Northern Arena Days 1 and 2

The middle of a tournament is the most fun from analyst point of view when it comes to predictions - there is just enough evidence to point you in the direction of where the tournament is going while maintaining a fog of the unknown. The Northern Arena tournament is no exception to this. The tournament format, commentators, and heroes have made for a fast paced and interesting event. Because this is a major LAN before the next Valve Major which has tier 1 teams, the results are important for teams trying to measure how they're going to line up against each other.

This tournament is sending teams home on the first day. This increases the stakes for teams like NP, Complexity, and EHome who looking to put in much needed LAN time before heading to a high stakes tournament in Boston. Unfortunately, FDL was eliminated yesterday and either Complexity or the loser of the EG/Alliance will go home today (currently it's game 1 and EG is in firm control EG beat Alliance 2-0 and Alliance sent Complexity home.) The format for the Northern Arena condenses the tournament experience down by keeping it from dragging with a no frills double elimination best of 3 in the upper bracket and the always popular best of 1 in the lower bracket. The two heavyweights of the tournament - Wings and EG - on opposite sides of the bracket. My guess is so that they can meet toward the end of the event. Overall, there haven't been any major bumps or glitches and the personal player format is nice so hopefully we will see another event here.

The commentators have been great, especially Purge. He continues to step his up his game when it comes to dissecting the details of the game and he keeps the other commentators on task by blowing through some of the nonsense or keeping them on task. Capitalist has also been filling this role by keeping it professional yet lite. There are still some immature/unprofessional/crude aspects to the DOTA 2 and ESports community as a whole which need to be ground off if ESports are going to compete with the likes of other professional sports. Purge and Capitalist are facilitating this transition.

The most interesting thing to me is the hero picks and the continuation of a decentralized metagame. Warlock is the best support by consensus but every other role has no clear best hero. We see a rotation of mids, carries, and offlaners which increases the importance of the draft and allows teams to keep picking what they like until they decide to pick something else. EG and Wings gaming have benefited the most from it and have just destroyed other teams, ending the game at the draft (the best example of this so far is Wings Gaming vs. NP game 2.) Mainly, teams have also been getting baited into drafting an aggressive lineup and usually lose because of it. This is because the less aggressive team secures their advantage by being greedier, getting an item up on their opponents, and then winning a team fight.

In summary, this tournament is a great way to bridge the gap between the TI and the next major. The format, commentators and current metagame makeup testify to the healthy nature of the sport. I encourage you to watch the games and enjoy high level of skills these players exhibit and the awesome nature of this tournament.