So, ESL One Genting just wrapped up. Congratulations to Digital Chaos(Resolution, w33, MoonMeander, Saksa, MiSeRy) for winning the first LAN event organized by ESL in 2017. This should definitely give them a big boost heading into the Kiev Major and ultimately, TI7. The first major tournament played on DotA 2’s patch 7.00/7.01 was definitely an explosive one.

We had great performances from all the participating teams. Some of the teams had just undergone roster changes and couldn’t wait to prove themselves on the stage. However, they quickly gave way to the teams that stayed together after the major.

Roster Stability:

Roster stability has played a large impact in the success of a lot of teams. The pre-TI6 OG had excellent results based off of it. Wings Gaming won TI6 on the back of it. And now, both Newbee and DC are dominating after refusing to change their rosters. In the meantime, Execration and Fnatic both fell apart pretty quickly. It’s still pretty early to tell, but roster stability seems to have given a pretty great boost to these teams.

Rise of a New Meta:

As if monkey king wasn’t enough, we now have right-click lone druid, support Abaddon, magic damage Ember Spirit and Vanguard Invoker. Suffice to say that pubs all over have been ruined. The first major tournament seems to have given us an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

Right Click Lone Druid:

The no-bear strat has existed for a while. However, this strat involves itemizing lone druid with items like diffusal and yasha and keeping the bear without items. Definitely didn’t work out so well for Wings since the bear fed a lot of gold while Shadow didn’t have much of an impact. I still feel like this could pop up again in the future.

Offlane Pulling Pudge:

We’ve seen Pudge being picked up by a lot of teams with good Pudge players. However, the offlane pull camp being closer to the creep wave has allowed Pudge to get easy levels by hooking the camp and denying the enemy safelane a lot of farm.

Lane Setup:

A lot of teams have been hesitant in the past about running aggro trilanes. However, trilanes in ESL One Genting were very effective. Newbee and DC definitely had a lot of success with their trilanes. And it’s not just trilanes that are becoming more common. People are now putting their carries into the offlane in order to aggro trilane the enemy offlane. Lanes are starting to get really weird.

The New Invoker:

Who would have expected VP to get knocked out by a Vanguard Invoker? The unconventional item build on w33’s Invoker definitely caught VP off guard. After all, you’re likely not expecting a vanguard on a ranged hero, much less an Invoker. Other than that, Exort Invoker is finally dead making way for Quas-Wex invoker to make a comeback.

Magical Damage Ember Spirit:

Balance in all things. Except for the new Veil-rushing Ember. He’s insane to say the least with his level 10 talent. He’s been dominating pretty much every game that he’s picked. Very few teams have managed to stop him so far and with good reason.

Support Abaddon:

No one saw that coming, I’m sure. The game he was picked in also happened to be a stomp. The point is, Abaddon definitely needs both levels and items to do anything and in a losing situation like that, Solo was pretty poor finishing the game with only tranquil boots.

Player Performances:

Overall Best Performance:

Winner: Newbee.Sccc

9K MMR strikes again. He’s had excellent performance on Newbee in the past, and he’s been really consistent in his performance. His OD, Ember Spirit and SF have definitely played a key part in Newbee’s victories.

Best Offlaner:

Winner: Wings.Faith_Bian



If you want to see just how scary Faith_Bian really is, just take a look at his Broodmother against Newbee. Broodmother has long struggled to find a place in pro games but Faith_Bian managed to make it work against Clockwerk and Medusa. Of course, Medusa just got fat and beat them anyway but great showing from Faith_Bian.

Runner-Up: DC.MoonMeander

MoonMeander has also been great in the offlane. His offlane Centaur in the last game against Newbee won DC the tournament. His Legion is also remarkable apart from all the duels he fed in the 1st game against Newbee essentially losing them the game.

Most Consistent Player:

Winner: VP.Ramzes666

Ramzes is insane on pretty much every hero he plays. He gets constantly shut down in lane by ganks and manages to survive. And if you don’t shut him down, he just wins the game for VP. He ends a lot of games with 0 deaths and most of the time, he has an insane KDA only matched by No[o]ne.

Best Support Player:

Winner: Newbee.kaka

It’s astounding how much people under-appreciate kaka on his roaming supports. Everywhere he goes, blood follows. The best example is Game 3 vs VP where he lands every single Mirana arrows and single-handedly wins the early game for Newbee. Then he transitions pretty well into a core Mirana with Aghs. In pretty much every game, kaka manages to dominate the early game and scale later on.

Best Meepo Player:

Winner: DC.w33:

With Meepo being a top-tier pick again, we got to see some Meepo action. Enter the w33po and he just caught Execration unawares. He went 19-0 without a single death that game and reminded us of just how scary w33’s Meepo is. Of course, every team had the sense to ban Meepo against DC after that game.

Hero Pick Rates:

Slardar:

Well, Slardar’s model got reworked and people are picking him now. Of course, having great talents also helped. Previously, the most picked offlaner was Batrider but after being nerfed to the ground, teams are starting to realize Slardar’s utility.

Pick rate: 48%

Shadow Demon:

The nerf to illusion spam and soul catcher have turned Shadow Demon from a first pick/ban into a utility hero. The pickrate is pretty high but teams still seem to be hesitant in picking him up.

Pick Rate: 24%

Rubick:

Rubick’s talents are apparently broken but that hasn’t discouraged teams from picking him up. With heroes like Earthshaker, Ember Spirit and Underlord being picked up, Rubick has a ton of spells to steal. We got some pretty great Rubick action as players like Saksa, Solo and kaka dominated on the hero.

