Wings have been the accepted best team in the world ever since their dominant performance at The International 6. This is despite their lack of “star power” when compared to other top teams. Instead they appear to win games through excellent map reads and unusual movements. In this article we dissect some of Wings’ map movements and try to understand the thought process behind them.

I. Motivation

During the Northern Arena BEAT Invitational finals vs NP, I noticed how Wings play “ahead of the lane” to make moves faster than other teams expect.

NP outpush the top lane. Wings (Radiant) have good vision and try to cut them off as they retreat. Note that NP are far more concerned about the top lane entrance to the Dire jungle than the mid lane entrance, because they believe the mid creep wave pushing into Radiant “covers” the Dire jungle entrance.

Watch the minimap. Follow Slardar (purple) and also Treant (brown).

This is how I think most teams would execute the move:

First Alchemist pushes out mid, then Slardar moves behind the mid creep wave through the Dire jungle toward top. If Warlock retreats when Alchemist shows mid then he is safe.

However Wings play “ahead of the lane”.

First Slardar wraps around the mid creep wave into the Dire jungle (always out of Dire vision). Then Alchemist TPs mid and pushes — this forces Warlock back where he is cut off by Slardar.

You can actually see from the line drawn by Aui at the end of the clip that NP expect this move to come a few seconds later.

This leads to many questions. How often do Wings do this sort of thing? How risky are these plays? Do they make any other unusual map movements? This article is an attempt to answer these questions, and explain why Wings play like this.

II. Preliminary concepts

Map control. I found it hard to nail down a precise definition of map control, but I‘m sure everyone has a good idea of what this means. Throughout the article we visualise map control as the minimap coloured green or red to indicate which team has “control” of what areas.

Visualising map control

There are many factors that contribute to map control. Concretely vision, towers, lane position, hero positions; more abstractly different hero strengths. For example, an “open” map (very few towers and little vision) will be better controlled by the team with better pickoff, some heroes are very good at fighting around Roshan or other specific areas and so on.

For various reasons (that need a fuller explanation) I think that lane position is a good rough indicator of map control.

Map awareness/map read. Again this should be a familiar concept, but one we often forget about when spectating or analysing games. While playing we try to keep an idea of the enemy heroes’ positions at all times, to “fill in the blanks” on the minimap. Guessing the position of enemy heroes leads to an idea of map control, so we will visualise a team’s likely map read as their “perceived map control”.

Dire map read/perceived map control

Although this may be an unnatural way of thinking while playing, it is perhaps the clearest visualisation of a map read while spectating.

Map confidence. This is an indication of how confident a team is that their map read is correct. I don’t think this idea is talked about that much (?) and I don’t think there is an accepted name for it, so sorry for the unfamiliar term. We use map confidence to make decisions in every game, however. Two extreme examples:

You see five enemy heroes pushing a lane. Here you have very high map confidence because you see the whole enemy team, and you can split push without fear of getting picked off. It’s lategame, you have no towers or vision and every enemy hero is missing. Here you have no idea what the enemy team is doing (very low map confidence) so you sit on your high ground until they show.

III. Playing ahead of the lane

While some of Wings’ moves look bold and risky, they always come from positions of high map confidence. Here Faith_bian sees four heroes around the bot rune and so he can move safely into the Dire jungle.

Wings favour making this sort of move rather than using their map confidence to apply lane pressure, which is what other teams typically do. Playing ahead of the lane creates differences between actual map control and the enemy’s perceived map control. This can cause the enemy to misread the map. In this case, Faith_bian’s unexpected position leads to a kill on SVG.

[The Summit 6 by Beyond the Summit]

Wings try to create and exploit these “bubbles” of map control all the time.

Acutal map control (left) vs SVG’s perceived map control (right)

IV. Enemy map reads; enemy map confidence

There are times in a game where it is important to have an understanding of the enemy’s read of the map. The clearest example is showing heroes while you smoke, which has been an idea in Dota for a few years now (pieliedie at MLG Columbus). From the enemy’s point of view, more heroes showing means they have higher map confidence and so the smoke has a higher chance of success. In my experience we tend to think about the other team’s minimap only at specific times. For example, when the other team can take Rosh you have to be careful of what you show on the top lane, or when you are pushing as four heroes, you must be aware whether or not the enemy can see your other hero.

Wings play as if they have a continuous picture of the enemy minimap. They then deliberately manipulate that picture, predict the enemy response, and make plays accordingly.

A. Map confidence as an objective

Nowadays there is a lot of emphasis placed on “the objective after” a successful smoke or teamfight. In this first example we see that Wings value map confidence as a tangible objective.

Wings (Radiant) successfully respond to an NP tower dive, resulting in a 2 for 1 kill trade. The top lane is pushing into Radiant and mid lane towards Dire.

[BTS]

In the usual “objective mindset” Wings have two options here. They can either (1) push through top, or (2) rotate to push mid. SVG sees three heroes moving towards mid and Oracle depushing top, and assumes that Wings are rotating to take the mid tower. He is confident enough in his read of the map to stay slightly pushed up in the top lane.

