[China] Douma Loda special [translated by TactWZ]

Translated by TactWZ
TactWZ: Apologies for how wordy the subs are, I wanted to do the original writer justice by not leaving stuff out
Narration: ZHYKPT
DOTA Chronicles of Gods Episode Two
With a heart that never gives up
He is the King of DOTA
Attaining Godhood early
And has already fallen from his throne
The Legendary Master
LODA
MYM|Maelk: This is Loda's world, and we are lucky to be a part of it!
According to the stories, on November 15th, 2006,
Meet Your Maker gaming club created a DOTA Team, led by both Maelk and Loda
MYM quickly took the gold in the DreamHack 2006 tournament
Soon after that, Loda gave a breathtaking performance using Tiny in IHCS (an InHouse league)
Utilizing Tiny's high base damage, Loda immediately denied the first 3 creep waves,
immediately gaining a level over ImbaQ's Shadow Fiend
The melee ranged, 0 armor Tiny suppressed the overpowered 6.41 SF until he could not do a thing
As everyone was ridiculing the "feeder" Bogdan,
Tiny came out with a horrifying 21-2 record
And this game became the one Loda made his name
Soon, the newly formed MYM had some roster changes
Loda and his good friend Akke left the team
I think a lot of people are now happy for this change
Because if he stayed in MYM,
it's very possible the legendary SK|Loda would have never came to be
After leaving MYM, he found his old highschool friends and bar buddies, forming a new team
Even though he has amazing metagame understanding and leadership skills,
he chose to be the gloryless support in the team
That year, although their names were unknown, they used the most elegant strategies to defeat all the teams and seize victory!
He is Loda; and his team is called Team Team.
That magnificent strategy that amazed the world is called the "global strat"
May 2007, in an elimination match of the MYM Defending Dota #5 tournament, T_T played against Say_Plz
Perhaps great beginnings are always difficult... T_T, especially Spectre, was heavily suppressed in the laning phase.
But after the early game, the specialty of the global strat began to shine
By using global skills to support in combat, T_T was always in situations where the opponents were outnumbered
As Bogdan's Spectre got his Radiance, Say_Plz was destined to become the first sacrifice to the global strat,
as Loda and his global strat made its beautiful mark in Dota history
Many people know Loda because of his Godlike Shadow Fiend
The 6.41 update finally allowed the benchwarmer SF to enter the CW stage with his imba shadow razes
And the bottle, blink, BKB setup that Loda concocted also became the standard in everyone's eyes
Unrelenting lane control, imba farm, and the unholy BKB. Loda made SF loved by all, making him the most popular hero in Dota.
And the battle that showed all of this was the MYM #5 finals: T_T vs MAGE
MAGE, the predecessor of VP,
With Vigoss, the one who attained Dota Godhood earlier than Loda in their ranks, MAGE picked up the most efficient killer of the time, QoP for the V-God
Yet, the Loda who had swept Say_Plz away with his global strat got a nightmarish early game
The frail, early-game SF was ganked by VP again and again. Return, ganked, return, ganked again, and so on...
In a few short minutes, SF was already 0:6, and MAGE was in a 13:0 lead
When SF only had some wraith bands and boots; Vigoss already had necro book on his QoP, VPhappy had Hand of Midas, and VS already made an Aegis! (TL Note: In this early game version, Aegis was buyable in shop)
As SF finally completed his blink dagger with the help of his global strat teammates, V-God already had level 3 Necrobook on his QoP
Even though everybody was in despair, Loda commanded his team calmly
With three perfectly executed ultimates defending their high ground, Loda repeatedly teamwiped the opposing team, suddenly swinging the game in their favor
Loda who had 0:6 in the early game ended up farming 27k, the highest in the game.
Loda grasped victory from the pits of despair with his unbreakable will
And that was the first time Vigoss's legendary QoP was beaten
Soon after that, T_T got SK Gaming as a sponsor, and this gave birth to the legendary ID: SK.Loda
Soon after SK formed in July 2007, in TFL,
SK cut down everyone in their way and fought their way into the finals with extraordinary effort and their uncanny understanding of -XL mode (Note: Similar to -cm, but only 3 bans)
Since SK lost to MYM 1 to 2 in the first round and was knocked to the losers' brackets, MYM only needs 1 win to take the gold, whereas SK needs 2.
Yet even with this advantage, MYM could not withstand the pressure, and the Dota God MYM|Merlini played poorly. This became the weakness SK needed to break through
Even though Merlini was subbed off in the second match, nobody could stop SK's advance anymore
Following the success of the global strat, Loda once again used an extremely rare lineup to win the gold
But this first place was the last one SK got in a long time to come
In MYM 6, 7, and 8, SK failed to get into the finals, and was also unable to take the gold in other tournaments. That era was the one where VP ruled over Dota like the sun in the sky.
