Surviving 3k MMR in DOTA 2: An Introduction to Carrying

Everyone wants to play the 1 position hero: the carry. They are fun, flashy and can win the game for their team in many circumstance. To play this position better, we need  There is spectrum for carries: from farming to fighting. All carries fall somewhere on this spectrum. In my anti-carry series, I use the term anti-carry because, technically, all carries are fighting carries at some point in the game, usually after they get their key items. Consequently, I make the distinction that anti-carries want to hunt down enemy carries and prevent them from farming by killing them rather than try accelerate their farming potential by getting items like battlefurry. Farming carries want to find a place on the map that has free gold and take it. It needs to be a place where it's relatively safe so that the currency acquired with minimal risk of losing it. This is partially why farming carries are picked over fighting carries; the risk of losing gold is less so getting ahead is easier and the enemy has to react to you. Let's explore these ideas further.

On the spectrum of fighting and farming carries, Slardar best represents what makes a fighting carry. His skills are oriented toward chasing and locking down heroes, he has high mobility but takes extra damage so this isn't the best for farming the jungle - especially in the early and into the mid game, his spells don't let him spam out a wave of creeps, and he has some mana issues. All these thing culminate into a hero that isn't suited for afk-style farming because it isn't as efficient as just finding a hero and killing them. 

The other end of the spectrum contains the Antimage. He farms a battlefurry and then uses blink to move from neutral camp to neutral camp to lane creeps and back very quickly. The Antimage relies on using battlefurry to get ahead of the enemy carry in items and then fight them. You don't have to play AM this way, but it is overwhelmingly prefered because of its efficiency. Once the AM gets two or three core items after a battlefurry, he can start to partake in fights.

Recently, pro-players have been changing how they build heroes to keep their opponents off balance or help secure an advantage for their team early. aggresif played Phantom Lancer getting boots of travel (BoT) early during The Internation 2015 in order to farm more efficiently by getting to the gold on the map faster and giving him the option to fight with his team at minimal opportunity cost+. BoT also saves you 75 gold per TP and has a lower cooldown than a TP so you can move around the map more efficiently. Players have also been itemizing traditionally farming heroes into fighting heroes by getting aquilla, drums, magic wand, sange, et al. This way, they can show up with their team and help dish out some damage before going into a more farm heavy build with items like yasha and helm of the dominator. 

As the carry player, you need to identify how much time you can spend farming vs. fighting. This is the most difficult aspect of playing a carry but is quintessential to playing a carry well. If you spend too much time farming creeps instead of heroes, you risk your not having an overall advantage. If a few 3- or 4-man engagements end poorly for your team, they might not be able to contribute much to future fights. Similarly, if you spend too much time fighting the enemy team their carry could get ahead of you and out carry you or, worse, your team could lose fights and fall super far behind. This begs the question, when should you farm creeps vs. heroes? Here are some general tips I follow in my games:

1. you want to play carry enough to know item timings to judge how far behind or ahead you are; a 15 minute battlefurry on PA indicates you're farming well but each minute after that means you are falling behind
2. understand how much of the map is available for you to use without fearing a gank; more map control = you're further ahead
3. how many towers do you have compared with your opponents?
4. what's the kill score?
5. who won the last fight and why?
6. how many core items does the opposing carry have?
7. how many items do the other cores on your team have?
8. have people been asking for you to come join fights?

These are just 8 quick and dirty things to think about when you decide whether to farm or fight. There are many other situational things you need to think about when deciding, like when is my hero supposed to be strong, but those things need their own post.  Let me know in the comments below how you determine when to fight or farm. We are all looking for ways to improve and by sharing what we've learned, we can improve together.

The anti-carry series: Ursa Warrior

The Ursa Warrior has one of the highest win percentages of all heroes at a stunning 55% for the safe lane, according to www.dotabuff.com and even a ~52% win rate for the jungle and offlane. This is no coincidence given the heroes skill set and item choices. Ursa's strength as a hero stems from his high burst damage from enrage, overpower and furryswipes; his tankiness from enrage; and his ability to solo Roshan with a mask of death. These three things allow Ursa to help his team secure an advantage and, more often than not, a victory.
Unfortunately, Ursa isn't picked in the pro scene very much. Even though Vega did play him with success against IG (Match 1843364264) at ESL One recently, he suffers from some weaknesses in a linear approach to itemization and he is easily kited. In the professional scene, Ursa needs a mobility item (shadow blade or blink), usually bkb, lifesteal, and a hard disable (usually Abyssal Blade). That's 5 item slots taken up if you include carrying a TP and 6 with an Aegis. This means getting that getting your top tier item (5k gold and above) won't come until your hard disable and to get another top tier item you have to give up your TP, the Aegis, or get Boots of Travel. In order to make him more viable for professional games without wrecking pubs, Enrage should have some sort of a charge time where there is a window for a second after casting enrage when he will continue to remove applied debuffs. This offers players the chance to make skilled plays by timing when to use enrage and when opponents use disables.
The pub scene is quite different from the professional scene, however, because games are much more like a death match than a coordinate team game. Ursa thrives in this environment because his cooldowns are short and he deals a lot of damage as early as level 7. This makes for a hero geared to play aggressively. Going into the mid game, blink dagger, basher, and desolator make up the key items to keep this hero relevant. As long as the Ursa has continued to accumulate items, he stays relevant but his role may change depending on the itemization. Many tier 3 items (butterfly, abyssal blade, assault cuirass, scythe of vyse, etc.) are viable on ursa but they need to shore up his weaknesses. For example, if you're dealing enough damage to burst someone down but are having trouble staying on that target, then more lock down or movement speed should be the item choice.
Ursa's role will depend what lane he's in and how much farm he has. I have tried many early builds, to include midas, medallion, blink rush, shadow blade, drums, and many more, and, believe or not like Ripley, it's dependent on what your opponents are doing but still fairly linear. To leverage the abilities of Ursa most effectively, you need, as mentioned before, mobility and a disable. Some games you can get away with not getting a bkb, however,the Ursa will be building it more often than not.
Here are some of the rules of thumb for items I've used to pretty great success on the hero:

1. Vlads is good but not necessary because a mask of death more than allows you to take down Roshan. If the Ursa is having mana problems, you're against a heavy physical damage lineup, or you are looking to end the game in the mid-game, this will be a good choice.
2. Buy a desolator if you're snowballing hard. It helps you push, significantly increases your damage and helps you chew through high armor targets.
3. Phase/Treads choice in boots is close. I prefer Treads because of the added attack speed and being able to tread switch to stretch your health and mana pool.
4. Blink is better than shadow blade in most circumstances. The problem is shadow blade (sb)  is that you have to prime your abilities, activate sb, find someone, hit them, ground pound, and hit them some more. Sb can make for some awkward initiations where as blink is much cleaner.
5. The Ursa might be the hero to get a Silver Edge for the team.
6. Try to time your enrage and bkb to get the maximum amount of damage mitigation.
7. When you're getting kited, get an abyssal blade and kill whoever is kiting you. If there's 3 or 4 heroes kiting you on the enemy team, the Mjolnir buff ensures you still do damage during the fight. Mjolnir is a decent item on Ursa because it gives him attack speed when overpower isn't up. The lightning procs also help against high armor targets.
8. Butterfly is key against heroes that want to try to attack you to death. Troll, Alchemist, Lycan, and others will get up in your grill and try to right-click you down but butterfly allows you to mitigate their damage.
9. Assault Cuirass is a great item if team fights are even, you are dying to a PA, or the enemy team has one.
10. Eye of Skadi is super good and should be gotten after blink and bkb if you need a hybrid item that gives you HP, armor, damage, and slow. 
11. Sange and Yasha (SnY) is situationally good. Most of the time you won't want another mid-game fighting item but sometimes you can get it instead of bkb. It synergizes well with drums and phase boots if you want to be able to run fast.