Dire vision. Two objective options for Radiant.

Instead Wings wrap around the top lane and get the kill on SVG. They actually get the top tower because of this kill, but there is no guarantee of getting this tower when they go for the move. They are just as likely to get the Warlock kill so that ET can defend, or nothing at all. This suggests that the main objective is to make the enemy team less confident in their map reads.

[BTS]

Notice how quickly everything happens. Wings have about five seconds to make the move before the lack of heroes showing mid cause NP to back off. Here is SVG’s perspective.

B. Using towers

Wings are very good at reading the enemy’s movements and using the mobility that towers provide (via TPs) to set up favourable fights. This example happens right after Wings take the top tower following the Elder Titan kill described above. Because Wings are top and have expended spells, health, and mana, NP see an opportunity to push the bottom tower.

[BTS]

Wings see the Dire rotation towards bot and they can either defend their bot tower, or rotate mid and trade (Dire mid tower is half hp). Usually you would favour trading the mid tower for a sidelane tower, but Wings choose to set up a favourable defence rather than trade.

Radiant vision. Wings see the Dire rotation bot.

This sort of thing is not particularly unusual, but Wings are very successful for a few reasons:

They rarely show their supports. Below is Aui’s minimap — Oracle and Spirit Breaker never show. This is a common pattern for Wings. They defend towers whenever possible. They read the map very well. y`’s early game map reads and subsequent movements are excellent (and deserve their own article).

This means that the enemy team has to make plays (1) on cores, (2) around towers. You may question NP’s decision to tower dive while Oracle is missing, but Oracle’s always missing and you have to go for something. This is pretty much as high percentage as it gets vs Wings.

C. Smokes to unexpected areas; the value of surprise

There’s a lot to talk about here but first let’s have a look at the play for context. Wings (Radiant) smoke deep into Dire territory, which catches NP off guard.

[BTS]

To get a real idea of what’s happening here we have to look from NP’s perspective in the minutes leading up to the smoke. This is Envy’s minimap at 2x speed. We’ll break everything down in a bit but first look out for:

Radiant initially playing in the bottom half of the map. Throughout the clip Radiant gradually “shifting” towards the top half of the map. Radiant never show on bot lane. NP therefore clearly expecting a smoke towards the top half of the map — there’s a Dire scan, and Invoker and Ursa start to play safe.

Wings appear to shift towards top, and the smoke through bot is completely unexpected

At the start of the clip, Invoker gets picked off in the top lane, so NP aggressively move into the Radiant jungle. This forces a lot of Wings heroes to the bottom half of the map. NP get two kills but cannot take Rosh because Timber respawns instantly (via Bloodstone) and Invoker is still dead.

As Invoker respawns NP want to force play on the top side of the map while Elder Titan stays around the Rosh pit. This ensures Wings cannot take Rosh, and if Wings show heroes top then NP can take Rosh very quickly without contest (TPs to Dire mid tower, Boots of Travel onto ET spirit, Ursa).

Throughout the clip Wings appear to shift top. Timber is followed by Nyx through the river. Weaver shows farming mid lane several times. Spirit Breaker shows outpushing top lane. Oracle and Brewmaster never show after the initial fight.

As Wings gather for the smoke, NP have low map confidence because of the number of missing heroes. They cannot however just sit in base and wait for Wings to show else they might lose Rosh, and so they have to make assumptions about what parts of the map are safe. Because Wings never show on the bot lane, and the lane is positioned on the Radiant side of the map, they expect a smoke towards top instead of a deep smoke through bot.

NP expect one of the smokes towards top (left), whereas Wings smoke through the bot lane (right)

Note that Wings do not outpush the bot lane even though they are frequently in a position to do so. Instead they never show, limiting the amount of information they give the enemy team. This suggests that they value map confidence more than map control.

Taking surprise teamfights

An extension of this: Wings like to take surprise teamfights in unusual places. This is one of the more interesting examples. Wings are massively far behind but try and take an unexpected fight around their cliff ward rather than a set, structured fight on their high ground.

D. Persistence after failed plays

Perhaps the most creative abuse of map confidence is when Wings actually fail a smoke or tower push. When grouped up for an attempted play you are not farming. This means that if the play fails, the usual reaction is to spread out and try and catch up on the farm you lost.

On the other hand, when the enemy team sees a failed play they have very high map confidence — they know exactly where you are, and that you are likely to spread out to catch up on farm. Their usual response is either to spread out and farm also, or go for a play of their own.

When Wings fail a play, they show their heroes spreading out, but continue to look for openings in case the enemy team confidently split up. You can think of this as “persistent playmaking”.

In this example Wings (Radiant) smoke through the mid lane, but the smoke is broken when Ursa blinks forward to kill a hawk. Wings then show their heroes spreading out, but Beastmaster and Ogre stick around expecting NP to split up. When BM finds the opening, Invoker has Boots of Travel, Juggernaut is in the general area, and AA has Ice Blast, so Wings quickly have five heroes contributing to the fight.