Dota 2: MDL Disneyland, heroes suddenly appeared in the meta

As mentioned before, MDL Disneyland will bring strange heroes that have never appeared in the meta. This time, it’s Pudge and Silencer’s turn to show up in the pro scene, or at least they’re worth your while in the current meta.

PUDGE

Pudge became the hero of Secret.zai player. He tries to harness the power of Flesh Heap in lane as much as he can with the extra healing it gives.

Position 3 Pudge is not unheard of in high ranked pubs, but most of the time this hero roams in position 4 or sometimes mid. But the reality of the tournament shows that the offlane is where pudge really belongs: playing support and taking the lead is seen as the most successful and valuable way to play for Pudge.

Current offlanes are rarely the hero that initiates team fights. These heroes don’t rush to Blink Dagger but focus on aura and buffalo items – so they can stand in the middle of teamfight: providing vision to the team and decoys for the opponent to cast spells.

What makes Pudge more special in the position 3 core is the fact that this hero can withstand magic damage better, despite the ability to take less physical damage. Therefore, Pudge is very suitable to pair with cores that cannot withstand magic damage.

During the draft phase, the opponent needs to make a decision: pick heroes to fight offlane early or pick heroes to fight cores later. It’s very difficult to burst damage and finish Pudge with magic damage, and you can’t ignore this hero in teamfights.

Meanwhile, if the team doesn’t have magic damage, it will be difficult for you to successfully gank the carry and semi carry that are popular today, like Terorblade, Troll Warlord, Monkeyking or Morphling. Team Secret usually picks Monkey King and Morphling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bxkx2sdOSs

All in all, very few heroes are able to deal effectively with a lineup that includes Pudge (or have to wait until the mid and late game). Pudge can achieve the same results as Centaur Warrunner and just stay ahead: deal damage, harass enemies, force opponents to cast spells, and force them to resist using his Dismember.

SILENCER

It’s really hard to understand why Silencer suddenly gained popularity and it’s hard to predict if this hero will continue to be popular in the game or not. Theoretically, Silencer seems fine in the suport position – a hero with good stats, armor and starting health is quite good. Silencer can harass enemies in the laning phase without risking himself thanks to Glaives of Wisdom, while Arcane Curse is equally annoying, especially for heroes who like to spam spells.

On the other hand, Silencer has a movement speed of only 290 and doesn’t have the required leg lock like other position 5 supports. Silencer works fine during the laning phase, slowly ‘peeping’ the enemy’s health and not allowing them to cast spells freely. But in the mid-game, Silencer only brings the main benefit of Global Silence.

Looks like Oracle was the only reason Silencer was chosen. In both games where this hero appeared, Silencer was picked in response to Oracle during the draft phase. Going up against a good Oracle player was tough – even though False Promise’s cast range was nerfed, it still helped the team flip the teamfight.

Most teams by default must hunt Oracle at the start of a fight, but this often puts members in a dangerous position: the team is forced to break through the front defense and can be cut off from the remaining members. again.

You can kill Oracle quickly, or force the hero to use utilmate on himself – but at this point, the team is probably using too many resources just to deal with a position 5 support hero. Silencer is the solution to this problem: you can cast Global Silence as soon as the team attacks other targets.

Meanwhile, Silencer is also applied against heroes that ‘initiate’ or avoid combat, like Earthshaker or Centaur Warruner. Silencer solves a lot of specific problems and allows the team to hunt efficiently. This hero is valuable to teams that have a clear goal in mind and have core heroes that are flexible enough to take advantage of the extra seconds to find a safe spot.

However, in pubs, Silencer doesn’t seem appropriate. Why do we choose heroes that are only suitable for certain situations, when you can choose Shadow Shaman or Lion – heroes that have many useful skills and do not require the team to coordinate well?

EPILOGUE

MDL Disneyland has already brought a few surprises and we’ll likely see many more. 7.21 still has 4 heroes in CM mode that have not been picked and completely abandoned during the last 3 DPC tournaments: Riki, Techies, Tinker and Treant Protector. These heroes still have a chance to show up in Paris and we’ll have to wait and see if they fit into the meta.

According to Dotabuff