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