Round 1 match report - Turtle Team vs Killer Koalas

Hey, I am Mekaku and will bring you this new segment were I report a match once per round in EU season 11. With a small winner interview at the end. Now onto the first match, between Turtle Team and Killer Koalas from division 5. Can Turtle Team avoid extinction when they are being hunted by Killer Kolas?

Division 5
   Turtle Team vs Killer Koalas  

Here is the match link: https://heroeslounge.gg/match/view/8062 

Previous standings

Both teams have a few seasons under their belt. Killer Koalas have been around since season 5, having played all but one season in division 5. They managed to get to 2 playoffs so far. Turtle Team are playing their third season and managed to reach playoff in their first season when they were in division 7. Last season both teams played in division 5, Koalas placing 8^th and Turtles 10^th. However, this will be their first match against each other and on paper they look evenly matched.

Game 1 (BoE)

Draft:
First map was Battlefield of Eternity and Koalas Killers had first pick. At the end of the draft Koala Killers ended up with Leoric, Lili, Cassia, Arthas and Li Ming, meanwhile Turtle Team had the more promising draft with Auriel, Valla, Imperious, Anub’arak and Kael’Thas.

Game:
Not much happened in the start of this game, except that Turtle Team traded a bit worse health wise against Koalas in the 4 man. When the first Immortal spawned Valla was immediately doing damage to it, while the rest of the players on both teams were defending against the hard camps on their walls first or their immortal. This led to Turtle Team getting the first immortal spawning top, though it had low shields. However, Anub did a great stun during the immortal push under the enemy gate. Providing them a kill and a fort, despite the immortal having low shields. Turtle Team rotated thereafter bot, and both teams pushed hard in different lane as 4, netting them both a fort.
Next Immortal was won by Killer Koalas after a full-on brawl around the immortals. Ending with 4 vs 2 kills respectively for Koala’s and Turtle’s. The immortal spawned bot, but Koala’s were slow on rotation. So, Turtle Team managed to save bot fort with 139 HP remaining. Right before the 3^rd immortal spawned Turtle Team pulled of a successful flank 5 vs 4, getting them 3 kills and ultimately winning them the immortal. They pushed with lvl 16 advantage with immortal top and got a keep. Turtle’s also got 2 kills during the push, but their low health bars made it hard to go for core. The game being heavily in Turtle’s favor Killer Koala recognized that they have to do something before the opponent reaches lvl 20. So, they invaded Turtle’s hard camp. With some luck, they got 2 kills there and consequently a full shield immortal. With a great Cassia Valkyrie hitting Valla during the immortal push that got them 2 kills, Killer Koalas managed to end the game despite their enemy defending with level 20.

Game 2 (ToD)

Draft:
Turtle Team decided to opt for the first pick in the second game, and Killer Koalas choose Towers of Doom for the map. While the hero compositions for Turtle Team changed drastic from the first game with Uther, Greymane, Alarak, Anub’arak and Dehaka. Making Anub’arak the only recurring hero from their side. Killer Koalas decided to go the other route sticking with most of their picks from game 1, the only change was swapping Leoric for Johanna. Making their side consist of Arthas, Lili, Cassia, Li Ming and Johanna.

Game:
Same picture formed at the start of the second game too. Turtles were losing trades health wise in the 4 man, but Johanna made a mistake by leading Turtle's to the sapper camp where her team was outnumbered giving the them kill and camp. During the first altar phase, they traded top altars while at the neutral one bot a full on brawl took place ending in 3 kills for both teams, and despite Turtle Team having the earlier lvl 7 they had to forfeit the altar in the end. Later in the game Turtle Team gets a kill on Li Ming and decide to take the boss while letting Koala's take the two altars. Koala's took advantage of the situation of all 5 Turtle’s players being on the boss and took bot fort. During the two next altar phases Koala’s took all the altars for themselves in addition to some kills. The hit points on the core was now Turtle’s 12-32 Koala’s. From that point on Koala's kept Turtle's on the back foot always trying to reclaim lost forts. Cassia proved useful this game too getting her ally's quick kills and forcing important cooldowns from the enemy team with her Valkyrie. With Li Ming always following up on the target. Game ended after 14 min's with Koala's taking boss, and still having 29hp on their core.

