A Boy and his Lane; SumaiL’s Move to the Offlane
One of the brightest stars of Dota 2, SumaiL has always shown his ability to adapt to any and all situations in the mid lane. He has become synonymous with his heroes, a persona thrust upon him by his fans and haters alike. Storm Spirit is SumaiL, SumaiL is Storm Spirit. He has proved his mettle worldwide as one of the best in his class time and time again. Now, the youngest TI winner follows in the footsteps of fellow Aegis recipient s4 as he switched from position 2 to 3.
The change came as a surprise to fans of Evil Geniuses, who released the announcement on December 20th about the role change and the replacement of Unsiverse with Misery in the team’s lineup. With both changes equally surprising, the truly puzzling question is why SumaiL decided to take his talents to the hard lane. Last week, I wrote about how the meta for the past two patches encourages 1–3–1 laning, where the supports hang around mid to help the 2, while the 1 and 3 are survivable cores who focus on using the jungle to supplement their farm. With this configuration, mids rarely have the time to shine anymore. Flashy plays and self-sufficient midlaners are rarer and rarer, and SumaiL’s preferred heroes aren’t suitable for the trilaning mid. In many ways, playing solo safelane or offlane is more similar to the mid of past metas than the current mid.
SumaiL’s move might be part of his search for a way to show off his creativity. Offlane seems to have the most rapidly evolving hero pool. Chinese players have been putting traditionally mid heroes offlane for years, like Puck and Magnus, but just recently have western players begun to learn about their viability. SumaiL’s hero pool might lend itself to well to his new position. Suimail’s trademark heroes, however, won’t lend themselves easily to the reduced farm and experience. Storm and Ember, two of his most frequent and recognizable heroes, can’t deal with their items delayed by a couple minutes, much less having to just abandon them the way offlaners do with their blink daggers. SumaiL’s use of the jungle also lends itself well to playing offlane, but with the jungle further away and more frequently being forced to jungle, it’s unlikely he’ll keep up his standard of efficiency and optimal play. It’s possible he will be able to shoehorn some of his iconic heroes in the midlane, such as Mirana, Windranger, and maybe even Quas Wex Invoker. With his skills, he could become one of the most innovative offlaners in Dota 2.
He isn’t the first mid to take his skills to the sidelanes; Miracle-, widely considered the best mid in the world, surprised Team Liquid fans when he took his talents to the safelane. Fellow TI winner S4 also switched to offlane after joining OG last year to great success. Even within SumaiL’s own team, Arteezy has taken the mid position a handful of times, and will most likely share the 1 and 2 position with Fear. Perhaps these swaps are a greater indication of what mid has become over the past handful of patches. It’s been discussed that it has become a second safelane as early as pre-7.00. With the changes by pro-players reflecting that, it’s only a matter of time before people start changing their Steam names to “offlane or feed.”
