It was supposed to be a great narrative to accompany a great game. A healthy rivalry forged by mutual respect of having competed and experienced success in the same team, now matching up as high-caliber players on opposing sides.

But Team Secret’s flawless victory against Execration yesterday at the ROG Masters in Malaysia benched the entire storyline altogether. Instead of being treated to a tense but inevitable showdown between stars Yeik Nai “Midone” Zheng and Djardel Jicko “Dj” Mampusti, we were treated to a whitewash. What was supposed to be a battle between Moriarty and Sherlock turned out to be a scene from American History X.

But I digress. Sometimes, the fans don’t get what they want. If anything, Secret’s victory is more important. For one, it teaches fans that no matter what kind of narrative you buy into, you can’t discount the objective facts: Puppey might be a villain in the accepted storylines of Dota 2, and Team Secret the butt of jokes, but they have the skills to be contenders.

On the other hand, it teaches us that Execration has a lot of holes to plug before they get to the Boston Major. Their finals performance yesterday will simply not do.

The path to Boston

To understand what went wrong with Execration and what lies ahead, one only need look at the accommodations prepared by Execration to make way for their Boston substitute, Adam “343” Shah.

It’s pretty clear now that for Boston, we will see Dj in the offlane for the team. If their match against EHOME.X is any indcation, it looks like Timbersaw is going to be a power pick for the team in the future. Other heroes in Dj’s repertoire include other playmaking offlaners like Sand King and Earthshaker.

But in order to make that change, the team had to place Rafael “Rapy” Sicat Palo in the position 4 roaming support. The change made them looked flat-footed; the high-impact rotations that made Dj successful in Fnatic last season were Execration’s bread-and-butter at MPGL. Without Dj running the roams, Execration is a completely different team.

This is the first problem Execration needs to fix. Their adjustments have turned them from a team that played a lot like Fnatic in 2016 — a team that focuses their aggressive roams on getting their bottom-lane ahead — to a team that has to wait forever and baby-sit both mid and bottom lane.

In that case, then the addition of 343 makes a lot of sense. In Fnatic, 343 fulfilled the baby-sitting, stacking support role while Dj got the laners ahead through ganks. Having a more experienced and stable player in 343 in for Rapy who looks uncomfortable in his role frees up the team.

But there lies the second issue: Execration’s tri-core set up has a lot of power, but a lot of inexperience.

Khim “Gabbi” Villafuerte had a great tournament, but it also exposed a lot of issues. While the young midlaner should be credited for keeping Execration in the game against EHOME.X, their match against Secret showed that while he’s a mechanical monster, he isn’t experienced enough to operate without farm.

A monster in lane, but that won’t be enough. Not for the level of competition in Boston.

He also gets tunnel vision once the tide turns on the team. The result is a mid player who has trouble playing from behind.

Abed “Abed” Yusop on the other hand, had a very quiet and uncharacteristically poor showing. His execution on Sven and Lifestealer were slow on the draw and his decision-making poor in the early game. This is likely because the team doesn’t know how to shot-call with their new setup, but that also means that Abed also needs a lot of attention to overcome those issues. Not to the extent that Gabbi needs it, but still substantial.

Combined, this all means that 343 and Kimuel “Kim0” Borodis are taxed. They have to get a lot of lanes ahead since simply making sure either Gabbi or Abed gets farm isn’t enough to win. Both players need to have a comfortable transition into their power items otherwise Execration have a tough time closing games.

This tax on the support means that this is the big weakness on the team that they need to answer: Once an enemy team focuses all of their ganking time on either mid or bottom, there’s no guarantee that Execration can recover.

Conclusions

There are two solutions I can see to help Execration: Either they make sure their coordination is so effective that their supports can cover two lanes at all times.

Or option B, and my recommendation: They focus their resources on Dj.

Since The International 6, the role of the offlaner has transitioned from being the suicide lane that just gets Iron Talon to AFK jungle for 12 minutes, to the lane that contests the enemy core and sometimes even gets dual lane attention.

By dual laning for Dj, Execration ensure that Dj gets his power spike earlier than the enemy offlaner, allowing him to get the levels and items to also Roam with 343 and create space for the team.

Fans of SEA might see this strategy as reminiscent of Lee “FoReV” Sang-don’s function last season on MVP.Phoenix and it worked. Conceptually, MVP and Execration today have the same blueprint. A tri-carry team that excels in early team fights.

By getting their start player and best roamer ahead in levels, Execration can undo whatever deficit Gabbi and Abed can suffer in the time in between.

But whatever the team goes for, they better commit to a plan of action as time ticks down before the Boston Major. The team is in Manila now, practicing and making their preparations with 343.

Because if they show up to Boston with the level of played they demonstrated last weekend, we’ll be treated to yet another whitewash.

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