Thirty-Six Assists

my deaths (11)
my kills (10)
my assists (36)
first blood (not me)
fort falls

0:00–9:37

Dead before the game’s first blood

I died before anyone had officially drawn blood. That takes some doing.

At 9:37 I walked into Radiant’s mid tower alone and it killed me — the first hero death of the entire match. It doesn’t count as First Blood, though, because Valve’s bookkeeping only credits a hero kill, and mine came from a building. The real First Blood didn’t happen until 11:00, when Zeus caught Bristleback. I’d already been dead for a minute and a half by then.

11:00–35:38

Trading blows with Meepo

The next half hour was a genuine back-and-forth. I picked up three kills on Bristleback in under four minutes (23:06, 25:19, 26:54) — Spirit Breaker’s charge-and-bash combo working exactly as advertised on a single, recurring target. Sven and Furion each went down twice to me as well.

Meepo was the one who kept finding me back: four deaths across the game (25:50, 36:46, 41:36, 43:51), each one from a different net of clones rather than a single hero to dodge. Shredder accounted for three more. Between them, that’s seven of my eleven deaths from just two heroes.

36:00–46:10

The building count gets silly

While Obsidian Destroyer was busy ending the game by himself, the rest of us tore down Radiant’s base almost in full: 26 of their 27 total structures fell, against a single Dire tower lost at 26:56. The fort came down at 46:10. My own contribution to the finish was less dignified — I died to Radiant’s own fountain at 45:47, presumably overextending into their base during the base race. A win’s a win.

My final line

36 assists in a 48-minute game is the number that defines this one — more than three times my kill count, and the highest assist total of anyone on either team. Only 27 last hits the entire game confirms it: I wasn’t farming, I was showing up to every fight that happened anywhere on the map. Teamfight participation of 65.7% backs that up — second highest on my team, behind only Obsidian Destroyer’s rampage.

Ten kills is a fine night. Thirty-six assists is a different kind of game entirely — the one where you’re not the story, you’re just never not there.

Full scoreboard

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Reconstructed from the match replay with dotabuff/manta · combat log + entity snapshot analysis. Match 8986992880 · 10 players · 48:35 · Dire victory.