Perhaps because their results never met expectations as a strong team, or perhaps due to repeated failures, SK eventually decided to change roster, and old time member Drayich left the team
At this point Loda was the focal point of the Dota world. On the IDEC (which replaced the IHCS) rankings, Loda was firmly rooted in the top three
With extremely good awareness and skill, Loda's understanding of the heroes were fully apparent in every single hero he used
In versions before 6.48, the metagame understanding and awareness he exhibited was unforgettable
And it was because of his commands and tactics as captain that made SK stand on the forefront of the top world-class teams
Loda's creativity was what really made everyone respect him from the bottom of their hearts
Slardar, Rikimaru, Juggernaut... these sad heroes who were long forgotten in CW were all reborn in his hands
And the most amazing rebirth of them all was undoubtly the surprise attack of Spectre
Since 6.48, this super late game carry was nurtured like a Super Saiyan by countless teams. No matter how tough the path was, how discouraging, nobody budged from this path
Because as soon as Radiance was obtained, Spectre would radiate a brilliant light like a true Super Saiyan, making enemies feel a chill in their spines
Because of his superimba late game, opponents often teamganked him without mercy, trying their best to stomp him into the ground before his transformation
And so, the Spectre who could not survive early on could only make the trees his friends, keeping the neutrals company in the woods, living in the shadows like a stray dog.
Awaiting the moment he got his radiance, transforming into a God of battle
From this, everyone formed an unspoken agreement in thinking that selecting Spectre means selecting 4v5.
Just as everyone was getting used to this way of thinking, it was Loda who came along and invented a diffusal blade midgame ganking build
It was this build of his that gave Spectre a chance to be reborn and truly climb into the throne of late game carries undisputed
With the blink dagger nerf in 6.51 and changes to various ganking heroes, the tempo of the game suddenly slowed down
More exciting strategies centering around the blink dagger began to fade away and the more stable 4+1 (4 support 1 carry), 3+2 strategies began to appear more and more
But SK was still SK, and Loda was still Loda. As late game carries became mainstream, Loda also started to showcase his farming prowess
This showed the world that Loda was not only a selfless support who had exceptional understanding of the metagame, but his fundamentals were also terrifyingly solid
March 11th, 2008. In EMS #1, SK.Gaming dominated MYM Pride 9's champion MYM.Dota 2-0.
This was the biggest first place finish they obtained since MYM #5 back in May of 2007
In both games SK.Gaming used the 4+1 strategy, and Loda was still undeniably the key player
Quick farm, entering the battle at the right times, and even the newly joined Ars-Art transitioned into the team seamlessly and showed his skills
July of the same year, SK.DotA finished in first place in the ESWC
From then on they also finished first in PD #10 and the 2008 Summer DreamHack, completing a hattrick
Loda and SK reached their highest point together
After that peak, SK was unable to become an evergreen in the world of Dota
Dota underwent the biggest changes yet in 6.51 to 6.59
European teams had a lot of player reshuffles, and the Asian teams began to rise
SK began to lose its edge after many roster changes
Player changes and version changes made SK fade slowly into a slump
Akke's departure came as a huge loss to SK, and the replacement, Snow, that Loda found could not provide enough support...
Faced with SK's fall, Loda began to realize that he could not shoulder everything alone
In the following days, Loda began to realize that he must pick big late game carries for himself in order to salvage their games
So in many games, everyone would only see the likes of Spectre, TB, and so on in a 4+1 strat
And even though SK continued to win, their tactics became less and less innovative, more and more conservative, and this gave other teams the chance to discover weaknesses
As SK performed worse by the day, the lack of skill from the new members, Loda's former glory began to slowly fade
A lot of players who don't know about Loda's past even opened their mouths to say: Loda is merely a passing noob with a big mouth
But remember, when there were no tournaments, Loda was playing IDEC, and he was dominating other pro players as if they were the noobs
In this period, regardless of how SK's performance fluctuated, Loda was forever ranked first on IDEC rankings
Why couldn't Loda obtain more glory after his peak?
After SK's peak, the player reshuffles left Loda with teammates who were actually pretty bad
Everybody knew this, but he simply didn't like other people saying so
Loda once said in an interview, "Don't call my teammates bad
Yet the repeated failiures made Loda lose heart, and he chose to leave...
Yet SK's existence was solely due to Loda's existence. Without Loda, SK lost the reason to exist
March 10th, 2009. SK-Gaming announced on its official website that they are officially disbanding their Dota team
After SK disbanded, Loda temporarily returned to MYM
Yet after only winning one tournament with his former teammate Maelk, MYM ran into financial problems and met its end.
April 2009, MYM disbanded... (Caption at top: in August 2010, MYM was bought out and this small demon was reborn)
Revisiting Dota history, Vigoss and Loda's contributions to Dota were huge
They let many, many people come to know Dota, to love Dota
There are many who hope Icefrog would name Morphling after Loda, and QoP after Vigoss
Icefrog, to these two men who've contributed so much to Dota, you can't just treat them like this
At the very least you need to let the new players of Dota know that they came to this world, they dominated, and they became gods. That is enough
The father of Arthas once said, "No king rules forever"
Dota is the same
The day must come where Loda has to step down from his throne
Perhaps at that time, he will let out a long breath, knowing he will never have to shoulder so much glory again, and stretch lazily
Then, he'll turn around to look at the throne behind him, and while reminiscing about the glory of days past, slowly, walk away
When he left, Loda gave his new song Another Day, Another Place to MYM's former manager, MrOw
Even today, Loda has not ended his Dota career
And Loda's legend is still far from over...
TactWZ: That is all. Took me about 3 hours to translate + time. Hope everyone enjoyed it, see you next time!
The legend continues...