MDL Chengdu Major Data Analysis

Published in

Dota Observatory

5 min readNov 25, 2019

We are going to review the stats of the last Tournament of 7.22 patch, there are 2 patches 7.22g and 7.22h after TI 9, it has shifted the meta a lot.

Top 4 teams of TI are also skipping the tournament, it also changes how the meta develops.

Overview

Games: 98
Total Heroes: 117
Picked: 103
Banned: 82
Untouched: 11

The meta is concentrated to a set of heroes

Most Picked Heroes

Keeper of the Light is a great support after the ultimate change, but he was also hard to lane, he either pushes the lane or does nothing, but the cooldown change on Blinding Light at 7.22g makes it a useful skill in the laning phase and releases his potential.

Blinding Light
Cooldown reduced from 30/25/20/15 to 14

Even after the nerfs in both patches, Kunkka become even more flexible, he can be play as offlaner now too, he fits the tanky meta himself, Ghostship are also very helpful to keep the main core alive.

Faceless Void is one of the star of the patch, with spamming status resistance, he can always Timewalk to survive, making him the best 4 protect 1 raid boss to spam buffs on. Ogre Magi, Omniknight, Lich and Legion Commander give great buffs to him.

Night Stalker pos 1 is a thing now, Void does full damage in day time after 7.22g, rushing Aghanim’s Scepter also gives him a nice spike time to snowball, without concerning daytime.

Most Banned Heroes

You can find that half of the list have 60%+ win rate, which are the most OP heroes in this meta.

Even with the nerfs in 7.22g, Chen is still the most annoying support to play against, his aura provide so much heal and regen that makes the tanky core in this meta even stronger.

Same with Mirana, with the ability to delete the ranged creep, teams have made ways to pull the creep to make the life of offlaner much easier.

Teams still loves the snowball style of Alchemist, but the nerf seems to be very effective, his win rate is normal now.

Special mentioning the 11th hero Morphing, the Water Buffalo combo with Earth Shaker is ridiculous. Some teams believe they have found a way to counter it, but TNC proved that in the hands of stronger team, it cannot be countered.

Highest Win Rate Heroes (pick ≥ 5 )

In this meta, a lot of slow heroes are picked, causing some heroes become great counters.

Razor is great in many conditions, he steal lots of damage against slow core, his ability to purge constantly also counters the buff staking strategy.

Disruptor got some great buffs on his ult, but what made him great is how effective is Glimpse on slow heroes.

Lowest Win Rate Heroes (pick ≥ 5 )

The nerf hit Enchantress hard, she is just not tanky enough on the lane.

Legion Commander and Axe are special, they are hurt by the tanky meta, failing to burst the taunted target usually leads to death, but with a Skywrath Mage, they have 100% win rate.

Highest Pick Rate Increase

Chaos Knight have back to the meta, with so many buffs through out the year, he seems found a place for him.

The buffs in 7.22g for Undying is helpful, Soul Rip is easier to reach it’s maximum, more damage on the ult also helps his teamfight presence.

Soul Rip
Max unit count reduced from 8/10/12/14 to 8/9/10/11
Damage/heal per unit increased from 22/26/30/34 to 22/29/36/43
Flesh Golem current health loss per second increased from 7% to 9%

The pick increase of Templar Assassin is just an after effect of TI, but with Keeper of the Light, double Meld is devastating.

Highest Pick Rate Decrease

In fact, teams in this major did not discover the full potential of all heroes, some heroes in this list have very great performance, but teams just don’t pick them and stick to their comfort zone.

The cooldown nerfs of Astral Spirit removes the lane dominance of Elder Titan, but I believe that he can still do great to help bursting tanky enemies.

Peak Hero Performance

Nothing really special here, very surprise that Zeus have such performance, he is considered as one of the squishiest hero in the game, but he does not die much.