Tiny is the most contested hero of the Major so far with a hundred percent pick and ban rate. Despite high popularity, or perhaps because of it, his winrate is very low, falling below 40%. Zeus is in a somewhat similar position: he was played in seven games, only winning one. Are the heroes actually overvalued or are there other reasons for their poor performance? Let’s take a look. Tiny is often thought of as a flex pick: you can open him early and then adjust accordingly. This line of thinking doesn’t seem to reflect reality any longer, though, with…
Author: DOTABUFF
Image by PGL Dark Horses are the most exciting part of every tournament. A team very few have high hopes for, but who have shown moments of brilliance and are guaranteed to upset at least one of the heavy favorites. Today we are going to look at the most exciting Dark Horses of the Arlington Major. Truth be told, the team was supposed to be in our previous post, where we discussed tournament favorites. However, having a last-minute stand-in rarely works out in favor of the team. ana is a legend for a reason and he did have some recent…
Image by PGL The Major starts in under a week and right now is the best time to have a look at the participants and gauge their strength. A lot of teams will have to play with a stand-in and that will definitely impact their performance. Because of that, some of them can no longer be considered tournament favorites and they will have to give up preview spotlight to other teams. PSG.LGD couldn’t attend the last Major, but no one in the right mind doubts their skill. They are still a team to beat and one of the most consistent…
Image by OniLolz and Zaphk Every once in a while we stumble upon an idea, a concept, that looks too good on paper to be true. Most of the time, when tested in a real game or scrutinized in a test lobby these concepts either fall apart or prove to be a lot less exciting. It is not the case with Morphling’s Aghanim’s Scepter and in our opinion it might be one of the most underrated items in the game. For 4200 gold Morphling gets a 20% stat steal on a target of his choice and some extra benefit, depending…
Image by Tanbobo It is no secret that Zeus has been trending up in high level games. The addition and buffs to his mobility on top of the previous solution of simply increasing his attack damage made for a very powerful and borderline overpowered mid hero who can trade in lane, avoid ganks, farm up and help his team from the comfort of his lane. There are very obvious reasons for why the default skill build on Zeus right now is 4-0-4-1 by level nine: maximum mobility and maximum farm potential at the cost of burst damage is a trade-off…
With the DPC Tour over and, unfortunately, still no news on the upcoming patch, it is a good time to have a look at the current state of the professional meta and figure out what heroes and why are being picked at the highest level of play. Professional meta usually doesn’t translate into pub meta in a straightforward fashion, but knowing what to strive for and what heroes can theoretically dominate if you play them well is still incredibly important. The most popular pick across all regions, except for WEU. Tiny has been nerfed substantially in the pre-Tour patch, but…
Aghanim’s Shards are not created equal. Some of them are so niche, they can be safely ignored, while others now define the hero they are built on. Today we want to have a look at the most popular Shards in the pub scene and discuss whether they are really worth it. By far, the most popular Shard in the game right now. The hero can safely afford it very early, and can immediately start using it for aggressive plays, since he is getting both extra damage and movement speed. It is a mobility and DPS two-in-one upgrade that flips the…
Arc Warden is a 53%+ win rate hero in all skill brackets this week, maintaining a relatively high popularity. In brackets below Divine his win rate is actually closer to 57% and while it is no secret that Arc Warden is one of the most popular smurf heroes, we believe that he might actually be overpowered. Today we want to discuss why exactly. For the longest time Arc Warden was balanced around the idea of him being a 2-in-1 hero: his stats and his abilities reflected that. Having access to one of the best XP and Gold acceleration mechanics in…
Looking at high level pub trends this week, we noticed how Spectre is slowly creeping into the meta. It doesn’t look like an easy process and neither does it feel like a good idea to recommend the hero for regular pub players right now, but we are certain the hero is one minor buff away from being very powerful. Today, we will attempt to prepare our readers for this potential development. Skill and item builds on Spectre right now are a thing of beauty: they are chaotic, unpredictable and most of them can be justified. Just looking at our guides…
Image by style_d For a very long time the meta was dominated by ganking and aggressive supports. Position five Rubick was normal, Lion was the most popular support hero in the game and sometimes even Tidehunter was played as a five. With the last patch things changed a bit, though, and right now a completely different type of hero is statistically on top. We’ve talked about both Warlock and Omniknight previously and they are, indeed, some of the better babysitter heroes in the game. Instead of repeating ourselves, we would like to highlight some other heroes who have been extremely…