I can't stress how important itemization is, especially for the Ursa. His skill build is pretty linear so it's the items and play style that allow this hero to shine. Let me know what you think about Ursa and what items you like to get in the comment section below.

The Anticarry Series: Legion Commander

Welcome back to the Anticarry Series. Today is another look at heroes which try to put a damper on traditional farming carries. The last installment talked about Slardar, a hard hitting strength hero who loves to ruin carries which are highly mobile through a near-instant stun, ability to chase, and keep vision on your target at all times. Legion Commander fills a similar role, but with 2 notable twists: her lockdown goes through BKB and she can pressure in lane extremely effectively. Legion Commander is one of those heroes that just excels in the 1v1 match up which is why you sometimes see her mid. Let's look at how some of the top legion commander players itemize.

These are snippets from the top 10 legion commander players' most common items, according to dotabuff.com. If we assume that the order is descending from left to right, it becomes very obvious that blink dagger, power treads, black king bar, and blade mail are the most agreed upon items. Assault cuirass, magic wand and desolator all follow at 4, 3 and 3. What can we glean from these top rated players? 

1. blink dagger is the initiation tool of choice. Shadow blade has it's place, however, this hero benefits from the attack speed gained from press the attack and items more than any other
2. power treads give you strength and attack speed, which means you're more tanky and better leveraging the bonus damage you get from duel
3. blademail is a way to do more damage during duel and dissuades other heroes from attacking you during duel. It's also good against heroes that deal a lot of damage but don't want to get bkb, like Lion or Lina
4. minus armor further allows you to deal more damage during duel (noticing a trend?) and helps you translate duel damage more easily into objectives
5. you need at least 1 way to help you survive during duel, especially in the mid game when you don't have enough duel damage and/or attack speed to kill a hero quickly. This is mainly done through bkb but AC helps a lot against physical damage dealers.

With these items in mind, the premise of the hero becomes clear: use an instant initiation tool (dagger) so that you can press the attack, blademail and bkb before going in; increase your attack speed (treads and AC) to leverage your duel damage; get items that both make you more tanky and increase your damage (AC and blademail); and ensure you can do as much damage as possible during duel (BKB).

While items are by definition situational, with the LC, you need to stick with the basics and then decide what to get to round out your remaining item slots. After blink, treads, and blademail, the item you chose to slot with can fluxuate. Getting a desolator really helps translate your damage into pushing power, if that's what your team needs. BKB will be picked up more often than not. AC is that hybrid item that also provides some utility. If you find yourself up against heroes that have itemized for the mid game, Armlet might be just the thing; its downside is mitigated by your skill set and it provides armor, strength, and a lot of damage for relatively little cost.

When you find yourself needing a hero that has infinite snowball potential, great single-target lockdown, or you're against the Brood, look no further than Legion Commander. Make sure to itemize correctly and don't jungle from minute zero to ensure you have a great game.

Next time's anti-carry series will feature: Ursa

Surviving 3k MMR: sometimes you just need to win the game

I am a big fan of games; Star Craft, Monopoly, Diablo, Scrabble, Candy Crush, Dominion, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Magic: the Gathering, and many others have been my jam at one point or another over the years. One way that I always try to think when I play is: how do I win the game from this point? This is a very simple but important question to ask yourself because often times there is a path to victory, you just need to find it. This gets harder in some ways and easier in others as you get better and better at a game and DOTA 2 is no exception.

I played a game recently as Huskar and even though we were over 20,000 gold behind, we still pulled out a victory. How is this possible? We just went down mid and won the game. Was it really that easy? Yes. Our opponents made some critical mistakes at the very end. This allowed us win. (You can find out more info about the match here.)

In this game, I initially thought our path to victory would be through the Sand King, Shadow Demon and me creating space for the Tiny and Lycan to farm up. With these two heroes, we had the possibility to take objectives whenever we eliminated a hero from the battlefield. This is one of the fundamentals of winning at dota: translate kills into objective (towers, Roshan, warding and barracks.) 

Sadly, our game plan didn't pan out. We were only able to convert kills into objectives once. Our opponents, however, did this to us many times and by the end, we only had a ranged barracks. What would you do in this situation? We chose to head down mid and pull out a victory. We didn't go for barracks or kills because the Antimage was destroying our base while we barreled down mid. In my mind, the only way we were going to win, given the way the game had gone so far, was to throne them and hope they made mistakes. As I'm sure many of you can attest to, in the 3k MMR bracket, mistakes are common place. So even though our opponents played stellar DOTA until that point, they made mistakes when it counted most, giving us a victory. 

Sometimes you just need to figure out how to go win the game. Share your story about find a path to victory in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Surviving 3k MMR: Don't play a worse something else

In DOTA 2, the easiest way to gain MMR is to pick the best hero for the situation. Things like opponent team composition, your team composition, and your hero pool eliminate a lot of potential heroes trying to lure you into the trap of playing a "worse something else." In the game, there are roles and picking the best hero for the role you want to play or the role you get stuck with (sorry, position 5) will dramatically increase your teams chances of winning. I have a few pocket pick offlaners and mids so that I can play that position competently. Even though I don't know all the intricacies of each matchup, I have confidence in my ability to play my hero correctly.

Picking a "worse something else" is especially obvious in captain's mode. Commentators almost always point out what they will think is the best pick for the current situation and they are right much of the time because they can properly identify each teams composition, strengths and weaknesses of the current line up and, based on the current meta, sum up what hero would be the best. This idea of picking the best carry or mid hero is what drives a meta.

So the next time you find yourself in the enviable position of picking last for your team, just remember don't pick a "worse something else." Let me know in the comments if this tip was ever helpful for you or if it gave you that "aha!" moment.

Surviving 3k MMR: Actively Thinking About the Game

I recently wrote a post about three things to do to survive (you can find it here). I would like to expand on the second point from that post, which is: not actively thinking about what's going on in the game. Too often players tunnel vision into what's going on right in front of them, lose focus and zone out. This results in three things:

1. Zombie mode farm fest
2. missing opportunities to gain an advantage
3. missing opportunities to push an advantage

There are simple exercises you can perform during the game to snap you out of this mindset and help you become a better player. The first thing to try is checking what items the enemy players have. This will give you valuable information and help you make sure you itemize correctly. Second, check the items on your teammates, especially your supports. You can tell how well a game is going by the number of items on the supports. Third, think about where your going to be in 30 seconds, 1 minute and five minutes from now. Make some assumptions about how the game is going to go and then try to predict how the game's going to unfold after that. Finally, check the minimap and count the number of enemy heroes on the map. If there's only one enemy hero showing, try to think about where the other heroes could be; they could be wrapping around on you for a gank, doing Roshan or farming your jungle.

Hope this quick tip helps as you continue to survive 3k MMR.

DOTA 2 fixes for upcoming patch 6.85

In my final TI post, I talked about how there are some specific fixes that could be done to heroes and the game to make it more balanced and fun. My ideas come from both professional observations and pub experiences. No one will argue that Leshrac needs a small nerf, I will argue that Lina does, and, beyond that, it gets gray... Well somethings are more gray than others so let me explain to you the things which are gray. The gray scale are things that aren't inherently "broken" or op, but still warp the game in some fashion or another. The closer to broken it is, the higher on the gray scale it is.

