Rapture Gaming Network

All about Ice

8451 times Posted by admin on 2010-02-02

Let’s talk about Iceiceice, the player, as I know him. I met iceiceice, the person, in the end of 2005. He was not new to the competitive gaming scene. He was good enough to be sought after by many Frozen Throne clans, being part of all the top 4 clans in Singapore at the same time. Just recently, he had won 2nd in the WCG Singapore DotA championships (his DotA commitment forced him to be disqualified from his quarter-finals Frozen Throne game). In the competition where I came to know him, which had both Frozen Throne and DotA components, he won 3rd placing in the Frozen Throne, and 1st position in the DotA competition. The background for iceiceice’s induction into what would be known as team Zenith is not known to many. What is known is that the then team DsD, led by the famous Tofuboi, was looking for a last player to take part in the first version 6 DotA tournament in Singapore, and so approached ice. One theory goes that team DsD was in need of a Venomancer player, and one of their members had just vouched ice as “a very good veno player”, securing ice’s position in the team. Ice went on to play Venomancer for more than half a year, when Lich + Veno was still a hot strategy. Ice was a team hopper. He rarely stayed in the same clan for Frozen Throne, much less the same team for DotA. His loan to team DsD, whose DotA division was soon to be known as team mVp, was never seen to be permanent. Nevertheless, he stayed on to team mVp, even until it was renamed as team Zenith, compelled in part by the team’s winning streaks. Ice’s DotA history is not difficult to trace, but I shall cover it briefly anyway. Ice was part of team Zenith until the fourth quarter of 2007, where he went missing, suddenly not in Zenith’s roster in their time of need, which included a competition in Malaysia, one in Sweden, one in Russia, and one in Singapore where top teams from around the region flew down. He joined Zenith for the last competition of the year, CAPL, to clinch the top position, before vanishing again. Ice joined team Kingsurf at the start of 2008, winning ESTC and a few small Singapore competitions. Then he left Kingsurf, and formed his own Singaporean team, jujujuju, for a short period of time, participating in some small local competitions, as well as some online international competitions. This team was short-lived though, as he disbanded it, went missing for a few months, then went on to join team XtC later on in the year. Numerous victories later, he won 2nd place at SMM with the team, and then proceeded on to his longest hiatus ever. All of a sudden, during WCG 2009 Singapore, ice had the urge to play a competition. Within 5 days, he formed a team, won CAPL Open 2009 in Singapore, and proceeded to join Aeon.SG for what he said to be “up till SMM”. He didn’t last till SMM, and quit Aeon.SG after one tournament, which was ESTC Winter, disappearing again from the DotA scene, and up till now hasn’t been heard of yet. That is a history of ice’s DotA career, as brief as it can be. As illustrious as it is, it seems disappointing for someone that most would consider to be the most fearsome player ever seen in DotA. Kuroky, some say the best player on the other side of the world, idolizes ice. China teams, dominating the DotA scene, fear ice. Why is he good? How is he good? To begin with, perhaps it would do well to see how ice got known. When Zenith was exploring the international DotA scene, playing in European and American in-house games, the more well-known Tofuboi was quick to shy away due to his fear of lag, but ice boldly took up the challenge. The first thing that ice did was get attention. He took heroes that got him heavily ridiculed by the “international online community”, then proceeded to own them. In one inhouse game, he was laughed at for first picking Lycanthrope, because he simply wanted to play Lycanthrope. 12 minutes into the game, his teammates disconnected, and he was forced to play 4v5, where he 1v5’ed his opponents. Literally. He waltzed into 5 heroes, and took them all down. I silently listened in our opponent’s Ventrillo channel, the amazement in their voice, as they tried to analyze how a hero they laughed at could 1v5 them. Then ice went out on his whole solo tour, winning with Zenith, then joining Kingsurf and winning again, then forming his own Singaporean team and yet again winning. With his already established international fame, his winning streaks with different teams served to increase his fan base. Of course, one doesn’t become famous without being at least somewhat skilled. Does ice deserve to be famous? No doubt some famous players are over-hyped, a result of being boosted by a good team, or simply the product of the world wide web hype generation community. Real skill is not determined by the masses, who fall prey easily to thinking a player is good simply because the rest of the internet think so. Real skill is determined by the players of the competitive community, those who play with and against a player, those who know what it takes to win a competition. What do those players think? Tofuboi from Aeon, who has been a teammate of ice in many competitions, and perhaps the best DotA storyteller yet, has been telling this story of ice, from when Kingsurf.SG fought against him in the latest CAPL last year. Tofuboi’s Lion went 6-0 up against ice’s Phantom Lancer and a Crystal Maiden, and KS.SG managed to take the middle Ancient of War from ice’s team, but the game ended with ice’s PL having a Radiance and slowly pushing back KS.SG, taking down all of KS.SG’s base slowly. Tofuboi however, even with all his early game advantage, describes ice as “impossible to catch”. The story, as he recounts, goes like this. “I try to catch him but he always sees me. So I try buying a gem and I dagger in, then I see 3 Phantom Lancers WALKING IN 3 DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS. I hex one and get the wrong one, then he turns back and kills me.” Then Tofu has another story. “Once I was playing with Roy against ice’s Terrorblade. We were Tinker and Morphling and we were both something like 16-0, controlling the entire map. Ice’s Terrorblade goes 0-5, but at 30 minutes he comes up with SnY and Radiance. No idea how the hell he farms so fast.” “Once, ice was playing Treant, and he just charged into 3 people at bottom lane, and we kept telling him to back. He charged into them so that they couldn’t TP to top, and we took top tower. Then he cast his