So I just finished watching the Semi finals and finals of [URL="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/events/397-starladder-i-league"]Starladder | i-League[/URL] and I am stuck with a but WTF was that feeling.

First of all before this event everyone was joking about "Alliance are back!" since the common knowledge was that a lot of their heroes were buffed. But that was it. Just because heroes that were played in Ti3 and TI4 times were buffed, don't exactly mean the same strategies will win again so much time after and again no one will know how to counter 5 man yearly pushes.

So far Alliance have pulled up but not really impressed anyone.

Now [URL="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/events/397-starladder-i-league"]Starladder | i-League[/URL] came and after 2-1 vs Secret that everyone knows are no more that strong at all. Alliance pulled of a double 2-0 on Team Liquid and EG...

A friend of mine told me if there is a Tournament in witch you could say the winner was some how pushed ahead, then this was it. Now I am really close of admitting this seems really possible.

Here is where the conspiracy starts. Both Alliance and EG are owned by the same GoodGame Agency, which in turn is owned by Amazon.com Inc. Since EG are on the top Alliance were the team that slowly is fading away and even if their fans say they are back they never really showed it so far. During the watching of [URL="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/events/397-starladder-i-league"]Starladder | i-League[/URL] it was pretty clear who are the local fans rooting fore and that way Alliance. If I was in charge of GoodGame Agency and could do this, I would definitely go for it.

Alliance Play:
It's always the same. I am not kidding. There are some teams that you don't know what to expect from, Alliance is not one of them. They always play early push with 4 or 5 heroes. Some times, mostly one is pushing different lane == ratting. That is literally what they are going 100% every single game. And they are playing against top 2 very versatile team.

[URL="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/tournaments/7820-starladder-i-league/2147-offline-finals-play-off/7841-playoffs/matches/99068-alliance-vs-team-liquid"]Alliance vs Liquid[/URL]
From the draft you can see Liquid did put an effort. They had Gyro, they had DP they had some ways to counter really pushes. But OMG they for a team that has such long time experience did so much mistakes over and over again.  I know some may say it was just pressure but Pro teams deal with pressure every Tournament. There was too much questionable mistakes made from Liquid.
The [URL="http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2083137467"]second game[/URL] was basically a stomp.

[URL="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/tournaments/7820-starladder-i-league/2147-offline-finals-play-off/7841-playoffs/matches/99069-evil-geniuses-dota2-vs-alliance"]Alliance vs EG[/URL]
I just want to say every one says EG and PPD are one of the best Drafters in Dota. The other thing to say is that if they fail the first game PPD realize what strategy the other team is going for and counters it. Is this case there is no freaking way EG did not know what Alliance are going fore in both games. Yearly 4-5 man push going late with good late core.

So what happens is:

1-st game EG Picks Luna, DS . Both really good vs pushing you think right? Well NO. Both of them require a lot of farm to actually be good vs Pushing strats. DS needs his Blink so he can pull off good combos. Luna needs tons of farm and yearly on is really bad against pushing strats. So how are they going late game again?

2-nd game EG gets Batrider + Specter. Again the very same Draft. Late core that will have extremely hard time every getting his items and an offlane that if very dependent on that Blink in order to be effective, but since DS had rough time last game, how will Bats have it easier to farm next game?

Both games EG went for long cool-downs wambo combos, that are generally bad against constant pushes with healing support.

That was my questions about the play, but hei I am not Pro player, what do I know. If you disagree with my thought about this correct me.

Non Game Play Oriented concerns.

Starladder | i-League Organisation:

It seems the organizers really wanted to push out the fact that there are CS:GO matches after the Dota matches. Every caster even Slacks even that Dummy acting cool guy was asked to remind the viewers that OH btw there are CS:GO matches playing after this. Yea from the Dota 2 community I'm gonna say "Who cares!". Especially as you could see that those lines are forced to the speakers throw the year plugs and are stopping their line of speech about what happened in the Dota games that they just casted. I don't hate CS:GO it's my favorite FPS game but that is just forced advertising from Starladder | i-League.

The fans seemed to be 90% Alliance and 10% everyone else. Guess the locals really do like Rat Dota :) nothing wrong about that. But it seemed Starladder | i-League really wanted to please the Fans this time. They let them sort of walk around as they please and line up for Autographs before the end of the game that is pretty good fan service. There were also half naked girls dressed as Christmas version of sexy Meepos in the Russian cast boot.

The Casters:

GoDz .... ok so GoDz says a couple of games ago, that Alliance are stronger now only because all of their heroes got buffed. But they are ONLY OK. Now he switches 180 and pulles out an Alliance T-Shirt before the start of Game 2. Now either GoDz had 2 T-Shirts of EG and Alliance and just put the winner from game one on or he is trying to go with the Crowd favorite here. But he was clearly not rooting for Alliance before.

In the what do we get from Starladder | i-League:
Well we are back at Ti4 times where games were about yearly 4-5 man pushes with lots of creeps...
Games last around 30 minutes and are one sided going for the team with better push strat.

The question is:
Why did two top tear Teams have a problem dealing with such an old strategy?

Lets forget about my own suspicion that the games were some how conspired by Starladder | i-League (Whos fans clearly favored Alliance) or Amazon.com (that owns both EG and Alliance and benefits if they boost their lower team) :)

What do you guys think of this series, did you find the semi-finals and finals exiting to watch? Where you entertained? What do you think, are Alliance back? Is that a good or a bad think for you?