Roshan still favors the Dire, but only slightly. Yes, the map rearrange did good things for the rosh pit, but the dire still have the easier Rosh access and this is why CDEC and other teams favored picking dire. Sure, the radiant offlane is still a little better because of the large pull camp but that pales in comparison to Rosh. Roshan decides games, yet an offlaner may or may not. Roshan does warp the game, but the advantage it gives dire is a warp that could still use a little tweak. I think increasing the width of the Radiant ramp leading down into the river by the Pit and widening those path ways a little would go a long way into fixing this issue.
Gray Scale = 6

Lina needs a nerf. This hero is out of control. She's not leshrac level, but criminy, 950 pure damage with aghs at massive range and through BKB. Give me a break. This hero breaks carries and pushes heroes with low base strength, like Phantom Assassin, out of the meta. If a hero can't survive her damage, just don't even bother with picking it. To fix it, nerf the range more and nerf the damage slightly.
Gray Scale = 7

Supports have been seeing more love recently with the advent of better support oriented items. Glimmer Cape, Solar Crest and the like have allowed position 4 and some position 5 heroes to
increase their relevance in the game. This is at the professional level. At the pub level, it has created a position 3.5 and 6.5 where 1 hero always gets sacked. This has to stop. The position 5 has to be incentivised somehow. I don't know if it's through cooler, more flashy items or more gold for assists and less for kills or allowing them to buy tp scrolls at a discount. All I know is: no one wants to support and that fact destroys pubs.
Gray Scale = 9

People want to jungle in pubs, either let them or change it so it's not viable. Professional players don't jungle because it makes your lanes weak by putting only 1 support on the active field. Pub players don't care about this. They jungle every heroes that can hack it. I've seen Necro, Troll, Dusa, Jug, Ursa, BS, KotL, AM and more. To some degree, everyone should be free to pick what they want and be punished if they lose. However, for people to rationally and reasonably use a strategy, like jungling, it needs to reach a certain success rate because someone needs to rationalize how employing strategy A will lead to victory. Jungling is on the cusp of being just good enough for an all too large percentage of DOTA 2 population to think it's viable. This means that jungling needs to be adjusted such that it's either a little better or a little worse. Making it better would allow for a greater variety in strategies and give opponents opportunities to punish or get punished by it. My vote is for making it worse. Doing this in tandem with making supporting more fun would be a boon to pub games, thus increasing the user base and proving more revenue.
Gray Scale = 2

Leshrac is the single biggest hero offender when it comes to warping games. His ability to dominate any and every lane he sits in is like putting Sniper and Troll intro 1 hero. This is because his third skill, lightning storm. It is able to jump an extreme distance with a very fast projectile speed. Leshrac also leverages Bloodstone better than any hero (except possibly storm.) He was banned or picked in almost every game of TI.
Gray Scale = 10

Bloodstone is the most unbalanced item right now. It allows heroes like Leshrac and Storm to dominate a game because they can flash farm, respawn quickly, and participate in many of a team's kills. The previous change to bloodstone made the item cheaper and made the item build up more tolerable so that heroes like Zeus and Timbersaw could purchase it with lower risk. This allowed other heroes, however, to come online faster. Heroes like Lesh.  This item renders Antimage useless against a Leshrac in a straight up fight and he's the freaking ANTI-MAGE.
Gray Scale = 8

If bloodstone is the item creating the most broken heroes, then glimmer cape nerfs the most heroes. This item renders heroes like Lion, AA, and support lina useless. It's ability to reduce magical damage and render a target invisible at the low cost of 1950 gold. The item got a nerf (increased mana cost) after it was first released because of how abusive it was. It is still strong and needs to be brought down a peg. Maybe another bump up in mana cost, adding a recipe, and adding another item (blades of attack, ring of protection, quater staff) would add some balance. I especially like the latter 2 options because it makes it into more of a blademail for supports in terms of item cost.
Gray Scale = 5

Bounty Hunter has brought back dual laning mid. Lich used to fill this roll and Io will do it situationally. Bounty hunter, however, had a 90+% win rate at TI. This should raise many flags about the ability of this hero to warp the game. While EG dealt with well until upper bracket finals against CDEC, every other team feared the BH. He has built in comeback and get ahead mechanics which professional players easily leveraged into wins. I think that slight nerfs to the duration and cooldown of track would bring this hero back in balance with the rest of the filed. Keep in mind that it was the improvement to shuriken that brought this hero back into the pro scene, so slight nerfs might bump him down into the "better than situational" tier. This hero pushes dedicated junglers and heroes that rely on invis out of the meta.
Gray Scale = 7

Outside of these observations, here's a quick list and a gray scale number for heroes that could use a nerf:

• Bloodseeker - 4
• Spiritbreaker- 1
• Brood Mother - 3

What are you hoping gets buffed or nerfed next patch? Let me know in the comment section, I would love to hear from you.

Medallion or Battlefurry Phantom Assassin?

A while ago, the Foreseer's Contract and the Nemesis Event showcased the Phantom Assassin Arcana and added the Oracle to the hero pool. Oracle doesn't see much pub play, but PA still gets picked a lot. While the event was going on, I played a lot of PA. Being the engineer that I am, I analyzed everything to death, read every guide I could get my hands on, and watch replays of highly skilled players showcasing the power of this hero.

During that phase, I ran into this gem on how to play PA. The gist of the guide is that Medallion is the first item you want to buy after Treads/Phase so that you can farm and fight earlier. Beyond that, he offers advice and item builds for different lane positions and farming priorities. Since this guide was posted, desolator has gotten even cheaper and Vlads got a buff so this guide is even more relevant. If you aren't a position 1 hero, Deso is the orb you want and Vlads will give you the lifesteal you desire. The guide was also published before the changes were made in 6.84 about kills granting more gold. More gold from kills rewards players for finding kills early instead of passively farming a lane.

The above guide is a more unconventional take on how to play PA and I can attest to its merits if you can coordinate with your team. If you're looking for something that's a little more conventional or you'd rather watch a video, Relax You're Doing Fine has a great video for that. This is the more conventional Battlefurry + HoD to stack ancients and farm to get ahead with these items. Unless you can get the Battlefurry consistently by 18 minutes, I would recommend trying the Medallion build.

When you try the Medallion build, send me a match ID and let me know how it worked out for you. I am interested to hear about other people's experience building the hero this way. If you want to check out one of my matches, just plug in the match ID 1732300064. Thanks for reading.

The Anti-Carries Series: Slardar

Recently, Purge did a video about Slardar. He played him in the offlane as a 3 position hero, building power treads and blink to help secure his teams victory. Slardar is one of the few heroes who are what I will term an "anti-carry." He requires the 2 items listed above in order to impact the game. That's it. With these two items, his skill set allows him to lock heroes down and chase super effectively. Lets look at his dotabuff.

Items

As I already touched on, power treads and blink dagger are his bread and butter. After that, BKB, armlet and deso round out the top 5. These items are midgame oriented, allowing Slarad to jump on enemies and destroy them quickly. He puts pressure on the map through sprint but also takes increased damage so the next 4 major items (ignoring, TP and shout shield) increase his survivability. Vanguard is another mid game item, but AC and HoT are late game options that keep Slardar relevant. Magic Wand provides some stats and burst heal+mana so that you can just barely escape or get that last crush in.

Best Against

These heroes suffer at the hands of Slardar; it should be no surprise that they are weak to Slardar. They are either: high mobility (AM, Lycan, Brood, NS), rely on invis (Brood, Riki, BH), or are weak to lots of physical damage (Huskar, Ursa). Slardar's strengths stem from his ability to keep pressure on heroes all over the map and chase them to the ends of the Earth. I also like Slardar against Storm Spirit, Ember Spirit, Juggernaut, Troll, and Bristleback.

Worst Against:

While Slardar is good against many carries, there are a few heroes who do well against him. Tidehunter is tough to play against in lane and can counter initiate your mini-ravage with a full-fledged one. I'm not really sure why Gyro is on here; it could be related to his potential to team fight early and his high magical damage. PL is an illusion based hero and slardar has very little AOE. Enigma, Zeus, Tinker, Venomancer, and OD all dish out huge amounts of magical and pure damage which makes toast of a sprinting Slardar. Zeus and Veno can also cancel blinks easily. You shouldn't pick Slardar against illusion based heroes in general, heroes that can kite you easily (Viper), or defensive supports (ES, Oracle, Dazzle and Shadow Demon.)

