Game 2

1 – Standard ban on the Brewmaster – an offlaner that lanes well, scales well, offers strong teamfight and has many options in terms of item-builds.

2 – While Bounty has seen some play recently, it’s especially Secret and Puppey that are known for running it very well. He doesn’t reveal much as a first-pick while making a lot of strategies hard to run, so it’s a common ban.

3 – This Anti-Mage ban is quite odd, perhaps Secret feel that with Bounty out of the pool there aren’t many great heroes left to deal with AM, but there is still the Rubick, TA, LD, Bane, Ursa, etc. It could be that they were gearing towards the Razor pick, since AM is one of the few that matches up well against him throughout the game.

4 – Drow is just another hero that changes the game and to an extent forces you to contest her lane, so it looks like VG simply want to have a stable laning phase and play their own game to get back into a calm mindset after the unfortunate loss before this.

5 – Now the Weaver ban makes it rather obvious that Secret really wanted this Razor first-pick, since Weaver is another core that matches up well against Razor later on, similarly to AM, thanks to his high mobility which makes the Static Link less effective.

6 – VG ban the Huskar with presumably the same motivation they had for the Drow ban, as it is another hero that can snowball out of control if left unchecked on the lane and pretty much forces you to play aggressively in order to prevent that.

7 – Secret confidently insta-pick the Razor without wasting even a second of non-reserve time. With AM and Weaver out of the pool, there are few cores left that match up well against Razor (Storm, Pugna, DP) and none of them lane particularly well against him either. First-picking Razor also all-but-guarantees that VG won’t go for Lifestealer, Lone Druid nor Templar Assassin, effectively banning them and leaving Secret with less potential cores to worry about.

8 & 9 – Bane is one of the top supports right now due to his ability to win pretty much any hit trading in the early game thanks to great base stats and the low-manacost Brainsap that heals him, making him arguably the best baby-sitter for both safelane and mid, and he doesn’t really fall off either thanks to his disables.

Earthshaker is another disable-heavy hero, and he can be played either as a roamer or on offlane, so this is a pretty safe and stable opening by VG that doesn’t reveal much and keeps many options open for their cores, because the disable and catch aspect of their lineup is more or less covered.

10 & 11 – Surprisingly, the Yapzor Rubick has been left in the pool until this late, and with Bane and Earthshaker both having great spells to steal, Secret don’t hesitate in picking it up. While his Rubick has often been picked and subsequently also banned even in the first-phase in Captain’s Mode games, there are 6 bans available then as opposed to just the 3 in CD, which could be why VG let it go through and deemed their other choices as more important to remove.

The Night Stalker completes the Secret support duo (most likely, although offlane NS has definitely seen some play). This support duo has good amounts of disable and catch, but is a little bit lacking on the damage aspect come mid-lategame – there’s a nuke and potentially a stolen spell from Rubick, there’s a nuke from NS, but they pretty much cap out right there, unlike the Earthshaker who scales very well for a support in terms of damage which furthermore is AoE, unlike the purely single-target nature of Secret’s supports. So far, their heroes are not bad, but they are all just enabling the remaining 2 unpicked heroes – out of Razor, Rubick and NS, no one poses a huge threat, no one is going to be bringing any big damage, and considering this fact, VG respond perfectly with their next pick.

It’s interesting to notice that while the Rubick was also an insta-pick, they used a fair bit of reserve time for the NS – I’ll leave this one for your own interpretation.

12 & 13 – Death Prophet is a hero that deals unparalleled damage if she stays alive throughout a fight – both physical and magical. Apart from allied sustain, the way the hero accomplishes this is by keeping Spirit Siphons on multiple targets (preferably targets that are tanky since it’s percentage-based), so heroes with high HP but low damage that want to stay up in her face end up healing her more than they damage her, heroes such as NS. Long story short, it’s a hero you need to either burst or kite – fighting through and tanking the Exorcism is not an option. So far, with Secret’s line-up, neither of the two is possible.

This is the pick that’s really smart and puts Secret in an incredibly tough spot – the best pick they have left against DP is obviously Sniper, because he deals damage from too far for DP to reach him. VG can’t ban the Sniper, so they preemptively counter-pick it with a Centaur, whose ultimate Stampede simply allows his entire team to do what’s best to do against a Sniper; run at him.

14 & 15 – If they don’t pick the Sniper, there aren’t many great alternatives left to fill the role that needs to be filled, namely the ‘core getting enabled and bringing the big damage’ – TA can’t burst any of these tanky targets and will just get pinned down, there’s far too much disable for a Storm, LD lacks damage, and Ursa and Lifestealer will get kited too much between the Fissure and the Stampede (worth noting that the latter pretty much eliminates the catch aspect of NS, since his Void is a slow and gets ignored) Now we see Secret drop to just 3 seconds of reserve time left before accepting that Sniper is simply their least-bad option.

While Sniper generally brings a lot of damage to the table, that won’t be the case this game since

a. There are no classic Sniper partners to buff his DPS (Venge, Ogre, Slardar, etc.)

b. He is forced to pick up defensive items to deal with the Stampede, which means damage items are delayed

With these things in mind, there is no last-pick in the entire pool that can salvage their situation, since the hero needs to provide strong teamfight in the form of heavy AoE damage and disable, while also having catch, and such a hero doesn’t exist in the game. Secret pick up Enigma which covers 2 of the 3 aspects decently, but at this point their lack of catch becomes a big weakness since few disables means mobile heroes are good, and the same type of heroes is also good against Razor and Sniper.

16– Consequently, VG more than happily punish this with their last-pick Storm – another classic Sniper counter that also doesn’t care about Razor and fares great versus Enigma too, since getting a Black Hole off on a hero with a 0 second cooldown jump is simply not feasible.

It’s hard to say what Secret could’ve done to avoid drafting themselves into such a corner, and even though I’m phrasing it purely as their own mistake, it is perhaps more appropriate to give credit to VG’s great drafting and quick reading of the available pool, particularly pick 12 and 13 that basically sealed Secret’s doom and left them with little to no adequate response.

Let me know if you enjoyed this or found it informative, and be on the lookout for the next part going over game 3!