravitas started off on Rhaegyn before quickly swapping to Hafu and took her down to 20%.  Glickz is so much more comfortable on retrib than Kintt and a quick BOP got his honey out of trouble.  By now Emolol the mutilate rogue is already very low from retrib/warrior damage and a late pain suppression with him at 1% did . . . nothing to alter the outcome.

Game 2 saw very similar plays.  Start off on Rhaegyn, swap to Hafu, BOP is up and they couldn't finish her off.  It is clear Fnatic came prepared.  Hafu is staying in tree form at all times spamming heals, never leaving herself vulnerable with cyclone attempts in caster form.  By the time BOP wears off, even with cheat death Emolol could not survive a 3.0 warrior + retribution paladin on him.  Fnatic up 2-0.

Game 3 Gravitas decided to mix things up.  Instead of chasing a high mobility target they started out on Rhaegyn, CCing Glickz the retrib paladin before swapping back to him for a kill.  But Emolol tried too hard to get a sap in Game 4 and found himself far away from his team, Fnatic went on priest right away and even with pain suppression, against warrior/ret burst he lasted just 12 seconds.  Fnatic is looking very comfortable and I really expect them to win this thing.  Glickz has more experience as retrib than any other paladin in this tournament and it makes a huge difference.

Group B Result:

SK-EU advances to the playoffs as first place (they beat Pandemic in their series and are tied with them in wins).  We will see a Pandemic vs Got Games East rematch to decide the second place.  Group A is coming up next before we can see that however!

Pandemic Blue vs Team EG: 3-1

Team EG went with a very weak 3DPS line-up of rogue/rogue/shadow priest while Pandemic ran rogue/retribution paladin/druid.  Game 1 their shadow priest was opened on and pressured right away.  Peeling attempt were solid but as soon as dispersion went down, the shadow priest died to a solo retribution paladin from 50% in 3-4 hits.  Game 2 EG split DPS on rogue/druid and Ohnoes went down to Azael/Greenranger(playing shadow priest).  Game 3 the teams traded Azael/Caal and shadow priest/rogue vs retribution paladin/rogue?  Maybe if it was 2.4 EG could have pulled it out.  Game 4 saw both rogues of Team EG on Caal in bear form, while their shadow priest was left alone against rogue/retribution paladin.  Dispersion is basically an ice block that does not remove any debuffs and only lasts 6 seconds.  The 36% mana recovery is decent, but for a 51 talent it is still a joke.

Got Games East vs Team EG: 3-0

GGE came out with the same three DPS comp of rogue/mage/balance druid that destroyed SK-EU yesterday.  Team EG went with rogue/lock/druid and Azael took metamorphosis.  The problem is the majority of GGE's damage is magical and metamorphosis does very little against it.  Game 1 they just powered down Azael through metamorphosis and game 2 and 3, as soon as Greenranger came out to cyclone they swapped to him for a quick kill.  Will GGE's triple DPS comp be enough against retribution paladin cheese?  We will find out later.

SK EU vs Team EG: 3-0

Team EG took rogue/rogue/druid and SK went with RMP as usual.  Have to say RRD is dead in 3.0 against RMP.  With deep freeze and dismantle, the RMP team has so much better peeling power, while doing so much more damage to the RRD team in return.  Without cheat death, all it takes is one kidney shot into a few instants and you have a dead mutilate rogue.  Team EG was never able to put any pressure into SK priest and they lost three quick matches.

UPDATE:  Nihilum forfeited their series vs Team EG because none of them played 3.0 before. They had one win and two losses and were unlikely to qualify to begin with.  Here is an interview on the situation.

Group A
 
against All authority
x6tence.
AMD wow Team ROCCAT
fnatic.WoW
Gravitas Gaming - WoW

Have to say even with the retribution paladin abuse, the matches were far more entertaining to watch than 2.4.  In 2.4 as soon as someone dies you can pretty much /AFK out right away, 3.0?  We saw so many intense matches that went from 3v2 to 2v2 to 2v1 to 1v1.  Venruki, the best mage I have ever fought, almost pulled off a 1v2 against Kintt the retribution paladin (who never played retrib in an arena match prior to this tournament) plus Onnoes the shadowstep rogue when they both were at 95% health!

Kintt Interview From Montreal

If they banned retribution paladins this would have been the best tournament of the year.  Pandemic opened up with a 0-3 loss against SK-EU before they busted out rogue/retrib/druid and won the next two.  Either way I think we are all tired of WLD teams by now, and anything but WLD is a good thing. 

Out of all the teams at the tournament, I believe Fnatic is the only one that actually played retrib in a 3v3 comp before in a serious tournament match.  Experience is on their side and if they can adjust to the 3.0 ruleset, I still have them as the favorites to win it all here.



3.0.3 Patch Notes

Vigor is now a must have talent with glyph boosting it to 20 energy.  130 energy here we come!  With shadow dance no longer triggering cooldowns for openers, you can ambush three times in three globals if you catch someone in a stunlock.  With ambush now benefitting from lethality, three ambushes does almost as much damage as four mutilates on average.  Is it worth the positioning requirement and the hassle of playing shadow dance compared to the ease that is mutilate?  We will see.

I have a feeling it is just a matter of time before shadow dance becomes the best spec.  3 minute prep + 2 minute dance, extreme burst damage and cheat death is still a godly, godly talent.  We will see.  Mutilate is just too easy to play at the moment.  I think backstab needs to outdamage mutilate in damage per energy for shadow dance to truly work, right now mutilate still has 15% advantage.