Some tips for playing the hero:

• dart in and out of fights - Slithereen Crush has a 5.5 second and sprint has a 7 second down time, both of which are insane and you'll be able to get multiple crushes off per fight if you play it right
• use your mana well, tread swap, and keep the Amplify Damage on the enemy
• don't deviate much from the items listed above because you usually won't have enough time to farm blink + bkb + damage item + tank item
• maxing crush and sprint first with a point in your ultimate by level 9 is generally the way to go, however getting a point in bash can be worth it if your team has lots of lockdown or you're just feeling lucky (warning: explicit)
• Vanguard is a good item on this hero. The damage mitigation and extra health really minimize the downside of sprint
• If the enemy team mainly relies on right click to do damage, consider getting a butterfly as your 1st or 2nd tank item because...
• this hero benefits from attack speed like few others because of the 25% psuedo-random Bash
• always sprint around the map but be careful using it against burst heavy lineups

The next time you find yourself with an AM or Ursa problem, just pick Slardar. Pressure them all over the map, take an early Roshan potential and get aggressive. Pick him in the right situation and reap the benefits of playing an anti-carry.

The next anti-carry: Legion Commander

The Internation 2015 Part 3: Looking to the Future

This is part three of my take on the International. Here's a link to my Internation Page where you can find parts 1 and 2 as well as my other TI posts.

The end of The Internation 5 signals the end to another great year in the DOTA 2 community. While many people will still be doing challenges on their compendium and trying to get some coins, the break between seasons will be short lived. Everyone, even the mighty Icefrog, will be getting their mind in gear for the next season of the great game created. In this blog post, you and I will be exploring what the future holds for DOTA 2. We won't be covering everything, so feel free to share what you think is important in the comments section.

The great player shuffle has already begun. Valve is driving teams toward stable rosters by offering direct invites to those teams. In professional sports, stable teams come about through trade deadlines, free agency, contracts, and other mechanisms to balance the needs of the player with the needs of the organization. Valve is incentivising teams to hold stable rosters through direct invites to major events, either to play or qualify. This year, teams like Summoners Rift had to try to make their way through the open qualifies if they wanted to make it into the closed qualifier because of roster changes that occurred after the deadline. September 1st is the next of these deadlines for the major fall tournament so teams are already shuffling around to make sure their rosters are rock solid for the event. In the short term, this seems crazy because TI just ended, yet teams are already kicking players and grabbing new ones. In the long run, well performing teams will try to keep their roster as stable as possible to try and avoid grinding through the qualifiers. This will translate into better DOTA.

For many casters, TI is a make it or break it moments. If a caster, like Maut, doesn't get invited for the biggest tournament in esports, then they have to grind for another year hoping that Valve send them the coveted message next year. For casters that do make it, this is a defining moment because their whole year of work has led up to this. It could be a confirmation of what they want to do or, in the case of Blitz, tip the scales back toward wants to be involved with DOTA on a professional level. A shuffle is also happening. Casters move up, move on, or move over depending on their TI experience or lack thereof. Notably, Zyori is leaving Beyond the Summit. This creates openings for new talent to rise to the top, as ODPixel did this year. It will be interesting to see, as Majors are added and the demand for talented and knowledgeable casters increases, if Valve will look to turn it into more of a commercial endeavor to attract more people and casters to the game.

The final thing we all have to look forward to is a new patch. Icefrog tends to fix things that are a problem in the professional scene and change things up to keep the game fresh. I expect that Leshrac, Gyro, Lina, and Bountyhunter will all get hit with the nerf stick because of their overperformance at TI. Other than those 4, most other heroes that were played seemed fairly balanced. It's the heroes that weren't played and who don't fit into a meta who need a small buff. I would chose Lonedruid, Weaver, Elder Titan, and Beastmaster as the heroes to get a small boost. At some point in the near future, I'll go more indepth with ideas for hero fixes and game balancing.

The most important thing we have to look forward to is more great DOTA. The game continues to evolve, regardless of who's casting, who's playing, and what heroes are overpowered. The Reborn Beta will soon become the client, and with it a new era of DOTA will emerge. It will harken back to it's roots as a custom game for Warcraft 3 and open up new opportunities for tournaments, events and fun.

Please tell me what you are most looking forward to in DOTA's future in the comment section and thanks for reading.

The International 5 Part 2: All Things Heroes

Lets talk heroes. There were winners and there were losers. Let's start with the biggest loser: Queen of Pain.

The biggest disappointment hero-wise for TI was the Queen of Pain. She had a paltry 25% win rate over 20 games. This poor showing demonstrates that not even professional player can avoid every trap. In a future post I'll touch on this, but the basic idea is this: QoP gives players the impression that they are having a huge impact on the game when, in greater context of the game, they are. Part of the problem for for QoP was the patch. During TI, the mid lane lacked heroes that could reliably win their lane and contribute to the late game. Teams had to chose what they wanted in a midlaner: win the lane or have a strong late game. This, of course, except when they could pick Lina, who I'll talk about next. For now, back to QoP. Heroes exert pressure on the enemy team in three forms: lane pressure, map pressure, and direct pressure. QoP is supposed to be a lane dominator and she is. She's the reason that we didn't see more melee mids picked (like ember, dk, TA and others.) The problem is that after the laning stages, she lacks the ability to sufficiently and directly pressure the map and heroes. Her spells are AOE and don't offer the direct pressure in the form of single target pick off potential that a Lina or Storm do.  Nor can she can't stand and bang with carries like an SF can. She doesn't push towers particularly fast and can't contribute much to taking Roshan, so her map pressure is negligible. I wish that more players had gone for aghs into necro book so that she could contribute more to Roshan, offer more pushing potential, and threaten to pick off supports with minimal risk to herself. Sadly, only Waga advocated this.

Lina was the biggest winner at 62.5% over 32 games (the most picked hero, I might add) for TI. Teams resorted to relying on her to burst down the golden BKB wearing cores of the opposing squad. Her attack range, stun, aoe damage, and single target burst lend her to be a flexible pick, either in the midlane or as a support. Linas popularity stems from the most stable carry for TI being the Gyrocopter. He, usually, relies on BKB to ensure he outputs maximum damage. The airship does magical and physical AOE damage, both of which take time to dish out. What better way to deal with it than to kill him before he gets a chance to flack down your whole team. The other reason why is that she stays relevant during the entire game. 

As for other midlaning heroes, Storm saw a 50% win rate and SF was at 33.33%, both over 18 games. Templar Assassin at 71.43% win rate over 7 games, puts her at the second best mid hero. 