ultimate and escaped with 10 hp.” In the words of various Aeon.SG members, describing ice as a teammate, they say he “pushes the limit” on all his heroes. Papaxiong from Kingsurf describes fighting top China teams as “very easy because ice is in the game.” So yes, the cream of the competitive DotA crop do think that ice is pretty good. Let’s get more specific, more personal, some things that perhaps most of the world does NOT know about ice. First off, there is his unique attitude. Ice is never perturbed about losing training games. Training games, to him, are simply that. Training. Improving and assessing is essential, winning is not. He often is seen buying out countless times outside of competitions, simply because time spent dead is time spent not practicing. Then again, when he plays seriously in competitions, he doesn’t die much. Ice does not push blame to others, most of the time. In fact, he believes so strongly that he can take down the entire opponent team, that he will blame himself for any loss when he plays seriously. This is a surprisingly rare attitude among top DotA players, who are often too proud for their own good, too confident in their own infallibility. Ice is not humble. Far from it, he is a realist. Unlike many other players, ice accepts the fact that there are certain heroes that his teammates can’t use, or that it simply isn’t possible for a melee hero to go up against 2 ranged nukers. Competitions are won not by wishing your teammates are better, but by knowing what exactly your teammates can do. This is one of ice’s key strengths in directing a team. As if not unique enough, what further sets ice apart from his teammates is his ability to give useful commands. Ice doesn’t command the game, but he communicates effectively in small skirmishes to direct his teammates. Ice loves to know that he is pro. Ice constantly bugs people to tell him that he’s pro. Ice actually loves it when there’s a comment on some forum saying that he is pro. And all that, all I covered was his personality. I didn’t even cover how he plays. Some players base their decisions on feelings. At first glance, that’s what ice does. You can try to play like him. Many have tried, they have failed miserably. They conclude that they simply don’t have the “feel” of the game that ice has. They are terribly mistaken. Ice actually knows what he’s doing. I remember, in a rare moment, ice actually telling me about what he does as opposed to simply saying “I OWN PEOPLE.” “I only go if I can kill. I won’t go unless I know I can kill. After that then I see how to run. If I can TP, I find some way to TP. If I can hide, I find some way to hide. If not, then I’ll make sure I waste their time, juke around, and waste as many spells as possible.” Then there is the part about what ice actually does. When he plays seriously. Other than killing you. First, there’s the part about freeing up the rest of his team. Some players play safe, playing to totally avoid getting caught. Ice wants you to catch him. He wants you to waste time going to him, and then either kill you, or waste your time by escaping. This is insanely difficult, which is why no one else tries to do it. It requires insane awareness and reading of opponents. In the CAPL finals, ice’s Anti-Mage was being followed by the opponent’s Sand King. Good warding enabled him to spot the Sand King’s movement on the map occasionally, but the SK was mostly in the fog of war, hidden. Firstly, ice was able to determine, for 5 minutes, exactly where the SK was hidden, and that’s the easy part. With a SK camping for him, ice decided to farm. In plain sight, but making sure he could always escape. Next, there’s the part about being outside your base. Back in 2006, during the finals of the WCG qualifiers, ice’s bear made a hole in the enemy’s base without them even noticing. While his teammates were fighting a huge teamfight, ice had taken down a tower and two raxes without the opponent team noticing. What ice is truly good at is being an “illusionist”, as his past teammates have called him. He knows where the attention of his opponents are, and even knows how to misdirect their attention. Even his teammates often don’t realize, after a huge team fight, that he has been busy making a hole in the opponent’s base. His favorite heroes are those with illusions, and it is truly impossible to figure out, amidst a bunch of his illusions, which one is the real hero. That’s how ice plays DotA. But really, he has his weaknesses. For one, ice cannot engage. There is a reason why ice is so good at forcing the opponent into defending their base or splitting up. It’s because he has to. He is pretty crappy at defending against 5-man pushes. He is pretty bad at engagements. If it can’t pressure his opponent into defending, ice cannot play it. Ice’s Bane Elemental can kill, catch, and control the lane, but fails miserably in engagements. His Earthshaker rushes Radiance because he needs it to pressure and push lanes alone. His Enigma… Did I ever tell you about ice’s Enigma? It was a CAPL Elite tournament, somewhere in 2007. Being his usual self, ice was late. His team was forced to start a game 4v5, picking an Enigma and leaving it for him. Ice came into the game 15 minutes later to use a level 1 Enigma. Ice managed to get level 6 and a Dagger of Escape in short time. In fact, 10 minutes later, one would have no idea that ice’s Enigma started the game 15 minutes late. He then proceeded to miss Black Hole. Every single time. Almost. Sometimes he would catch one hero. Occasionally he would actually make it to catching two. Ice is always late. All the time. He got his team disqualified from the Funan ACG Qualifiers in 2008 for being late. It would be common to wait 1 to 2 hours for him every single competition, and his team was always prepared to delay or start the first game without him. And sometimes, ice just fails. Often he owns, but there are games where he simply lacks that x-factor, and falls flat on his face. Luckily for him, his teammates are there to cover him for when that happens. Sometimes. Ice is unique. His personal life is unique as well, but perhaps that’s too personal for this article. Suffice to say that ice deserves the fame he has, and he certainly is unique both in and out of the game. Perhaps when he reappears again, an interview will be necessary.

P.s. The first letter of “ice” has been capitalized often, but ice constantly insists that his nick should always be in small letters.

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