Additional Notes on Ancient
I just wrote an article on GGRecon about my initial thoughts on how Ancient’s meta is developing. I wanted to add a few nes things I noticed from recent tournaments: DreamHack June Open and the CIS RMR.
DH June Open 2021
Godsent and Extra Salt played each other on Ancient in the group stages. Extra Salt won in Overtime 19–15. The most interesting aspect of the game was the CT-side as both teams got 11 rounds and there were a few commonalities.
Godsent was playing a 1–2–2 setup with TACO and dumau playing mid. TACO was playing the AWPer while dumau played rotator. This setup worked in tandem with felps’ skill and aggression at fighting for ramp at B-main. This created two focal points of pressure on the map where the Ts couldn’t focus on taking either B-main or mid without being exposed to a potential flank on either side.
If they played too passively, this let both TACO and dumau save their utility for the end of the round which ended any late round hits.
Extra Salt’s core roles are: one A-site Anchor/2man entry player, one AWPer, one rotator, another rotator/entry/2nd B-site player, and one B-site player. This translates into a variety of defaults ranging from 1–3–1, 2–1–2, or the more common 1–2–2. Sonic is the only played with a hard dedicated role as he is the linchpin of the B-defense.
Outside of that, Extra Salt uses versatility and tactics to control the CT-side. They can play the 1–3–1 to make rotations, crunch B-main, or play retake with a double AWP setup. Extra Salt use multiple two man setups with marke pairing up with either sonic or osee to take early map control. Finally JT runs a bunch of two man actions in the mid-game to get map control or info with either oSee or marke.
CIS RMR 2021
Gambit and Na`Vi also played on Ancient over the weekend in the finals of the CIS RMR 2021. Gambit smashed Na`Vi 16–7. It was strategically the same, but Gambit added two things that I think are worth noting. The first is they’ve started using a molly in the early round to block off any quick rotations from mid into B-main to counter the B-main crunches we’ve seen from both Extra Salt and Godsent.
They also have an explosive A set piece they use after the default B-main nades early in the round.
Overall, Ancient favors controlled CS, though whether that will continue to be the case is uncertain as tactical CS should always have a leg up on new maps as they are better at plotting out unknown territories. Once there is a convergent meta, we will likely see more space for individual skill. One more thing to consider is that the best teams try to play a control style (Gambit, Na`Vi — when they aren’t making mistakes, and Heroic) so Ancient favoring tactical teams could be correlated with what type of CS is strong right now rather than any inherent quality of the map.