There were many other winners and losers in terms of heroes. Here are some notables with a short explanation:

• Antimage - seen as the second most stable carry. strong against teams containing storm. Watch the IG vs Secret Game 1 or Navi vs VG best of 1 for reasons why this hero was picked. Even with only a 40% win rate, teams had to change how they played to minimize his effectiveness.
• Bounty hunter had a 92% win rate.This hero is broken. If you know how to play him, you should be spamming this hero in pubs. For pro players, he allows them to get back to parity or get very far ahead with just a few track kill.
• Shadow Fiend - while Artzeey's performance on this hero were nothing short of amazing during TI, the hero just didn't perform. He was looked at favorably for teams on the Radiant side because of his easy access to the two jungle camps, however, he just didn't perform. This is another hero that was picked because of the lack of viable mid-laners.
• Techies - I would be remiss if I didn't mention everyone's *least* favorite pub heroes. As AUI_2000 said "Techies is only fun for the person playing with him." Techies single handedly helped EG win TI because CDEC had to ban it every game; they weren't prepared to play against the suicide squad, with or without Tusk.
• If Gyro is the most stable carry and Antimage is the second most stable carry, then Phantom Lancer and Luna tie for 3rd. Luna started seeing more play toward the end of the tournament as teams sought 1 position heroes when a combination of banning and picking removed AM, Gyro, and PL from the pool. Luna is comparable to gyro. She has does burst AOE magical damage in the early stages of the game and then transitions into a machine. Her push is better because of the bouncing glaives but enemies that spread out wisely don't take as much damage compared to a flack cannon.
• The final winners I want to touch on are the supports. The tournament meta centered around getting the best midlaner and position 1 hero, both from a limited pool, and then countering the opponents picks with strong supports. Bounty Hunter, Earthshaker and Winter Wyvern are my top three supports for this tourney, but Disruptor, Visage (with 100% win rate over 5 games), Lion, Crystal Maiden, Naga (while only a 30% win rate, was banned almost every game against Secret and EG, among others), Spirit Breaker, Tusk, and Rubik all had over 50% winrates. The wide variety of support play is a hopeful sign for things to come.

What are your winners and losers for heroes this tournament? How do you think this will impact the pub meta in the long run? Let me know in the comments.

The International 5 Part 1 of 3: Thoughts on the Event

Here are my thoughts on the International 5. This is the 3rd International I've watched and, aside from Liquid doing it and Alliance's victory, was an extremely enjoyable experience. This post will start the big picture and next post I'll talk about some things I saw happening at the micro-level. Finally, I have a post related to the consequences, unexpected and otherwise, of this TI as teams once again will begin their prep for next year.

Group Stages    The group stages were done in a simple but satisfying way. The key points are:

• two groups of 8 teams - pretty self-explanatory

• round robin style matching to determining seeds

• 3 points for a 2-0 and 1 point for a 1-1 - this point system, as EE pointed out in his interview with Hotbid, could encourage collusion among the teams. The basic idea is that 3 teams could intentionally go 2-0 and 0-2 with the other two teams. This gives three 3 points and a very good shot at making it in to the winners bracket.

• Complexity and CDEC surprised everyone with their solid play and finished top 4 of their respective group.

• 3 games were usually going on at the same time. This is necessary, but a pain if you want to watch your two favorite teams. The updates provided at the bottom on draft and who won allowed you to switch to games that might prove more interesting.

The Main Event   It was nice that all the teams got to play in the main event. Some key points are:

• Some of teams that ended up doing really well started in the lower bracket. Notably were Vici Gaming and Virtus.Pro. 

• Some of the favorites to win the whole things ended up in the lower bracket after the second round of upper bracket play. Whith LGD gaming made it to the lower bracket finals, Team Secret finished more poorly than many hoped for. I was in a pool with some guys I play dota with and everyone except for two other guys and me had Secret going all the way. I had Evil Geniuses and won the whole things.

• The games weren't as exciting as TI3 but they were way better than TI4. Check out the VP vs. Secret series, VG vs. Cloud 9 game 1, Complexity vs VP, Secret vs IG games 1 and 2, EG vs CDEC game 3. 

• EG was able to figure out how to dismantle CDEC in the finals after getting crushed by them in the upper bracket. PPD did a vlog about it here.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• No spoiled heroes this TI. Unlike the Techies last year, we didn't see the Pitlord make his debute.

• Kaci hosted the event and did some interviews but she got on my nerves by the end. She needs to up her DOTA 2 knowledge and get away from yelling in a very high pitched voice. In fact, lets just get her away from yelling and encouraging other people to yell (poor March).

• The main event panel was hosted by Paul Chaloner and he kept the conversation moving but not always in the right direction. I think he will continue to get better as he becomes more familiar with the game. I don't think he should self-deprecate in front of millions of people who are the same skill level as him.

• The 3 Merlinis + Synd offered some great insight to the matches played one stream 1 for the group stages. Maybe next year this could be expanded to all streams even if it's just the announcers +1 or +2 people.

• Deamau5 playing at the end was too big of a surprise and the camera work was atrocious; constantly zooming in and out with flashing lights gave me nausea. I like Deadmau5 but the performance was very anti-climatic when compared with the games that had just been played. Maybe he could have played before or during the games and transitioned into closing the event.

• All the casters were great. There wasn't a single point in time where I felt like they missed things or made errors when it came to the game. 

• I think there need to be more Immortal Treasures related to your compendium level. This would encourage users to level it up and allow those of us who didn't get all of the "golden" treasures to feel not quite as gypped for leveling up their book.

What things did you think were done well at this years event? Were done poorly? 

Thanks for reading and stop in soon to read part 2.

Surviving 3k: Just Arriving

You've just made it to 3k MMR. Either you got your grind on and raised your MMR or this is where you, like me, were placed. The 3k MMR landscape is diverse in terms of talent, hero selection, and individual player strategy. It's not uncommon to have an ancients farming medusa go for midas and treads into rapier and carry the game. Don't fall into this trap, however. Here are some survival tips you can employ as soon as you start trying to climb the ladder to 4k.

• Don't jungle, unless it's a hero I highlighted here.
• If your team needs a support, pick it.
• If you're the hard support, I suggest getting courier, sentries, tangos, and a clarity (as per fluff)
• Always, and I mean always, play to win. Don't give up if you're behind 10 or even 20 kills. Games are swingy.
• Identify the best player on your team and ensure they have a good game.
• Don't ever farm ancients.
• Midas isn't a very good item this patch unless you get it before 6 minutes.
• When you get crushed by a single player, go back and watch how they crushed you.
• When you crush a team, go back and watch what enabled you to crush them.
• Help your supports with wards and sentries.
• Buy smokes and set up kills.
• Help zone the offlaner whether you're support or carry.

These are just a few general things to help improve your play so you can continue your progress in the 3k bracket. It's important to keep focusing on the basics of surviving 3k MMR because once you get them down, you can start focusing on playing like a 4k player. 

Surviving 3k: Encouraging your allies to pick around you

Every match, you should be doing certain things:

1. determining how your team is going to communicate
2. assessing how flexible your team is going to be in roles, picks, and lanes
3. trying to convince your team to pick strong heroes, counterpick the enemy, and pick around the hero you want to play

There are many other things, but these 3 you can determine right at the start of the game. For the purpose of this post, let's focus on the last part of point 3. If at least one other person picks a hero that synergizes with what you pick, you multiply the effectiveness of both heroes thus increasing your chance of winning.

Surviving 3k means you need to use all your skills, not just DOTA related, to get that coveted MMR. If you play a great hero x and you know you pair well with hero y, then encourage someone to pick it if they're good with the hero. A few notes about this approach:

• Try a logical argument. for example, if the enemy team has a Storm Spirit and you want to play Omni, you could try: "Antimage counters storm and will play great with my Omniknight because you won't have to get a bkb."
• If the logical argument doesn't work, then try an emotional one. Generally, people make decisions based on emotion; how a decision makes you feel impacts greatly what you decide to do. With that said, most people will respond positively if you ask nicely, but some might respond if you are more aggressive. Caution: people tend to hide behind their anonymity on the internet so being aggressive isn't usually as successful as asking nicely. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" is the old adage.
• Sometimes, no one plays a hero that partners well with you, like you want to play LC but no one picks heroes with burst damage.
• When some one says no to a line of reasoning, try another; sell your idea any way you can. Always keep in mind that the goal is gaining MMR, not making friends or enemies. If you happen to make those, that's fine too, but this is solo queue not social hour.
• Don't constrain your hero pairs to one that will only be in your lane or play a certain role. Try to harness the strength of your team's abilities using snap judgments and making quick decisions. If those decisions don't work after a couple tries, move on to something different.
• Don't get emotionally involved with a hero, hero pair or strategy. Being involved with your significant other is fine but this is, again, solo queue. There is work to do and whispering sweet nothings into your microphone isn't going to get you that +25 at the end of a match. If the game calls for something outside your comfort zone, do it. 
• On the other side of that coin: if your team wants you to pick a hero you aren't good at, try to find a compromise hero, otherwise tell them to pound sand. You are responsible for your destiny. If you're going to make it to 4k or 5k or whatever your goal is, you have to do it. Picking Techies with Tusk may sound like a good idea, but if you haven't played Tusk before, you will be a burden to be carries by someone else.

