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Series of the week is iG vs PSG.LGD; LGD show better team-fighting and pickoffs but ultimately iG outsmarts them with better map play. Even XinQ's beastly performances on Mirana can't keep iG down. If you want something fun, look at the difference in Emo's map positioning between his Zeus game and his Ember Spirit game (spoiler alert: there is none). You can imagine which game ended better for him!
With so much on the line heading in to the last week of the DPC group stage it was hard to choose which series were my favourite! I've settled on firstly Quincy crew vs Undying from NA which because of the result, set up for a 3 way tiebreaker. Always nice to hear PPDs thoughts on a series in which he guest casts! The other series that really caught my eye was Fnatic vs TNC. Fnatic adapted fantastically as the series went on and it was interesting to see how they portrayed their thoughts in to their gameplay. Only China left to go now and then international competition again! As a guy that's watched a lot of CIS I think a lot of people that haven't watched the region won't be aware of how strong VP are. Can't wait to see how every regions ideas stack up against each other.
"For the final week of the DPC its back to SEA for the best game of this week. TNC vs Fnatic is a classic in SEA with these teams battling it out for potential major slots. It was a classic Morphling game for TNC but this time without the Earthshaker combo, but it seemed they found a new special sauce in the Spirit Breaker. Abusing the power of Aghanim Morphling and Spirit Breaker TNC clean up game 1 and put themselves on track for taking down Fnatic but it didn't last long with Fnatic taking down the seemingly broken combo next game then taking the series 2-1."
My pick this week would be the whole IG vs PSG LGD series, perhaps with Game 2 as the choice. IG has been heading up the CN DPC league for a little while now, but it was felt that maybe their good run would come to an end as they were far from being regional favorites going into this. But with a domineering performance against the highest rated team in CN, PSG.LGD, they've cemented their place and genuine contenders. They're a fast, exciting team to watch, who always having something up their sleeve and this series was no different to that norm. I'm looking forward to watching more from them this season, and hopefully at the major.Additionally, Dan Offen has a new show, The DPC Show, summarizing the weeks action in all 6 regions, help by 6 analysts each focusing on one region. It can be found in video as well as audio format. Editors Note: What a fantastic week it has been for Dota. As we near towards the end of the first DPC season, we have the majority of teams occupying the most coveted slots for the upcoming Singapore Major. Once the Chinese Regional League concludes, we'll have our complete list of contenders attending the first LAN event in a long time. Teams look stacked, regions look stacked, players seem hungry and we all seem ready to witness an epic clash of the regions.