MVP

AntonoBanono with his great Cassia plays in both matches was in my opinion MVP of this series. Not only did he hit all but two of his Valkyries in total over both games, providing kills for his team and forcing the opponent to use big cooldowns. He also provided a fair amount of damage for his team as well, especially in the second game being highest damage by almost 10k when the game only lasted 14 min. I can definitely see him in future games turn around games with his Cassia.

Play of the game

Though one might expect one of AntonoBanonos Valkyrie hits to show up here, I feel the greatest play was made by Sparda for Turtle Team on Anub’arak in the first game. As mentioned before during the first immortal push he got a great kill with his Anub. To go more in detail, he hid out of enemy vision before burrowing in right under the enemy gate as the immortal reached it. Stunning 1 hero there for long enough for the immortal stun to follow up on it. Getting his team a kill and the fort cause the other Koala's were on low hp after the following fight, and couldn’t defend, despite the immortal being so low on hit points. And for some extra value, they took top camp afterwards for free as well.

Interview

You have now read a lot of what I thought about this match, but let’s have a quick talk with the captain of Killer Koalas Azis18 and AntonoBanono the Cassia player about what they think.

First of all congratulations for your victory, I am sure it’s a confidence boost to get a win at the start of the season?

Azis18: If we compare this start compared to last season it was miles better, we actually won here. So yeah, a major confidence boost for us.
AntonoBanono: However, the match system in Heroes Lounge is set so you are matched against similarly standing teams so you will go against better team afterwards if you are doing well, so we will see how it turns out. Last season it worked in our favour though, since we were far behind. We got matched against lower placed teams, and won the last 3 games and got barely into the playoffs.

Are you satisfied with your performance today?

Az: I would like to give the enemy a shout out for outdrafting us in the first game. They stole the Valla we wanted for example who we play a lot on BoE.
An: We fell behind in first game and got picked off a few times. Our focus was not good either, we didn’t focus the correct target. And when we got their damage dealers, we had already lost the fight. But we won, so in the end we are happy.

Any moment in particular that you want to highlight from the games today.

Az: Mainly, in the first game when the enemy lost the late game immortal. Two of their guys KT and Valla got stunned by immortal when it pushed and we shouted to jump on them as much as we could. Cassia managed to hit a great ult with her Valkyrie on Valla, resulting in a kill on both Valla and Auriel, so we could end the game.
An: I don’t wanna beat my own drums, but I think the Cassia ults won us the games, especially the second one when I managed to hit like 4-5 of them.

You ended up drafting Lili, Cassia, Li Ming and Arthas both games. Seeing one or two of these heroes being picked is not that uncommon, but why all 4 heroes in both games?

An: Comfort pick mostly. Though they banned or took all of my top 5 heroes, just left me with Cassia.
Az: On the second game with the early Uther and Greymane pick we saw their players were melee heavy. So, Johanna and Cassia would be great picks.
An: The enemy will be a lot up in the face making it easier to hit blind.
Az: And since we had Johanna we could do more damage with Cassia with her abilities. Plus getting past Johanna and Arthas is hard for them, making it easy for Li Ming to do dmg from the side.
An: I would say they probably outdrafted themselves picking 5 melees in the second game.

What do you hope to achieve this season?

Az: Our goal is always to reach playoff, so far we have gotten to playoff in Season 6 and season 10. We actually started in season 5 but we don’t talk about that.
An: Though we miraculously got to the upper half. This was under the double support meta, were we played Uther, Lucio, Greymane and Tyrael good old times. I could stand in the fight with no care in the world with my supports behind me. Can’t do that anymore. We gonna do that next game though so don’t tell the enemies.

Anything you want to say for the end of the interview?

Az: I have nothing to add about the games. But I have 2 shoutouts, 1 is for my parents who I always have to shoutout when I do a postmatch interview. And a second shoutout to our teammate who sadly hasn’t been able to play with us lately 4 months, his name is Just4Fun studying in Poland to becoming a doctor. He is a really nice guy.