phantasmal Profile Joined June 2013 133 Posts Last Edited: 2014-05-16 15:51:47 #1

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A Wild Mirana Appears



When considering the implications of the recent 6.81 patch to the hero usage at the TI4 Americas Qualifiers, there's a lot of different angles to approach it. You could talk about how the buffs to Witch Doctor(7-4) and Brewmaster(9-8) brought two forgotten heroes back into contention. You could bring up how the nerfs to Batrider and Lycan have barely put a dent in their ban rates (86.2% and 81.5%), while at the same time Ember Spirit has been humbled with a 0-4 record and only 3 bans in the 65 games played. There's also the story of how a simple Aghanim's upgrade has brought Keeper of the Light back to prominence as a situational pick, and a rather successful one with a 12-4 record and the second highest win rate of any hero with more than a single game played. But the biggest story of the tournament is the hero that inexplicably saw no nerfs in 6.81: Mirana.



"No nerfs" is admittedly an overstatement, but losing a bit of vision on Sacred Arrow was a slap in the wrist compared to what Lycan and Ember Spirit received. For all the complaints about Lycan in 6.80, Mirana wasn't far behind in terms of results. Lycan had the highest win rate of any hero with at least 100 games played at 60.9%, but Mirana was a close second at 59.9%. She also had the third highest games played of any hero during 6.80, making it pretty certain that win rate wasn't just a statistical anomaly. Despite this, she dodged the nerf hammer, and the results in 6.81 have been about what you would expect:







There are two fundamental truths to drafting around a Mirana pick that have been well-demonstrated throughout the qualifiers. The first is that you want to make constant use of her Sacred Arrow and Moonlight Shadow to create kill opportunities, and one shortcut for early aggression has been using the Shadow Demon pairing to set up Arrows with Disruption and Soul Catcher. The two heroes have been drafted together in 17 games with a record of 12-5, including a 4-0 record when used by North American Rejects. On his own, Shadow Demon only has an 8-14 record throughout the tournament.



The second truth is that Mirana cannot reliably carry games on her own; she simply doesn't have the scaling. For Liquid and NAR, the preferred fix has to run a carry mid to complement her. For instance, of the 8 games in which Liquid has run Mirana this tournament, 6 of them have also featured either Dragon Knight or Shadow Fiend. NAR has resorted to similar tricks, using both Dragon Knight and Lycan as mids during the two games in which they used Mirana in the Grand Finals. They won both games.



For contrast, take a look at



I expect to see this Mirana trend to continue throughout the rest of the qualifiers. There are certainly a few teams out there evolving some resistances to the hero,







Credits:

Author: phantasmal

Editor: TheEmulator

Photo: Author: phantasmalEditor: TheEmulatorPhoto: Zaphk

When considering the implications of the recent 6.81 patch to the hero usage at the TI4 Americas Qualifiers, there's a lot of different angles to approach it. You could talk about how the buffs to(7-4) and(9-8) brought two forgotten heroes back into contention. You could bring up how the nerfs toandhave barely put a dent in their ban rates (86.2% and 81.5%), while at the same timehas been humbled with a 0-4 record and only 3 bans in the 65 games played. There's also the story of how a simple Aghanim's upgrade has broughtback to prominence as a situational pick, and a rather successful one with a 12-4 record and the second highest win rate of any hero with more than a single game played. But the biggest story of the tournament is the hero that inexplicably saw no nerfs in 6.81:"No nerfs" is admittedly an overstatement, but losing a bit of vision on Sacred Arrow was a slap in the wrist compared to what Lycan and Ember Spirit received. For all the complaints about Lycan in 6.80, Mirana wasn't far behind in terms of results. Lycan had the highest win rate of any hero with at least 100 games played at 60.9%, but Mirana was a close second at 59.9%. She also had the third highest games played of any hero during 6.80, making it pretty certain that win rate wasn't just a statistical anomaly. Despite this, she dodged the nerf hammer, and the results in 6.81 have been about what you would expect:There are two fundamental truths to drafting around a Mirana pick that have been well-demonstrated throughout the qualifiers. The first is that you want to make constant use of her Sacred Arrow and Moonlight Shadow to create kill opportunities, and one shortcut for early aggression has been using thepairing to set up Arrows with Disruption and Soul Catcher. The two heroes have been drafted together in 17 games with a record of 12-5, including a 4-0 record when used by North American Rejects. On his own, Shadow Demon only has an 8-14 record throughout the tournament.The second truth is that Mirana cannot reliably carry games on her own; she simply doesn't have the scaling. For Liquid and NAR, the preferred fix has to run a carry mid to complement her. For instance, of the 8 games in which Liquid has run Mirana this tournament, 6 of them have also featured eitheror. NAR has resorted to similar tricks, using both Dragon Knight andas mids during the two games in which they used Mirana in the Grand Finals. They won both games.For contrast, take a look at Game Two of the Lower Bracket Semifinals between Sneaky Nyx Assassins and Union Gaming. Instead of pairing Mirana with another carry, SNA opted to go for utility picks in Brewmaster and Elder Titan in mid and offlane. As a result, they struggled to put out enough damage in the late game and Mirana was straight-up out-carried by the opposing Weaver. To their credit, Liquid and NAR avoided this trap, and subsequently went a combined 14-3 (82.3%) with Mirana.I expect to see this Mirana trend to continue throughout the rest of the qualifiers. There are certainly a few teams out there evolving some resistances to the hero, such as DK neutralizing her Arrow initiations with Abaddon in the Starseries Finals last month. But against the average team, she's put up consistent positive results for well over a patch period now, and I don't see that stopping anytime soon. The big question is whether teams will start directing first round bans against her. If they don't, expect to see a lot more of Mirana in the future. Writer