The Pandemic DotA team kicked off the Razer sponsored Europe North America DotA Championship 2008 (ENADC) with a double date. Thanks to missing the first game due to the eSports World Cup last week, ENADC pushed back their first playday to set up a weekend of action.
First on the agenda would be Meet Your Makers, a familiar foe for Pandemic considering they met on LAN at the eSports World Cup in San Jose just a week ago. There, Pandemic opted to use an unorthodox strategy to specifically counter the powerhouse mYm's tendencies, but the plan backfired; giving the Europeans access to too many powerful heroes spelled Pandemic's downfall.
This weekend, though, Pandemic had their chance for revenge, and they made sure to take advantage of it in front of a massive crowd of over 9000 viewers.
“Before game one, I knew we were doing meepo so I was pretty confident,” said Mohamed “m0” Nasar, “I didn't know what would happen after that but with the players we had I wasn't worried that much. Of course we all wanted revenge after that loss at ESWC so I knew everyone would step it up.”
Pandemic's Jason “Chu” Park opened the game picking Meepo the Geomancer, a rare sight in a competitive DotA match due to its poor statistics and survivability. Thanks to its cloning ability, though, it's one of the few heroes in the game that really only comes into its own in the hands of a talented player with world class micro, and Chu expertly managed that throughout the game.
With a first map win thanks to a blistering Meepo performance, mYm had no choice but to ban the hero in their next two games, a wasted removal under any other circumstances. While they would storm back to tie the series, Pandemic would close things out in the final game.
“It felt great to win,” said Nasar, “It's always nice to beat a top team and even more great to beat someone who just beat you a week ago. At ESWC we didn't really have our main players there (carry players) so it was really hard to switch roles in such a short time. We are also scrimming a lot more now and with the experience from ESWC, were a much better team.”
With the first win in their group under their belts, the French team oXmoze would be next. Learning from the results of the last match, the oXmoze opted to ban Meepo first in each game, giving Pandemic an edge from the get go. In the end, Pandemic would pull off the 2-1 victory for two wins in their group, guaranteeing the top spot regardless of the result of Saturday's game against the Russians Team
Techies.
Make sure to check http://www.teampandemic.net/ for results and replays of all upcoming Pandemic DotA matches! |