How do you determine what heroes to pair with? Make sure to check your dotabuff and see what heroes you pair well with. You should be spamming between 3-5 heroes in solo queue (another post for another time) and will therefore build up stats related to those heroes. With those stats you can make more informed decisions about playing the game, include what heroes you pair well with.

The Missing Heroes

Here is the list of heroes that haven't been picked in the main event so far for TI5*:
abadon
alchemist
batrider
beastmaster
brewmaster
centaur warrunner
chaos knight
death prophet
doom
drow
elder titan
entrantress
enigma
faceless void void
huskar
invoker
kunkka
leshrac
lich
lifestealer
lone druid
medusa
meepo
mirana
morphling
necrophos
nyx assassin
ogre magi
omniknight
oracle
outworld devourer
phanrom assassin
puck
riki
shadow demon
slardar
slark
techies
terrorblade
tidehunter
tinker
tiny
teant protector
troll warlord
ursa
vengeful spirit
venomancer
visage
warlock
windranger

Of these, the ones that have a strike through were banned at some point during the main event (there may be more but these were the most significant.

Most of the rest have been hit with with the nerf stick recently, don't fit in the meta, or are just too risky to pick. Here are a few heroes that I feel could be picked, whether situationally or otherwise.

Brewmaster - this hero used to be first pick/ban material. He's fallen out of favor recently but the hero is potent in team centric and push centric line ups. You need to use split, get a kill or two, and take an objective.

Centaur Warrunner - this hero can be a monster in the offlane and was picked up in the group stages 6 times. While he didn't have a great showing, he is similar to tusk, but offers a global presence with his ultimate. He does need a blink dagger to start initiating on people, however his damage output, tankiness and an ultimate which is always useful means that he stays relevant all game.

Enigma - many teams play this hero, but he's greedy. And Rubik is running around wrecking teams. (Just watch Fy God destroy Empire singlehandedly twice and you know why enigma is super risky.

Enchantress - we might see this in the offlane for EG or jungle for Secret nut otherwise this is a risky pick. Still, capturing the early game with kills seems to be a good way to win, especially shutting down the mid. A Darktroll Summoner, Centaur, Hellbear, or Golem can secure kills. Also, a Wildwing can be super annoying or guarantee fast farm with stacks.

Lich - this hero dominates in the dual-lane meta. His abilities lend themselves to winning lanes which seem to be a key to victory.

Puck - this hero has always been good and the aghs upgrade keeps him relevant against bkb as the game progresses. Dream Coil comes online when the Undying Tombstone is at it's most powerful (level 3-4) and the silence is extremely relevant against many of the mids currently being play.

Slardar - Slardar tears through carries that need more time to come online and, with a blink dagger, can catch out many heroes with a near instant stun. This hero also naturally builds items to help push. The other two important aspects which are important to consider are granting an early Roshan and grants information through amplify damage. In an aggressive line-up, this hero excels; get kills, take objectives.

Tidehunter - We might see this on Iceiceice or Universe, but he's MIA. It's unfortunate but the offlane choices right now are not favoring the thing from the depths.

Tiny - we might see a tiny wisp before the event is out, but right now he's being completely ignorged.

Ursa - another aggressive carry that is seeing no love. He's been buffed and retooled since the last TI and now he's even stronger. Like Slardar, Ursa offers an early Roshan. While Ursa doesn't have the lock-down that Slardar offers, his burst damage tears through anyone who can't get away like SF, Clockwork, Lina, and supports who don't have a disable.

*the list is aailable at the bottom of the www.dotabuff.com/esports/events/41/heroes page

Surviving 3k: 3 things to work on to ensure you survive

In a recent interview, one of the pro players that the best teams are thinking 6 steps ahead. To think like this you have to first practice thinking one step ahead. Then two steps. Then it becomes easy because steps past step two depend on what you predicted steps 1 and 2. 

Most players get stuck on steps 1 or 2 because they:

1. Lack enough reference experience to understand the limits of the current game state
2. Not actively thinking about what's going on in the game
3. Have to focus on some of the basic skills in the game rather than some of the bigger pictures

Lacking reference experience

If you want to survive 3k MMR, you have to try to push the limits of your games in order to gain reference experience. The player who does this the best is Eternal Envy. He understands what the limits of the game and can see the end game scenarios when he's behind. He thinks about what the enemy team needs to win and then tries to deny them that. How does he know all this? He has thousands of games to compare his current situation with. If you want to understand what you can and cannot get away with in a game, try different things and watch your replays and your timings for when things worked. EE-sama also is continually actively thinking about the game.

Not actively thinking about the game

When you queue up a game, make it your focus. Put the cellphone down and stop alt-tabbing. I know it's hard but focus your attention on your game, your team mates and your enemies. Your brain is a muscle and if you can exercise it like any other muscle. The more you exercise it to alt-tab and use your cell phone, the less you are exercising it in DOTA. If you want to survive 3k MMR, you need to exercise that brain for DOTA. 

Focusing on basic DOTA skills like not using hotkeys, queuing actions, and buying items is preventing you from focusing on other important aspect of the game. Hitting creeps should become zombie mode at some point. You item builds on certain heroes should become almost automatic and others should be familiar. At the very least, you should be able to understand what items do and what you should buy to itemize against your opponents correctly.

Hopefully these three things will help you survive 3k MMR.

The International 2015 Day 1: thoughts on LGD and Empire

Here's the schedule for the main event on day 1 (you can find the complete schedule here) 

The first series delivered.

It went 3 game in what many thought would be a 2-0 LGD victory. Empire was outplayed and out-drafted in game three, but their extremely aggressive play style caught LGD off gaurd. Empire received a direct invite to TI this year and these games delivered. Yoky played next level in games 1 and 2. Unfortunately, in game 3 a tension existed between a Magnus Reverse Polarity (RP) and the team of LGD. They never gave away more position than they had to, thus curbing Empire's offlaners potential to bring Empire back into game three. Game two saw Silent ball out of control on the Antimage (AM) and take on the entire LGD team in the Radiant safe lane toward the end of the game. At one point I think he was hitting for 500+ damage with empower and battlefurry; it was impressive to say the least. Game 1 was the most back and forth. Yoky's strut his stuff on Axe and it seemed that Empire was in striking distance of a win, however Silent's and Resolut1on's aggressive blinks seemingly cost them getting a set Rax at a pivotal point in the game.

LGD played a good series. Xiao8 really baited Empire into a poor strategy in the deciding game 3. Empire picked the Phantom Lancer (PL) third pick and LGD immediately picked Ember Spirit giving them Gyro and Ember to deal with the illusion spawning  Maybe's performace in the midlane was dominant every game. One comentator compared Maybe to Sumail's performance from DAC. I don't have as much to say about LGD as Empire because they just played such solid DOTA. Their patience paid off in game 1 when they were facing down potentially lost Rax. They didn't lose their cool after a demoralizing loss to an Antimage game 2.

LDG deserved the win with their play. They will face CDEC gaming in the upper bracket for their next series. If Xiao8 can continue his restraint and brilliance, they should be able to defeat a Chinese team who plans on making a deep run from the Wildcard slot.

Thoughts on The International 2015: Group Stages

The International's group stage finished Thursday. With that, here are some of the highlights and my thoughts on the group stages.

