NOTE - The original version of this article was lost. If this seems shorter than usual, it's because I raced to get something out after starting over. Thanks for your patience. Now that Day One is in the books, I think I can fully appreciate how good it is to be fully back up and running. I missed The International, and so did most of you. This feels good. This feels right. Before we dive into Day Two though...  

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

• We learned that, just like anybody else, Valve can have a bad day, which they did on Day One. There were oodles of issues with the stream, which this fun drinking game can attest to (if you actually played that today, good luck finding a suitable liver donor).  Not only that, the compendium itself was super jacked up for the first several hours of the event (for me at least), with far-ranging issues most notably affecting my fantasy scores from showing up in my compendium, as well as affecting Valve reporting scores accurately. This caused a ripple effect where now most of my sources of information for fantasy stuff are STILL playing catchup, and that means I'm not as well-informed as I'd like to be. It was kind of a mess, and not a great first impression for such a huge company that's raised such a huge sum of money from such a huge fan-base for such a huge tournament. I hope Day Two runs more smoothly. • We learned that there's seemingly much less recency bias in Fantasy Dota than in other fantasy sports. In Fantasy Football for instance, a legit "fantasy star" can fall out of vogue quickly and permanently over some relatively minor things. You don't want to get hung up on what they did 8 months ago, waiting for them to return to that form if it's never going to happen. I was trained to always ask myself about a player "What have you done for me lately?" before I decide whether to use them or not. That's the mindset I came up on. I want to roll with the hot hand and avoid cold streaks, and that usually works out. I tried riding the hot hand with Q after his performance at the Supermajor. It didn't kill me or anything, but it certainly didn't work out as well as I hoped it would. The lesson here is that a breakout player in June does not a TI darling make. • We learned that sometimes we have to cut the "What did we learn?" section short because... • ...we learned that we should never write directly into the backend of this website again, because you run the risk of writing 1200 words that go unsaved and vanish, and you end up spending an extra 90 minutes of your life you weren't exactly keen on spending (see note at top). Whoops. Anyway, my Day One fantasy total from my lineup of Moonn-Somnus-Yang-Q-KuroKy was 442.20. All in all...that's an OK number. My goal was 470 heading into today, but given it's a first day when our information is the least reliable, it's a number I can live with. But I could have done better, and I hope a lot of you were able to beat me today.  

DAY TWO'S POOL

Six of the 18 teams in the tournament play three series tomorrow, and we want to limit our focus to players from those teams. They are TNC, OpTic, paiN, Secret, VG and Newbee. Here's how they break down on an individual level (this section got heavily butchered by the rewrite, sorry) NEWBEE Sccc (great at TI7, great last few months, great day one, great all-around) Moogy (don't recommend) kpii (trash stats coming in, but had a great Day One) kaka (great last year, lost steam last few months, 1 out of 4 day one games were good) Faith (Reasonably Ok) OPTIC Pajkatt (don't recommend) CCnC (don't recommend) 33 (Decent last couple months, one really good game yesterday) zai (don't recommend) ppd (solid Summit showing, but nothing big yesterday) PAIN hFn (don't recommend) w33 (excellent in qualis, bad at Summit, pretty good yesterday) tavo (bad last few months, pretty good yesterday) duster (don't recommend) Kingrd (Decent Summit showing, Decent Day One) SECRET Ace (poor Supermajor, hit and miss Day One) MidOne (Very good last year, uninspiring last few months, nothing much Day One) Fata (Very good last few months, poor Day One) Puppey (OK at TI7, very good Supermajor, 1 of 4 games yesterday were good) YapzOr (Good at TI7, OK at Supermajor, 1 of 4 games yesterday were good) TNC Armel (don't recommend) Raven (Good at TI7, Good last few months, 1 of 4 games yesterday were good) SamH (Was bad, but balled out yesterday) Tims (Amazing at TI7, fell off last few months, nothing much day one) Kuku (Good last few months, 1 of 4 games yesterday were good) VG Ori (Average last few months, pretty decent day one) Paparazi (Solid TI7 + last few months, bad day one) eLeVeN (Ditto Paparazi) LaNm (don't recommend) Fenrir (Great at Supermajor, 1 of 4 games yesterday were good)  

MY DAY TWO PICKS

Cores - Sccc + w33 Sccc is probably the guy in this group I feel best about, and between being a reigning grand finalist, handsome, and super solid, I need that stability right now. w33's poor showing at the Summit still worries me, but he's good, he's flashy, and there's just nobody else I feel great about. Not to mention this gets me hyped. Offlane - 33 All the other offlaners fall into one of two groups: guys who I felt good about coming in but weren't good yesterday (Fata, eLeVeN) and guys who did well yesterday but looked like trash coming in (tavo, kpii, SamH). 33 to me is just taking the safe middle ground...he did OK yesterday (once), and I felt OK about him coming in. Supports - Puppey + Fenrir I don't feel great about these picks and I'm holding my nose as I make them. But I don't particularly like ANY of the supports in this group, so I'm going with the ones that A.) I liked coming in, B.) Have good card bonuses, and C.) Play for teams who average longer games. Wish me luck. If you're looking for viable alternatives, I considered Ori and Raven at core, I considered SamH at offlane after what he did yesterday, and I considered kuku and kaka at support mostly because that sounds fun to my ears. You could also talk me into ppd. That's all I got for now. Sorry this wasn't as in-depth as it could have been, but...you know. Remember, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just trying to show you how I think so you can make an informed decision. Good luck out there, and happy gambling.