So at 1.1k MMR now it isn't even dota anymore. There isn't any laning phase whatsoever outside the first 2 or 3 minutes of game play. As soon as one enemy appears on the mini map, THE ENTIRE TEAM rotates in a straight line running at the revealed enemy, and then a big teamfight takes place. These games are all averaging about 2-3 kills per minute. It's pure chaos and pretty funny. This was a new development that I just started noticing, so I imagine most games under 1.5k-ish are like this. Have not been able to adapt to figure out how to lose MMR in this new meta. My team somehow seems to always win the 4v5 teamfights and I get reported for farming in lanes as early as the 5 minute mark. It kinda feels like a Hero Arena custom game.

The best for me was the other day when I started asking what lanes we were planning on having and if we were planning to have anyone play support. Some ass**** goes right into calling me 'coach', turbo feeds 5 kills and snap afks.

Pretty much every <1500 mmr in a nutshell. You are basically stuck every game with 1/3rd wastoidshellbrains, 1/3rd people who are stuck from bad luck and 1/3rd totally new no idea wtf they are doing noobs. Getting out of this **** is a pure roll of the matchmaker dice and who gets less noobs. Playing support is the ****ing worst cause no matter how hard you try legion commander will zerg every kill you feed her into their jungle and never listens to reason. Ofc every game is like 70 minutes cause noone knows how to the end the game so every loss is a miserable torture session of 2-3 players throwing the game away over and over no matter their team's best efforts.

You are right about a lot of things in that post but wrong about 1/3 of the people being stuck by bad luck. It is very very easy to win games at that level by picking a snowball hero, farming efficiently, being 2+ items ahead in the midgame and winning 1v5 either through fighting or effective split pushing.

I would bet a large sum I could go from <1500 to >2000 MMR with >80% winrate.

i feel pretty confident that they should be able to place top 4 in the next TI as constructed, though the dyanamics of the next major patch will be important

for a new team they looked very strong, extremely innovative, and frightening to play against, at ESL they were also showed they could outplay opponents in some games they were outdrafted

no doubt they underperformed vs Vega (mirana pick was super wonky) but overall they should feel ok about how they played, systemic preperations are also bound to improve



i guess i should ask? what do you think is reasonable to expect from them in terms of collective wins for the Majors/TI? if Secret places 1st or 2nd at one of the majors, or top 3 at TI would that be sufficient?

i dont think misery as offlane and pieliedie as support can cut it into TI top 4.

Could be wrong, w33ha might become beastly and carry the team in his own rights. Or they could go on an over expected run like cdec.

I mean who ****in knows cause we cant tell where LGD/VG are at and ****.

Initial thought was "lol secret top four in next major", but with the relatively small prize pool I think the drop off by the EG/CDEC/LGD crew could be pretty substantial. Really, the whole thing is up in the air, and those setting the odds are almost certainly going to end up being the winners.

team liquid picks up 5jungz, niiiice.

Now Monkey Business deserves a big name too.


*liquid 2-0s VP !!

liquid/jungz looking so strong right now. I think empire are in great form too.

major qualifiers starting already tonight :O

BTS will be live 4 days and a half straight apparently ROFL

They have enough Merlinis to pull it off

i think LD + Winter is my favourite casting duo. those two have been on fire ever since winter got to the house

dang, i think the 3k elo hell is real. really hard to climb out of that bracket, seems like ppl do their utmost to make the game hard or just give up.

more thoughts on 3k climb: thinking the best choice is to pick literal 1v5 hero like enigma or super snowball heroes like bristleback, brood, shadow fiend.

The way to climb out of 3k hell is to pick whatever your team needs most. 90% of the time that is going to be a strong lane support.

I have been having a lot of succes in my pubs with Spectre, go 1-1-4-1 with a vanguard rush and you are super tanky. Then you build phase, maybe aquila if you need it and radiance after. This build is especially strong against the current pubstomper fav windranger. Watch her ult you and kill herself, fun times!

holy stomp godzilla

nip up about 30k at 25 minutes against NLG

smash es mi pastor

As for those snowball heroes, someone independent with some carry potential is obviously good. Slark seems very useful at lower MMRs?

Slark's ability to snowball with a shadow blade certainly can't be understated. However, I think he may be too dependent on his support in the early game, as I would expect more duo offlanes at a lower level. You could easily be shut out since Slark doesn't do much in contested lanes alone.

If I was dropped into a bracket 1500+ mmr below my current, I'd probably just spam QoP mid to try to get out. Not really a "1v5" hero, but you can have so much impact all over the place throughout the game, often times independent of your team's play

sweet my 4 favourites in the euro groups made it to both top 2

Faceless Void really needs a small buff. Quite surprised IceFrog left him untouched in the 6.85 patch. Haven't seen him in forever. Maybe just changing his bash to be physical would be good enough, gives a lot more synergy with the MoM build that way.

Looks like C9 might not qualify for the majors. Quite surprising given their strong start. Ritsu overrated? Kappa 4Head

The South American team Elite Wolves (?) actually look really really good. Saw a game where they ran Slardar first pick offlane and Leshrac carry. I like it, I agree Slardar is extremely strong in this patch. With Tranquil boots and his new Sprint, you can run up on people with Tranquil speed and phase, very early on. And his ultimate melts once he's on top of you.

+1 on the Slark snowball hero pub dominating potential. He is a bit weak in the laning phase tho, and I really like big lane dominators for climbing MMR.

think they can just remove the cast time they added on chronosphere and he would be fine.

That **** is lethal for a hero at pro level, when the best players can blink out on reaction before your chrono even comes out

EW and c9 both looked atrociously bad in their match against each other.

I spent a lot of time talking about c9 being overrated before the qualifiers started, I don't think I care enough to still talk about them now. They have an all-star lineup by NA standards, but even if they performed at their best, they would still be irrelevant on the world stage.

re void: I would like the cast point nerf reverted and also a fixed mana cost on his ultimate (150 at all levels). Either that or just fairer scaling, like 150/200/250. It's pretty delicate because chrono is so strong that you can easily overbuff him.

Allow me to present battlefury farm rate at sub 1k MMR

You are legion now? You feed them dmg? or youre void and you chrono your own team every time?

was void in that game, ton of melee on my team+ sniper on other. i hadnt considered the legion feed damage strat before, i may have to research it. the void chrono strat draws a lot of attention. i find at really low MMR people are mainly 100% focused on their own hero, so they obviously notice when a bad chrono ****s them. But they would probably be mostly oblivious to me losing duels on opposite sides of the map