We've gotten through the last "regular" group stage day with our skin intact, although it may not feel like it after a disappointing day from Fnatic. Day Four's going to throw us a bit of a curve ball as you'll soon discover, but first...  

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

• We learned a lesson in humility. Miracle was a great core play, and the other best one on Day Three would have been Sylar (congratulations to all four of the people worldwide who actually played him, all numbers approximate). I selected Abed in that Sylar slot, as did the vast majority of participating humans, and I stand by my reasoning. However, there was a small contingent who advocated rolling with ana in that second support slot who I was kind of mean to. It was a colossal risk on an ice-cold player, but at the end of the day, he outscored Abed, he was about on par with Sylar, and he would have been a good play. I don't like it, I don't like the reasoning behind it, but none of that matters. I'm a man. And when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. Likewise however, there were some people in the comments who said some mean things about Ceb as well, who wound up essentially tying with Mind_Control and nongrata as today's best plays at offlane. If you were one of the people who spoke ill of the dear Frenchman, he'll take your apology in the form of a $5 purchase in your compendium toward levels. Kuro and DJ would have been the best supports, in case you were wondering. You know what I hate most of all though? • I didn't learn much else today. I had to work. =/ All told, my Day Three fantasy total with my lineup of Miracle-Abed-Universe-pieliedie-KuroKy was 442.59, bringing my cumulative total up to 1343.22. All things considered, that number is what it is. I feel good about my reasoning for the players I chose and I probably wouldn't have done anything differently (the only thing I MIGHT have changed if I had thought about it more might have been rolling Ceb over Universe. I doubt it because of Uni's amazing stats heading in, but I could have theoretically talked myself into it). In the end, because EVERYBODY chose that lineup basically, we didn't really gain or lose any ground. Day Three was a wash. I guess I'll take it.  

DAY FOUR'S PLAYER POOL

Like I said at the top of this post, Day Four is a different animal than the first three days, and that starts with the format. Nobody's scheduled for three sets today, the most you're going to run into is two. The core concept remains the same though: you only want to use players on teams scheduled for two sets. There's seven such teams to consider today, and they are VP, Vici, VGJ.Storm, Serenity, paiN, Secret and OpTic. As we've done before, let's break them down on an individual level. Teams are listed alongside their Day 2 opponents, players are listed with their 3-day fantasy averages. OPTIC (paiN, VG) Pajkatt (10.2) No thanks. CCnC (11.0) No thanks. 33 (10.5) His average is still acceptable, but his Day 3 was rough. zai (10.2) No thanks. PPD (11.8) No thanks. PAIN (OpTic, Serenity) hFn (12.1) Second fiddle to w33. w33 (15.0) Would be a much more potent fantasy play if not for the three single-digit performances he's put up. Still pretty dang good though. tavo (9.9) An excellent reminder that awesome, flashy plays in real life don't always equate to fantasy points, or as I like to call it, the zai all-stars. Kingrd (14.0) Another one of these feast or famine types, he famines more often than he feasts so far. duster (10.5) No thanks. SECRET (TNC, Newbee) Ace (13.7) Solid Day 3 improved his stock. Might be alright in a pinch. MidOne (10.5) No thanks. Fata (12.5) One heck of a guy right here. YapzOr (13.6) Had two very, very good games. The rest were whatever. Puppey (13.7) Had a lot of whatever games. SERENITY (VGJ.S, paiN) zhizhizhi (10.5) No thanks. Zyd (12.7) No thanks. XinQ (13.3) Temper your expectations a bit. He's a good play and all, but his numbers are WAY inflated because of a 30 FP Alch game. Pyw (12.7) Actually sort of OK if you think Serenity is going to win a lot, but his numbers are a car wreck when they lose. XCJ (11.1) No thanks. VGJ.STORM (Serenity, VP) Resolut1on (14.7) Pretty nice play, but not the nicest core play this team has to offer. YS (15.1) There we go. Sneyking (12.6) Pretty good right here. MSS- (12.8) No thanks. SVG (17.0) I....I think I'm in love. VICI GAMING (VP, OpTic) Ori (13.7) Has some real stinker games that really hurt his average, because outside of those, he's really not that bad. Paparazi (11.8) Really disappointing number considering where he used to be. eLeVeN (8.9) No thanks. LaNm (11.5) No thanks. Fenrir (14.0) Can work in a pinch, and has some high level games to his credit. VIRTUS PRO (VG, VGJ.S) No[o]ne (16.6) One of the very best fantasy plays available in the entire tournament. His best performance to date randomly came as an Earthshaker. RAMZES666 (15.0) Good option as long as he's not playing Sven. 9pasha (12.0) Yeah, sure. Solo (14.8) Solid, consistent support option. RodJer (12.8) No thanks. So this is where I'd normally tell you to just start grabbing a lot of high numbers here...  

