Summary of the EPICENTER XL meta, the most balanced patch of the 2017-2018 season

EPICENTER XL is the most diverse tournament this season. With 105 heroes picked and only 7 heroes ignored in the past 97 games, 7.14 is a great patch.

Other than that, there are only two heroes that really stand out in the league: Io and Leshrac with 88% and 81% ban+pick respectively. No other hero has been able to compete for more than 70% of matches, with Nature’s Prophet peaking at 68%.

When we compare the stats of many previous Majors and Minors, we have to admit that the meta is extremely diverse, with teams experimenting with different heroes and playing styles.

Successful stable picks

Doom and Gyrocopter were the most successful popular picks of the tournament with over 60% win rates in 25 games.

The resurrected Gyrocopter is explained by the new build for this hero: Aghanim’s Scepter becomes the hero’s main item, and then Black King Bar or Maelstrom.

Many people doubted Gyrocopter’s viability after Flak Cannon and Homing Missile were nerfed in 7.10 and 7.12, but as we can see, the hero is still picked quite comfortably by teams. The new build allows the hero to become more tanky, while still dealing massive damage, even when disabled. With the new Maelstrom, Gyrocopter also farm faster and have more influence in teamfights against heavily armored.

Doom hasn’t seen any direct changes in the last few patches, except for 7.10 – when intelligence starts to increase by 2. However, Doom benefits from the attribute changes introduced in 7.13, by a large amount. strength increases by 3.5 per level, making the hero a prime candidate for offlane.

Doom is quite tanky, moves fast and can put pressure on the opponent’s solo core, forcing the opponent to sacrifice farming for the core or stay to protect the hero, opening up more opportunities for other lanes to gank. Later in the game, Doom was able to ensure a high networth and build needed team boosts, while still ensuring that one of the opposing team’s members would ‘shut down’ during teamfight.

Flexible Leshrac

Leshrac is the second most competitive hero in the tournament with a ban+pick ratio of 81%. However, the hero’s strength does not come from his own strength: although the hero won 56% of the total games, his flexibility in drafting made Leshrac a favorite.

In the tournament, we see Leshrac play in every position: he used to play offlane in active dual lane or triple lane, then in mid, and can be support if needed.

With moves with low manacost and cooldown, high presence in teamfights, and potential lane push, Leshrac quickly became the first pick in the draft, forcing opponents to guess if this was a Leshrac core or a support.

It’s hard to say the hero is out of balance right now, but it’s clear that Leshrac is quite strong in the pro scene and deserves to be explored in pubs.

Slark is undefeated

Slark won 11 of the 13 games played, making him the most successful pick in the league. We talked about slark getting stronger in buffs 7.12 and 7.14 and the stats at EPICENTER XL speak for themselves.

With his laning ability and high impact mid to late game, Slark is undefeated at the moment, but it’s still too early to say he’s ‘overpowered’. Slark is still a hero that depends on the draft each game and a lot of teams forget about him during the draft or disrespect Slark: no Lion or Shadow Shaman was picked to counter slark, only a few matches where Ax was present. .

At the moment, Slark is very similar to Broodmother from previous patches: Slark can destroy opponents if they are not ready to deal, but can be completely countered in the draft. Hopefully we won’t see this hero nerfed when he’s just resurrected; Valve will let people self-regulate.

Where is Aui_2000?

Techies were picked 4 times in the tournament but never won a game. Techies’ presence in Captain Mode is probably over-hyped.

Right now, Techies is a hero that needs a lot of practice to be effective. Even in TI5, it was only EG who forced the opponent to ban Techies. CompLexity, OG, and Team Secret will need to get to know this hero more before deciding to pick again.

Bash is overrated

Troll Warlord and Slardar are the two most popular but least successful picks of the tournament: both heroes have a win rate of just 26.66% in 15 games. Slardar outperforms Sand King in skill set and damage dealt, sometimes picked depending on the game’s draft.

Troll Warlord can theoretically be strong with the ability to push lane and push the tempo of the game, but in reality Troll falls after just 25 minutes into the game. This hero can’t do lane pressure like Gyrocopter, has late game powers like Terrorblade, Slark or Morphling and can’t push lane as fast as Luna. Trolls can be versatile tools, but they are never optimal. In the current meta, this versatile tool is not good enough to help our team win.

Conclusion

EPICENTER XL is a great tournament that shows the meta is slowly developing in the right direction. With so many strong teams tweaking, it will create some surprises when drafting, but they all have a higher purpose: Dota is slowly being balanced and hopefully it will stabilize when the MDL Changsha tournament. come close.

With three months and three Majors before The International 2018 begins, the new patches will be smaller and more precise, with no exciting changes left. That means professional matches will be more balanced and varied in the vast majority of this year’s tournaments.