Pick rate: 41%

Queen of Pain:

We saw EG dominate with the Blademail Octarine QOP in China Top. We didn’t see that here but the buffs seem to have turned her into a decent pick whereas she went unpicked in a lot of major events previously.

Pick rate: 21%

Anti-Mage:

Literally unpickable. Everyone’s favorite farmer can’t find a place in the meta of brawler safelanes. Anti-Mage went unpicked. Of course, there weren’t any notable Anti-Mage players in the tournament so that could be the reason.

Pick rate: 0%

Centaur Warrunner:

The previously thought unreliable offlaner is suddenly a great pick. The new talents have really given him a nice boost along with the fact that his ultimate provides great utility. He’s had a gigantic increase in pick rate.

Pick Rate: 21%

Highest Winrates:

Queen of Pain:

People have been complaining about QOP being borderline broken in the new patch but the hero simply dominated in the hands of capable mids like Sccc and w33. Only NP managed to beat Fnatic’s QOP played by InYourDream whose performance was rather lackluster.

Winrate: 83%

Centaur Warrunner:

Centaur having a winrate this high must mean the end times are near. We saw how great he was against Newbee in the final game of the grand finals. Maybe IceFrog went a bit too far with the buffs?

Winrate: 83%

Meepo:

I kinda saw this one coming. With Meepo clones sharing stats without an Aghanim’s scepter,Meepo was hugely buffed in 7.00. As a result, we got to see the w33po in action along with Gabbi playing a decent one against WG.Unity.

Winrate: 66.6%

Ember Spirit:

Previously, this hero was only a situational pick but the veil build has turned Ember into a great utility mid. Ember was picked in 5 games and won 3 of them. One of them can be discounted since it was Envy on the ember and NP did some pretty throwy moves. The 2nd one was Moon’s Legion not letting the Ember or Morphling do anything by duelling them.

Winrate: 60%

Most Banned Heroes:

Shadow Demon:

Surprise, surprise! While teams are more hesitant first picking the hero, the SD Luna and SD Mirana combo is still pretty scary. Better to ban the hero than face those ugly combos. Plus, let’s not forget that SD is still one of the scariest lane supports in the game.

Ban rate: 48%

Underlord:

The first major tournament played with the Abyssal Underlord in the hero pool quickly showed us what the hero was capable of. The panic spread and the hero was first banned by a lot of teams. One helluva contested pick and most of the teams that banned it ended up winning.

Ban rate: 48%

Juggernaut:

This is actually quite unexpected. Juggernaut’s a fairly standard hero with some straightforward counters. However, players like Ramzes and Resolution are beasts on the hero. Maybe the bans were specifically directed towards them but Juggernaut’s new talents could be something to point the finger towards.

Ban rate: 45%

Meepo:

Meepo was banned quite a few times. The bans were directed towards Digital Chaos when teams couldn’t figure out a way to stop w33’s meepo. However, it goes to show just how scared people are of the new Meepo.

Ban rate: 41%

Best Games:

DC Vs Execration, Group Stage, Game 1:

With a surprise Meepo pick, DC were able to absolutely stomp Execration with w33’s Meepo going 19-0 and showing no signs of stopping. Gabbi’s Timbersaw failed to do anything to the Meepo due to some excellent control from the DC supports. Truly a must-watch if you missed the w33po or main Meepo yourself.

VP Vs Newbee, Group Stage, Game 2:

If you want to see a Juggernaut and a Shadow Fiend stomp the crap out of Newbee, then watch this game. Ramzes is literally unstoppable and No[o]ne simply outclasses Sccc’s OD, which not a lot of people can claim. All in all, this game is constant action from start to finish with more than 1 kill happening per minute.

NP Vs Fnatic, Group Stage, Game 1:

EE-sama and Aui shine on their Ember and Slark in this flawless performance from NP. With all 3 main cores not dying even once, NP prove just how strong their lineup really is. I’m personally surprised someone didn’t throw the game in some major way but considering Fnatic’s performance, that wasn’t really possible.

DC Vs VP, Semi-Finals, Game 2:

Vanguard Invoker WutFace. Although, it actually worked out quite well. w33 was almost unkillable and gave us flashbacks to his Invoker in TI6. With Invoker getting nerfed so hard, it was about time to switch up the builds and w33 definitely rose to the occasion. Both No[o]ne and Ramzes looked pretty lost in this game which DC capitalized on to secure their ticket to the Grand Finals.

DC Vs Newbee, Grand Finals, Game 5:

There’s that weird feeling you have when it goes to Game 5. At this point, it’s been all but confirmed that the two opponents are equally matched and one mistake is going to mean everything. Maybe it was the nerves but everyone on Newbee looked kind of lost. Sccc made some pretty desperate moves to get kills which cost him his life quite a few times. Newbee also fell apart under the trilane run by DC. Meanwhile, Moon showed us exactly what he’s capable of on his Centaur by completely dominating the early game and getting flawless initiations. At this point, I think there’s no doubt about his contribution to the old OG and now to the new DC.

Conclusion:

It’s still pretty early to tell what’s good and what isn’t. However, we do have a certain idea of how the current meta works. Meanwhile, it looks like North America is once again going to be a region producing top quality Dota since DC will definitely be bolstered by the win heading into the Kiev Major.