Dota 2 The International 2018 Main Event Data Analysis
OG won the international 2018 Championship, congratulation!!! I was their fans since the time of HoN Fnatic, so happy that I can witness this moment.
We are going to go through the stats of the main event, I have separated it from the previous group stage stats, since it is totally different from the group stage. In the group stage, teams are likely to test out strategies and develop the meta throughout the competition. But in eliminating stages where more secure picks are needed, the meta is more stable. Please be aware that OG is totally playing out of meta, which I will have another article focusing on it.
Overview
Among the 47 games, 80 out of 115 heroes are being picked, and 27 heroes are completely untouched-neither picked nor banned. 20 heroes are only picked or banned 1 time. This is what happens when the meta is finalized, teams will focus on a rather narrow hero pool for stability and try not to leave their comfort zone.
Most Picked Heroes
Vengeful Spirit has proven to be the most reliable support in top-tier games, also heavily favored by EG.Cr1t-, winning 3 out of 4 games. The buffs from 7.16 and 7.18 make her very strong in the early to mid games, which fits the meta very well.
7.18
Increased Magic Missile stun duration from 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8 to 1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8.
Increased Wave of Terror damage from 45/70/95/120 to 60/80/100/120.7.16
Increased base health regeneration from 1.5 to 1.75.
Reduced Magic Missile cooldown from 13/12/11/10 to 10 on each level.
Reduced Wave of Terror mana cost from 40 on each level to 25/30/35/40.
Here comes Silencer, a hero that has disappeared for quite a while. He is one of the most annoying heroes to play against, and his wave-clearing power is surprisingly good with Arcane Curse, with snowballing intelligence stealing; he is one of the best support in the game now. The buff in 7.16 and 7.17 did a huge part, and he was already shining in the group stage.
7.17
Increased Arcane Curse penalty duration from 4 to 5.7.16
Increased Arcane Curse damage per second from 14/22/30/38 to 16/24/32/40.
Reduced Last Word cooldown from 30/24/18/12 to 28/22/16/10.
Earthshaker has always been a tournament star, with one of the best roaming skills and teamfight changers. He was heavily used by the top teams LGD and OG, boosting the win rate to 68.75%. Panel even said in the grand finals, “who picks Earthshaker wins the game.” The buff in 7.18 was massive, giving him more mobility was one of the reasons LGD.fy had such godly performance: the buff on Aghanim’s Scepter effect made the item also popular, and mostly the second item after Blink Dagger, and we have seen many times how fy and jerAx dominated with it.
7.18
Increased health regeneration from 2 to 2.5.
Increased movement speed from 305 to 310.
Increased Aghanim’s Scepter upgraded Enchant Totem cast range from 900 to 1100.
Echo Slam Echo waves can no longer be disjointed.
Increased echo damage from 60/85/110 to 70/90/110.
Now we are getting to the surprisingly bad picks, both Tiny and Necrophos are underperforming. These heroes had serious trouble when snowballing did not get off or stopped, and they had problems scaling to late games, causing the team to lose.
Most Banned Heroes
Despite being nerfed hard and having only a 39.1% win rate in group stage, Io is back to the top-tier, being the most banned hero. Although it is difficult to pull off the Relocate save now, using Relocate for ganking or other strategic moves still values a lot. OG contributed a lot to its win rate, while others were struggling to pull it off .
Enchantress is still staying strong on the list, but loses its dominance, compared to the 66.67% win rate in the group stage. In which OG contributed most of her losses by beating her (5 out of 8 losses from teams facing OG), countering Impedus with double save combos, and made her a non-factor in late games. For example, Chen — Winter Wyvern heal shield mixture in game 1 vs VGJ.Storm, double damage reduction with Io and Centaur Warrunner in game 3 vs EG, double shield from Winter Wyvern and Treant Protector in game 1 of grand finals, and double heal from Chen Io combo in game 4 of grand finals.
Weaver is the most successful hero on the list, providing strong pushing power with survivability, being one of the best midgame cores. The buff in 7.18 is so good that it gives him a much stronger laning phase and better scaling. The Shukuchi nerf in 7.19 is so minor that it does not matter at all.
7.19
Reduced movement speed from 280 to 275.7.18
Increased agility gain from 2.8 to 3.1.
Increased Shukuchi damage from 80/110/140/170 to 100/125/150/175.
Most Contested Heroes
Not much to say.
