If you follow our blog posts, you may have realized by now that we focus on meta trends, specifically heroes that make a splash in either pub or pro games, or even both. We also tend to make the case for heroes who are so good that they should be considered in both pub and pro, and surely enough, Clinkz went on to become a situational pick in pro and a dominator in pub games.

But what about heroes who don’t make a splash anywhere? Heroes who are vastly unpicked in both scenes? They too are part of the meta trends--they just get the short end of the stick.

It’s been six years since The International first debuted as an event at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany with a prize pool of $1.6 million dollars. Over this time there have been quite a few seminal stories, from fans to casters to players from across the globe, that have defined Dota and TI’s history. Before TI7 adds onto this, let’s take a look back at some of these moments.

The TI7 Secret Shop only lasted for two days, Cloud 9 picks up the Team NP roster and all Asian teams acquire their US visas for TI7.

Winter Wyvern is a peculiar hero. