So, I’ve noticed a lot of things after massing NEL games. NEL is the North American Elite League: an inhouse for the top players of North America. It has its ups and downs as far as quality and quantity of games, but I think generally the games are much, much better than playing ranked matchmaking. Personally, I detest matchmaking. Let me say that while some people like to troll and say things like “lol, mm is way better than NEL” I believe that that is not true at all. I think it’s important to be realistic and say that the experience NEL games or scrims give you is much more beneficial in terms of working towards playing “correctly” in a real match. It’s also a decent place to theorycraft some really crazy shit that may actually work, but you don’t want to try in a scrim and crash and burn when you finally got that top-tier team to accept a match against you.



What’s this all got to do with EG?

In NEL, almost all games are played in captain’s mode, where the highest rated player on each team drafts. These games emulate a “real match” with 5 players randomly placed on teams (unless it’s a captains game). One of the many things I’ve noticed in NEL, whether it’s well-established players in the NADota community or fresh 5.1kers (5.1k is the minimum amount allowed for someone to be vouched), is that 1) everyone’s a “core player” and 2) the safe lane is fucked beyond belief. And who’s responsible for this? The supports.

This isn’t a horn-tooting thread for Zai and Peter, but goddamn guys look at it objectively. I think it’s reasonable to say that a big reason why EG’s been so successful is Peter and Zai’s movement and control of the safe lane. The demand for actually good, competent support players is unbelievably high, while the supply is ridiculously low. Don’t get me wrong, Arteezy is one hell of a mid player, if not the best. Fear’s versatility and last-hitting is some of the most consistent as well. Universe, probably EG’s best player, gets a lot of deserved recognition now for good reason. But in the end, I feel that dota is a game that’s won or lost from support play. I really do. And it’s not just support play, but drafting as well. I think, too, that this is a reason why most support players make the best drafters - they’re the ones generally with a plan in mind and have the time to look around the map, think objectively about what movements are sound and how late into the game their draft can take it. Just look at the roles and see for yourself what each is required to do:

1, Carry : Farm core items, go fight with team afterwards. Enough said. This is by far, imo, the easiest role to play. If you’re a team fighting core like Tide, Centaur, Sven, Viper, it’s even easier to play. Why is that? Because the game itself tells you what you’re supposed to do. Hit 6, get a blink (or mek), and go fucking fight. It’s cut and dry, very simple.

2, Mid :Definitely a more difficult role than carry, but this role’s difficulty comes not so much from knowledge of the game, but more of pure talent. Even then, this sort of mid-metagame that has evolved from Arteezy’s farming-intensive mid heroes is actually much easier than the old traditional mids that players like S4 used to play (Puck, Magnus, Qop). The reason for this is again, your objectives are much simpler. Spam out the wave, bottle crow, stack easy camp, farm farm, push tower when mid hero leaves. It is actually VERY easy to play mid in this metagame right now.

3, Offlane : Because of changes to the initial creep equilibrium, I think this role is the 2nd easiest to play. Your goals are to get exp, several last hits, check runes, and make plays when you’re level 6.

4,5, Support: What are the goals of the support?

> Provide Vision, pooling, smoking, safe-lane equilibrium, offlane zoning, TP-countergank protection, stacking, ganking, arc boots farming, core items farming (on heroes like sand king), preventing ancient spawns, assistance with last hits, counterwarding, checking runes, pushing, counterpushing.

And these are all things to be done in just the first FIVE minutes of the game.

Additionally, in teamfights, supports play a significant role as well. People think instinctively that they’re expendable, which is true to an extent - they’re generally lower leveled and give off less experience and gold - But their effectiveness and importance is no-less than the viper mindlessly autoattacking everything it sees in a teamfight. In fact, I would say that playing support in a teamfight is HARDER at times because your subtle movements can be punished a lot quicker because of your lack of hp than your carry counterparts. I think there’s three main reasons as to why NA in particular has such a shortage of top-notch support players.



1.) Matchmaking -

This is probably the biggest culprit, for 2 main reasons. One - nobody wants to support in a pub game that doesn’t matter because it’s flat out boring. If you say you have fun playing support in pubs you’re probably lying. Sure, it might be fun in the laning phase, if your pub carry isn’t a bot and you win your lane. Even then, when your mid tinker (the guy who only plays tinker) says “jaja mierda” and goes 0-5-0 in 6 minutes and asks the enemy to push, you’re certainly not having a good time. It’s not fucking fun at all. That brings me to Two - suppose I grant you that it IS fun (you’re fucked up), you’re not getting any real practice playing support in matchmaking. Things that your teammates do or the enemy offlane hero does in lane are probably never going to occur in a real game. So, the “correct” timings of when to pull, when to zone, when to smoke mid, etc., do not really exemplify efficient ‘match-level’ practice. I could be more clear about this, but I think you get the idea.





2.) Casters/recognition -

This certainly isn’t as big, but it’s there whether you believe it or not. There is little glorification for support players, in general. It’s certainly MUCH better than it used to be as the quality of casters is rising, but I still believe there are far too few casters who don’t actually know what’s going on in the safe lane and how big of a deal some of the smaller movements are. Synd and Fear (when he was casting) are two that come to mind who could actually spot these things. I’m sure there’s other but those two come to mind. Obviously, it’s easier to comment on the “big plays” and “ULTRA KILLS” that core players will inevitably get over support players, but let’s be honest, unless you’re a huge standout player, your zoning of the offlane doom and connecting pulls while checking runes isn’t going to get as much attention as the mid player who’s 27-14 to the enemy 12-1. Yes, most established pro support-players right now on teams probably don’t give a shit - I’m talking about how this is absorbed by viewers and potential talent coming into the scene.



3.) They’re just not good at it -

This goes hand in hand with #1. Unless you’re scrimming top teams frequently as a support player, you’re not getting any real practice in the safelane (by the way, I’m saying safelane a lot - I realize it could be an aggro trilane, but most of the time that’s just a disorganized fuckfest of 'who-stuns-who-first’ or 'smoke-around-supposedly-solo-offlane-hero-at-level-1’ that I’m not gonna go into; plus, safelane trilanes are almost always better). The exception of this is a player who actively watches replays of the safelane supports and meticulously studies what it is that they’re doing that makes them successful. I suspect, though, that the majority of up-and-coming NA players aren’t watching that shit at all, nor do they care. All they care about is if they can get their BoTs blink before 15 minutes, or midas before 5, etc. Don’t get me wrong, talented core players (especially in the late game) need to be on top of their shit and their fast clicking-ability in the mid-late game. But nobody’s practicing their camp connecting, effective zoning, informative warding, sitting behind heroes for 2 minutes at a time'ing - while these things might seem minute and boring to some, these are the things that really do separate the good teams from the bad. I bet we have some extremely skilled mid players here in NA that could comfortably go head to head with Mu, Arteezy, S4, or other accomplished mid players in an isolated 1v1. But who gives a shit. That’s all we practice guys. Everyone wants to be flashy, but no one actually wants to win and think about the overall picture and that’s where competent support players come in I feel.

4.) The stigma is that support players are less talented

And they have the most difficult role. Many casters are doing better in giving recognition to support players with a lot of talent. But in the grand scheme of things I would venture to say that the average player has a preconceived notion that x-support player of y-team is less talented than the mid player on y-team. Why? I don’t necessarily know. Could be because in even games at the 40+ minute mark, support heroes have a very boring job, and thus, are boring to watch. This does not mean, though, that they’re any less talented.

I see this shit all the time in NEL, and it’s ironic because generally it’s the weakest players stuck on the hardest role. I’ve found that actually letting the newer players just play cores and taking support on yourself wins you more games. I’ve been doing this for the past month and my win-rate has increased dramatically, and now I’m rank #1. NOTE: This does NOT work in matchmaking. I repeat, never play support in matchmaking, unless you’re drunk as hell.



Who cares?



I admit, I’m a culprit as well. Obviously, when I play matchmaking, NEL, scrims, or ringing for teams I WANT to initially play a core. Why? Probably because it’s way easier for me. Because 9 times out of 10 I play a core everywhere else and that’s what I’m used to. I used to be a terrible support player. I’m still not that great, but I’m actively taking steps to improve. I’m writing this because I think this resonates with the rest of the NADota community. I’m asking everyone to play more support, and actually work to understand the role. I know I will try. Even if you’re not going to be playing support, what’s the harm in working at it to understand the safelane a bit more? Watch replays of teams who are doing WELL - and find out why they’re doing well. What is their safelane doing that works? Why are they smoking for mid at this time and not before? When do they lane ward, and which heroes zone/pull? Everyone thinks they can do it, but guess what? No, you can’t. And don’t play support because you’re forming a team and all the other roles are covered and you say “sure, I can play support.” Make that your role. Try it out - if it goes badly, fix your shit. Just like when a mid player gets destroyed, he goes back and practices 1v1s, masses games in matchmaking with that mid hero he’s weak with and he gets better at it.

I will leave you with a couple of overall instructions on how to better play support, based on what I’ve learned and talking with some of the top support players in the world:

a) If your heroes have the ability to KILL or at least THREATEN the enemy offlane hero with a kill, you need to do so immediately. Establish lane dominance right of the bat. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM WITH ALL SUPPORT PLAYERS. Even if you don’t get the kill, if you keep the offlane at level 1-2 while your core is 4-5-6, this means you can then use your time to pull/roam and they can no longer get experience 1v1 against your carry because of the level discrepancy.

b) Don’t waste time smoke ganking mid unless you’re 90% sure you will get the kill. You need to have the perfect heroes, good timing, and it needs to obviously not be on a hero that can’t get ganked without a good rune. Also, avoid smoking around the x:45 mark, because that’s when the mid hero is probably spamming out the wave and you won’t find a good angle.

c) Get your connect timings down, and be careful pulling healers, they can cause problems

and finally

d) from a drafting standpoint, if you are confident in your ability to take the game late with better heroes, playing passively, pulling and playing reactionary dota is far more intelligent than forcing shitty ganks just because you feel like you have to do something. Remember less is more, sometimes.

Thanks for reading - my next blog will probably be about drafting, although I imagine that might be futile since the new patch comes out soon. My goal in this post was not to offend anyone, and I’m sorry if I did. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Peruvian tinker who needs his ancients stacked.