• It came down to the wire in Group B for first place and Fourth place. EG was dependent on CDEC dropping a game against EHOME, which they did, for first place. Virtus.Pro and Empire played a best of 3 to determine who would capture the coveted 4th spot.
• Complexity surprised everyone with a third place finish in Group A. 
• Complexity and EG, among others, displayed the power of Techies. Saints preserve us in the pubs.
• I didn't get a chance to watch all the games, but from what I saw Secret and LGD are playing on a different level than the rest of their group. Granted, their group was weaker, however they still made it look easy. 
• While Evil Geniuses didn't dominate their group (and almost didn't get what everyone thought would be a gaurenteed first), they showed flashes of brilliance and dominance reminiscent of the DOTA Asian Championships (DAC) rather than The Summit 3. 
• Invictus Gaming (IG) is, as Winter put it, "lost in the woods." The team has a lot of experience (winning TI2 and all) but their kills per game is the lowest among all teams and this TI is definitely about fighting.
• Cloud9 is playing some of the riskiest DOTA of all time. The sneaky Rosh plus Divine Rapier Anti-Mage was a novel enough strategy to kept them in their game against LGD. However, they still can't finish.
• CDEC, a wildcard team, finished second in group B, besting other, seemingly stronger teams like Virtus.Pro, Empire, Vici Gaming (VG).
• VG is struggling. Maybe dropping Black wasn't such a great idea...
• Newbee showed up to play. They took games off EG, VP, and Empire which counts for a lot in a best of 2 format. However they are facing arguably the strongest SEA team in MVP Phoenix so it could go either way.
• Na'vi was the poster child for TI but they have a very tough round one match against Vici Gaming. Their KDA, GPM, and EXPM over the group stages have been lower than VG. Senniecko is going to have to play out of his mind and Dendi is going to need a few more 20 kill games.

Here are the stats from dotabuff in case you haven't seen them. 

Games resume tomorrow at 1:00 P.M. Eastern time with LGD and Empire.

Surviving 3k: Making the best of your picks by predicting lanes

Radiant

VS

Dire

I'm sure many of you have experienced a game like I experienced on Radiant a few days ago:
- some one randoms a hero first pick (Tinker in this case)
- the Windranger is set on playing mid
- everyone else picks hoping the Windranger isn't going mid.
- the Windranger refuses to switch lanes

How should you handle this situation? there are many ways to approach it, so lets run through some of the options.

1. You can try to bully the Windranger into going to another lane through having the Tinker or another hero go mid with her. There is a Tusk, so depending on how the dire lane, and specifically send middle, there might be kill potential for a roaming Tusk who spends a lot of time mid.

• Pros: shutdown enemy mid, potentially snowball (no pun intended) the Windranger into fast Aghs
• Cons: The Windranger ruins your game because she's mad, you don't get kills on the enemy heroes because they lane strongly and end up with under-farmed and -leveled heroes

2. Aggro Trilane with the Tusk, Nyx, and Ursa, send the Tinker solo safelane against, hopefully, a Darkseer, and let the WR do her thing. Snowball into Nyx stun plus Ursa damage should be a kill the majority of the time against a solo or dual lane.

• Pros: Crystal maiden is an easy support hero to snowball and kill (low movespeed) if they solo support. If the Razor safelanes and gets shut down, the carry potential of the other team is drastically reduced, especially for pushing. Happy WR. Tinker gets some farm and levels.
• Cons: fighting all the time in the enemy safelane means that your heroes will potentially be low, powering up the Bloodseeker. The risk of him snowballing out of control and taking over the game means you will probably lose. Also, Nyx and Tusk need levels (most importantly, level 6) to be effective. If your aggro tri doesn't get kills, you end up with under-leveled and under-farmed heroes who have little catch up potential.

3. Put the Ursa in the jungle and have Tusk or Nyx support the Tinker. This is the greediest option because you're allowing the offlane hero to get more level and experience than he should get. This will be especially hard for a Tusk or Nyx to zone a Darkseer because Ion Shell is so strong early in the game and those heroes are both melee.

• Pros: the enemy team has a potentially greedy lineup so trading a jungle Ursa for a potential jungle BS is a good trade (Ursa matches up well against the BS). Happy WR. Tinker gets some farm. Offlane gets levels.
• Cons: jungling against a BS takes a lot of finesse; the lower the Ursa gets, the faster the BS jungles closing the gap in advantage the Ursa has. Having either Tusk or Nyx solo support isn't ideal, especially against a DS, If Nyx does support, his impact on the game is minimal. You aren't punishing the enemy team's greed in any way.

While there are other option that aren't mentioned here, a lot of it comes down to predicting your opponents lanes. Because people are playing so greedy this patch, it seemed obvious to me that the CM would support top with a little jungle mixed in, the DS would be offlane, and that Razor would be safelane. This leave Lina and the BS to either go mid and jungle or support and mid, respectively. I predicted, correctly, that the BS would jungle and Lina would mid so I convinced my team, apart from the WR, to go with option 3 and putting Nyx in the offlane. Here's how it panned out:

This game is illustrative of how to make the most of your picks in pubs through predicting how the other team is going to lane. Even if you don't initially predict how the other team is going to lane, just switch up your lanes to give your team the best chance of winning. For example, if the enemy team had gone for a CM, Lina and Razor aggro Trilane, then the Tinker would need to move to the top lane in order to get his farm. Otherwise he risks dying to the three enemy heroes. It's also worth mentioning that a trilane isn't the only way that the enemy could have punished the random Tinker pick. But they didn't punish us so we won.

When it comes down to it, DOTA is about getting the enemy thrown. It doesn't matter how you get it as long as you do. Making the best of your picks for the laning stage is the first step in doing that. The next things to consider are making the most of your picks in mid-game and securing an end-game.

*Special thanks to www.dotabuff.com for the pictures found in this post.

Surviving 3k: just counterpick them already

The pub meta is driven by the most popular heroes. While win rates generally correlate to popularity, Pudge is super popular but his win rate is about 50% so there isn't necessarily a general causation there; some people just have favorite heroes they like to play alot. Surviving 3k MMR has a lot to do with using picks to compensate for the wide range in skill. A lot of people resist the idea of picking hero flavors of the month and counterpicking those flavors because, again, some people just have favorite heroes they like to play alot. Well that needs to change. Stop picking your favorite heroes and counterpick your opponent already.

If your goal is to get better at DOTA and improve your MMR, then counterpicking offers a direct path to do this. Counterpicking nudges who has the advantage in your favor. Even though Wraithking may not be your jam, he gives Bloodseeker the third lowest win rating so picking a WK into BS is going to give your team a few percentage points in your favor. This is crucial. Games are generally close and the higher you get in MMR, the closer they become. The closer games become, the more important your hero decision becomes because it offers a way to gain an advantage.

How do you counterpick properly? I usually just go to dotabuff heroes section, find the hero I keep losing too, and see which heroes are recommended against them and which heroes give them a lower win rate. It's that easy. It's also useful to know how they generally itemize. Items like black king bar or butterfly can swing in their favor if you aren't prepared.

Personally, I have been having trouble with Bloodseeker. He's everywhere and has a really high win percentage. Having explored different strategies, Ursa has worked well for me because of damage mitigation and the burst damage Ursa offers. Plus he's aggressive around the same time that Bloodseeker is. You don't play Ursa in the jungle against the BS.

What heroes are you having trouble with? How are you trying to deal with them? Let me know in the comments.

Surviving 3k: Finding the Niche

The most common question among pub players is: how do you raise MMR? Some people say to spam this hero or that. Some say to jungle for 10 minutes and come out with the intention of of snowballing your team to a victory. My advice and what has worked for me is to find a niche and fill it.