BUT WAIT, THERE'S A CATCH

Did you forget why Day Four has fewer series than the previous days in groups?THAT'S RIGHT MOTHER******S, WE GOT TIEBREAKERS! Or at least, we might. When the dust settles tomorrow, tiebreakers will occur if there's a tie that either separates the 4/5 seed, or else the 8/9 seed. All other ties will be broken without any actual extra games being played. So what does that mean for us? Well, it doesn't change our player pool. We're CERTAINLY not going to look to Group A for possible tiebreakers. We're grabbing the most GUARANTEED games we can no matter what, which means we're only concerned with these 7 teams listed from Group B. What it also means is this is our first major opportunity to test our fortitude. As you can see above, VGJ.Storm players are terrific. But VGJ.Storm is also mathematically clinched to play in the upper bracket, which means they CAN'T be in a tiebreaker (and lets be real, VP isn't heading to any tiebreakers either). Picking players from those teams is perfectly fine in my book. After all, there's no guarantee that any tiebreakers will be played, and if there indeed are none, this actually becomes a recommended play. Yes, that's right. You can go safe, not go for the home run play, and STILL score the most possible FP presuming no tiebreaks end up occurring in Group B (I will also point out, in case it impacts your decision, TI7 had no tiebreaks in either group). However, to play Devil's advocate, what fun is that? If we play somebody who winds up in a tiebreaker, we will get A BONUS MATCH WORTH OF FP from that extra match, and that's awesome. Not only is it awesome, if you're one of those bold maverick types gunning for Top 100, this is your chance to make a big move that rockets you up the ranks. If you go bold and go for the homerun play (it's a little unlikely, I know), and you actually CONNECT on it, you're a hero. So look. Making an entire roster of VGJ.Storm and VP players is totally viable. It's MOST LIKELY going to be a great play if you do. But it's also what I call the "No Balls Strat". Do you REALLY want to be that guy after I've challenged your manhood like this??? For the record, here is the varying degrees of Balls you can go with, which I just arbitrarily made up. "No Balls" - All VGJ.S/VP players. "Small Balls" - One non-VGJ.S/VP player. "A Reasonable Quantity of Balls" - Two non-VGJ.S/VP player. "Big Balls by AC/DC" - Three non-VGJ.S/VP player. "ALL BALLS" - 4+ non VGJ.S/VP player. The gauntlet is thrown. It's time to decide who you are. And for any of my lady-readers, you can play along as well because we're obviously referring to your metaphorical lady-balls. Or, if you want to get technical, you can replace the word "balls" with "ovaries" in all of the above scenarios (except for the fourth one, I can't change the name of a song, sorry). You do you, sister-friends.  

MY DAY FOUR PICKS

As for me? What can I say, I like classic rock. CORE: No[o]ne + w33 No[o]ne might straight up be the best fantasy core in the tournament so far, and I can't resist somebody of that caliber on a team of that caliber. I could have gone with SumaiL Jr. here to pair with him, but there's several reasons why I'm going with w33 instead. 1.) VGJ.S has to play VP today, so who knows how that goes. 2.) His numbers are super comparable to w33's in general. 3.) paiN's schedule is actually pretty friendly on the final day (OpTic and Serenity are both beatable). 4.) I have A CHANCE that w33 goes to a tiebreak, while no such chance exists with Sumail Jr., and 5.) It's within the realm of possibility that paiN does well enough to get to the 4/5 tiebreak, and it's ALSO within the realm of possibility that they wind up in the 8/9 if they crap the bed. I'm once again in on w33, baby. (Other considerations: YS, Reso, RAMZES666, Ori, Ace) OFFLANE: Fata My argument for Fata is pretty similar for my argument for w33. Yeah, Sneyking's numbers are a LITTLE better I guess. But for a very, very comparable player, I have the chance to have another bullet in my gun in the race for tiebreaks. It also bears mentioning that both of the games Fata played on Day Three were at or above his average. XinQ technically has the BEST average of any offlane player (his numbers are a little padded by one amazing Alch game), but I, along with every other human under the sun, just have no idea what to make of Serenity (an early set against VGJ.S doesn't make me feel any more confident either). If XinQ blows everybody away, I'm fine with missing the boat. (Other considerations: XinQ, Sneyking, 9pasha) SUPPORT: SVG + Fenrir SVG (who I'm convinced is named after NBA coach Stan Van Gundy, and you can't convince me otherwise) is the best fantasy player available today according to his average, and I think you'd be crazy not to take him. That second slot is hotly contested by a lot of worthy players. Solo has the best average on paper, but represents no real possibility of scoring on the tiebreak roulette table. Kingrd crossed my mind, but I'm not sure I'll ever be emotionally prepared to pick two paiN players in one lineup. I do quite like my gold Puppey card, but with Fata already in the rotation, I'd rather diversify a little more if I can. That leaves Fenrir, who yeah, disappointed me a bit on Day Two. But I have a gold of his, and his team can grind out long games. I'm not super pumped about the prospect of him playing VP to be honest. But I'm going to embrace it, and hope that this veteran squad plays with a sense of urgency with a possible trip to the upper bracket at stake. (Other considerations: Solo, Kingrd, Puppey, YapzOr) And that's about it, I'll see you guys again for the Main Event! Until then, feel free to follow me on Twitter @TheDotaScrub to make sure you don't miss any updates. 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.