The new patch introduced a lot of balance changes, some of which fundamentally altered gameplay. Naturally, it resulted in a significant meta shift and while from the qualifier stats it looks like the professional scene is taking its time to adjust, the pubs are already embracing it.

The Chongqing Major was a strange tournament. There were almost no technical issues and it completely disproved any notions that the Chinese crowd is only interested in the games of the Chinese teams, with a full venue during the Grand Finals between Virtus.Pro and Team Secret. It was a well produced and a well received tournament, but at the same time it was also one of the least diverse tournaments in the last several years.

Team Secret takes down VP in the Chongqing grand finals, Dendi fills in Tiger's final roster slot, and Patch 7.21 is set to release this week

With the release of the 7.20 patch the meta of the game got significantly faster. Lower armor on structures and the increased efficiency of armor-reduction effects led to games often snowballing out of control. Coupled with changes to the deny mechanic, where you no longer get bonus experience, it led to many teams successfully experimenting with trilanes once again.

This week, Virtus.Pro qualified for TI9 with a guaranteed top 6 finish at the Chongqing Major, DreamHack announced the invited teams to the Stockholm Major qualifiers, and Southeast Asian team, Tigers, shuffles their roster.

Tusk has been one of the most popular heroes in the professional scene. His versatility and consistency make him one of the priority picks in the current meta. Despite his popularity and relative success at the highest level of competition, his presence in pubs isn’t as dominant. Today we would like to discuss what exactly makes Tusk strong in the competitive matches and how pub players can incorporate lessons from the professional scene in their own matches.

The first step of the new DPC Minor and Major cycle is over and it is time to look at how the professional players adjusted to the new patch. 82 heroes picked and 87 heroes contested is a pretty decent result, considering a total of 47 matches were played. It is hard to say that “everything can work” from this statistic alone, but the meta seems to be diverse enough to allow for a great Major starting next week.

EHOME trounced the competition during their championship run at the Bucharest Minor, Valve purges 17,000 smurf accounts and is set to release Trusted Matchmaking for Dota, and True Sight releases today at 11:00AM PST.

As corrective patches targeted Phantom Assassin and Magnus, Beastmaster snuck to the top of pub win rate charts, boasting a 56% overall win rate and near 60% in 2-5k MMR brackets. From quality of life changes to shifts toward a faster meta, Beastmaster has benefitted in multiple ways from patch 7.20.

Vengeful Spirit has been impressively successful in the highest skill bracket. 57.35% win rate in the last month and 60%+ win rate over the last week make her the best hero in the current meta, at least according to stats.