Lets use some abstraction to understand this.The pub scene trends toward certain picks, strategies, and styles of play. Because the pub scene favors certain heroes, strategies, and styles of play over others, this creates a deficit somewhere. Sometimes this deficit is well founded and sometimes it isn't. Right now, when it comes to support, it isn't. The pub scene at 3k is lacking the support duo currently (Fluff gives a good talk about this here). Rather than having a hard 5 and greedier 4, there's an awkward 3.5 and 6.5 position hero. This is bad.

Most importantly is that no one wants to play the 6.5 position because they are getting sacked so hard. Buy all the wards and the courier and share your tangos. Forget about getting brown boots until minute 12, buy all the smokes and it's your fault for not putting up enough wards when some one on the team gets ganked. Moral of this story is help your supports through buying wards, sharing tangos, upgrading courier, buying smokes and not flaming them.

The second most important point is that having a 3.5 is a liability, most of the time. There are small exceptions. However, the majority of the time picking a greedier support will help your team out way more than having a 3.5 because they will be active on the map and help buy support items during the beginning of the game. The goal of the first 10-20 minutes in a game is to win the laning stage and transition into the mid-game with a lead. The best way to do this is to have a dynamic support duo who matches up well against the enemy team.

Now I know a lot of you out there are going to still play a 3.5 hero, so here's my recommendations:

Enigma - fastest farming jungler there is. Can push early, gets an early mech, and has great team fight ulti.
Chen - maybe the second fastest farming jungler there is. Pushes early, gets mech, and has a great team fight ulti.
Ursa - everyone knows your going for Rosh by 7 minutes. After Rosh, it's time to get aggresive
Bloodseeker - Global ability that powers you up and gives vision when people are low seems like a good deal.
Crystal Maiden - getting a quick level two and ganking the mid lane is how I like to play her. Just make sure to get quick boots because you are slow. Your aura helps your team win the laning phase.

these heroes get active before the 8 minute mark and create pressure on the map naturally during the laning phase. They all have things in common: they pressure the enemy team in ways traditional heroes can't because they don't show on the map until it's too late.As a 3.5 position, you need to help your other support. Like it or not, you need to compensate for your lack of direct laning presence by empowering your other support.

In current pubs, there's a place for a 4 position support or a super active 3.5 position hero. Trying to pick a sub-par jungler like Legion Commander is a waste of time and a pending loss. Fill the niche your teams needs and be rewarded with MMR.

Developing the mindset of a winner

Every once and a while, I find myself sliding from 3.6k to 3.4k MMR or lower with a series of games, most of which I couldn’t have done anything to change the outcome. When this happens, I need to refresh my mindset because it’s draining. I don’t want to get caught up in the negative aspect of the game I just played. To avoid this, I take advantage of two powerful feedback mechanisms that everyone has: reframing and perspective. The reframe changes your mind set from your current state to a desired state. Perspective gives you a reference point for progress in your game. With these two strategies, I perpetuate the mindset of a winner.

I am a senior electrical/computer engineering (EE or ECE) student at a small private college. The EE curriculum is a mix of required classes and technical electives.  The one technical elective that all EEs should take is control systems. In controls, the idea is to keep a system stable, i.e. keep the system from tilting, using a certain type of controller.  You mind operates on some of the same principles which means it’s up to you to control your attitude. A very easy way to do this is called the reframe. The idea is that every time you feel yourself descending into a mindset that you don’t want to identify with, you physically and mentally change that mindset. There are a few simple strategies you can employ to do this:

-          Tell yourself something out loud. Phrases like “I’m still the best”, “even good players have bad games”, and “I’ll get them next time” can go a long way to improving your attitude.

-          Watch a replay of yourself playing well, a highlight reel (like DOTA Cinema’s Symphony of Skills) or favorite player. These will help get your head back into a winning mindset

-          Develop a pre- and post-game routine. There’s a reason sports teams huddle together to pump each other up before and shake hands after a game – it works! This doesn’t have to be some super in depth ritual. I always begin my DOTA session by watching some live games to get myself in the right mind set and get some water after each game to walk around.

In controls, the reframe would be called a feedback approach and the perspective a feedforward approach. Basically, you use the game you’re playing today to influence the game you will play tomorrow.  While you’re playing the game, the only moment that exists is the current one. After the game is over, you can look at the whole game, noticing how certain events shaped each team’s play. This information translates into a greater understanding of how to play in those situations the next time they come around. If you watch professional players, they do this as they play because their reference experience is so large that they see minute details and courses of action that the average doesn’t. They then translate this into an advantage and that advantage into a win.

When you combine these two ideas, you create a potent control system for your game. It helps you stay positive, get more enjoyment out of the game and progress as a player. In order to really embrace these ideas, you need to do them constantly so that they become part of your normal thought patterns. Remember, however, to only focus on improving one thing at a time. I would recommend starting with learning to reframe because the time investment is smaller and you will see results from it sooner.  

It's almost time for that new patch smell

Many people have hopes and dreams for the next patch and rounds of balances. The big ones that come to mind are:
- Reworking buybacks interaction with reliable gold, experience, and the comeback mechanics and
- Balancing some of pub stars: Troll, Juggernaut, Lion, Sniper, and Axe come quickly to mind.
Outside of those two things glaring straight at The International, DOTA2 is in a good place. The support hero pool is large and diverse. www.DOTABuff.com just ran a three part series highlighting 10 of the most viable supports you can pick (you can find part 3 here: http://www.dotabuff.com/blog/2015-04-02-introducing-top-tier-supports--part-3). To that list I would add the Ogre Magi, Treant Protector, and Sand King. There are only a few heroes considered unplayable (Sorry Kunkka). The mid lane is seeing a Rock- Paper-Scissors-Hammer-Blade-Scream… between Shadow Fiend, Sniper, Storm Spirit, your magic nuker of choice (usually Lina or Queen of Pain) and the maverick picks ( Ember Spirit, Brewmaster, Magnus, Viper, and even Artzeey on the Razor). With that said, there are still somethings that need fixing so here’s my wish list.
There are a few abilities that need to receive minor nerfs. Sniper’s shrapnel is crazy good at 50 mana and a 40 second recharge rate. Either the mana cost needs to increase enough to where you actually have to consider the cost of casting it, the recharge rate should be increased, or a combination of the 2. I don’t think it’s that far off from being viable but not overpowered. The other ability that stands out is Lion’s Impale. This spell is targeted so as long as you reach the cast point, the stun will land unless they are super far away. This leads to some stuns that are a bit on the questionable side. The solution here is to either have it remain targeted but once you cast it, it goes a fixed distance in the direction of the target or make it a skill shot but increase its range a little. The trend has been to make things more skill intensive; think Fissure for the Earth Shaker or Impale for Nyx.
A few heroes would really benefit from a bump because they are narrowly situational, they are a worse something else, or they are just unplayable. Visage best fits the narrowly situational pick because you almost never see him without a Drow or another pushing hero. Chen has pushed out almost every other pushing hero except for the Enigma. The buff to his abilities is a welcome change, however now the situation exists where Enchantress is a worse something else. Maybe she needs a rework to compete like buffing the damage her creeps have or increasing her healing effectiveness. Finally, the unplayable heroes: Kunka, Alchemist, Leshrac, Chaos Knight and Lifestealer just cannot be picked because they are situationally worse than everything else. A buff to these heroes would be welcome, especially Leshrac. He puts out a ton of damage, but has to compete with QoP, Lina, and Storm for the position of mid int. hero and he can’t. He’s also not a good support because he damage is reliant on being alive for the duration of a fight. A buff in either direction would be most welcome and I think it starts with Lightning Storm.
Hopefully the next patch freshens up the current meta, bringing new heroes to prominence and pushing down some of the current stars. What are your picks for heroes that need nerfs? Buffs? Let me know in the Comments.