Highest Win Rate Heroes (pick ≥ 3)
Broodmother is so strong in the hands of VP and Liquid, that’s why she is always banned against them, but other teams don’t seem able to dominate with her and did not pick at all. These two teams had no problem picking her 1st phase too, it is totally because of the buff in 7.14 to give less gold and experience on the Spiderling and got her out from niche pick.
7.14
Reduced Spiderling gold bounty from 11–13 to 9.
Reduced Spiderling experience bounty from 31 to 9.
Reduced Spiderite gold bounty from 16–21 to 3.
Reduced Spiderite experience bounty from 20 to 3.
Spectre, one of the best carries in the series, fearsome in the hands of OG, has a much better laning time by more frequent tree walking when spamming daggers thanks to the buffs from 7.14. Also having a much better illusion damage makes the Diffusal Blade build take over the Radiance build, resulting in a much earlier ready-to-fight timing.
7.14
Reduced Spectral Dagger mana cost from 130/140/150/160 to 100/120/140/160.
Increased Haunt illusion damage dealt from 40% on each level to 40%/50%/60%.
Zeus fell off after the nerfs in 7.17 and 7.19, but he was brought back by OG, picked by Topson 3 times and winning with it. OG used him as a pusher, space maker and vision controller, and also gaining the advantage that Zeus does % based damage which always scales nicely through out the game no matter how bad he was in the early game.
7.17
Reduced Nimbus radius form 500 to 450.7.19
Increased Lightning Bolt mana cost from 75/95/115/135 to 90/105/120/135.
Drow Ranger and Clinkz did very well in the main stage, but Drow Ranger is banned a lot, and Clinkz does not do well against the melee carry heroes brough by OG.
Another shining hero is Invoker, OG Topson single-handedly brought back the Quas-Wex Invoker, and it is so effective that all the other top teams VP, Liquid and Secret tried it and won with it.
After receiving a series of buffs, Dark Willow has been picked by many teams since Summit 9, but she was not doing well that time. This time in the group stage of TI she already had a decent 53.7% win rate. In the main event, it was boosted to 66.67%, players constantly combo her roots with other stuns and Eul’s scepter stun root combo is so good that Cr1t has shown her solo kill potential. She is likely to be nerfed.
Highest Pick Rate Increase
Compared with group stages, we can see how teams stabilize the meta from their point of view, this list is basically the frequently picked heroes of top 8 teams.
One surprise is the rise of Lich. After nerfed to the ground, he is back with the buffs of 7.18. In this early game focusing meta, especially the mid lane, trying to snowball by getting to level 3 earlier by using Glyph of Fortification, Sacrifice has become a very strong spell. Also 1 more armor on Level 1 Ice Armor changes the laning phase a lot; it is valuable for such a laning focus meta.
7.18
Increased Ice Armor armor bonus from 3/5/7/9 to 4/6/8/10.
Sacrifice no longer has a 25 mana cost.
Highest Pick Rate Decrease
As mentioned the meta shifts, Crystal Maiden is now out of meta(GG my prediction), LGD was the only team able to win with her, when midgame ranged core like Enchantress and Weaver became popular, Crystal Maiden is just too fragile.
Wraith King, Mirana, Weaver, Dark Willow and Winter Wyvern were simply dropped due to bans. What’s really awkward is that the low win rate of Mirana who has a 62.3% win rate in group stage. Mid and offlane Mirana have 0% win rate, she seems to suffer from some midgame snowball power problems too, like Necrophos and Tiny.
Windranger does not win games now, having a 21.05% win rate in group stage and 0% in main stage. The nerf in 7.19 hurts her too much.
7.19
Increased Windrun cooldown from 12 on each level to 15/14/13/12.7.18
Reduced base intelligence from 20 to 18.
Reduced Powershot damage from 180/270/360/450 to 150/250/350/450.
Templar Assassin were not picked because the current popular mid hero counters her, like Alchemist, Tiny, Storm Spirit all have a way to do multiple instances of damage.
Radiant/Dire/first pick/last pick
Radient side have a 54.78% win rate and Last pick has a 51.79% win rate, when it is balanced out, Radiant with first pick have only +1.73% win rate advantage, it is a well balanced patch for the international.
And in fact I have learned something new, some hero benefits from specific side, and teams use it sometimes, for example late game hero is better at dire side because the bottom jungle of dire has a higher farming efficiency. Heroes that are better doing Roshan will prefer Radiant more. But that is just a theory at the moment, and no concrete stats record can be shown now.
Thanks for reading, I will do a Draft, Macro and Item of choice analysis of OG, stay tuned.
