Dota 2 The International 2018 Group Stage Data Analysis
Due to limited time, we will have a quick summary of the meta but will have less analysis in this article. The meta has shifted hardly again, it might be caused by Team Liquid had boot camp in Canada so early and many teams go to Canada to scrim together as well, which develops the meta so quickly that we lose track of it until the group stages.
Overview
Among the 148 games, 109 out of 115 heroes are being picked, and only 5 heroes are completely untouched-neither picked nor banned. It is obvious that stronger teams like VP/Liquid have enough chances to do some experimental pick.
Most Picked Heroes
The meta looks well balanced, these heroes are safe picks and reliable but not having too high winrate. Also, ranged heroes are heavily favored, and the rise of Weaver, Offlane Wraith King and Support Silencer surprised us since they have buffed for multiple patches but had difficulties getting into meta. And after some more practice, Dark Willow are finally back with much better win rate than the 23% win rate in Summit 9.
Most Banned Heroes
Enchantress is the most OP hero right now, being the top banned hero with >60% winrate. Io surprised us by coming back to meta with the nerfed Gyrocopter as well, but it’s winrate looks disappointed. Husker have a bad result due to heavily countered by Clinkz, but clearly it is a drafting problem, with proper last pick, he should be much stronger in the main stage. And Brood have been a problem in hands of powerful teams like Team Liquid and Virtus.pro, they even picked her at first phase and still winning the game, Brood is totally out of niche pick tier now.
Most Contested Heroes
All of these are the heroes we saw in the above charts, only Enchantress and Mirana got a relatively high winrate, this patch looks really well balanced for the final and biggest tournament of the year.
Highest Win Rate Heroes (pick ≥ 5 )
This is the most unpredictable list of group stages, Venomancer, Batrider, Arc Warden, Lycan and Tusk pops from out-of-meta pick to nice-pick, and most of them are not even last picked. Arc Warden is mostly played by Team Secret, Kunkka is picked multiple times to counter Brood Mother, so the numbers may be misleading. Invoker is still a very strong last pick when both Quas-Wex and Quas-Exort are working in this meta. We expect to see every hero in this list to be picked more in the main stage.
Lowest Win Rate Heroes (pick ≥ 5 )
This list shows that some heroes seems to be not fitting in the meta and we might not be seeing them in the main stage. Centaur Warrunner is mostly picked by OG and lost against stronger teams, so it may not be relevant. Pangolier is similar, mostly picked by paiN Gaming and Mineski which did not do well in the group stage. It is unforeseen that Windranger could have such a bad result, when ranged heroes are favored and Drow strategy still have such a high win rate.
Finally, we are so lucky that the patch is so well balanced that only the Riki pick can surprise me, and Team Liquid makes it work and winning with it. Moreover, teams are so well prepared that it seems most of the teams have a chance to win this year’s TI, and seeing OG and OpTic fight from the bottom of group to upper bracket is so exciting.
Since Team Liquid have already break the TI winner curse, I am totally not surprised that they will break the China year curse too. See you next time after TI, enjoy.
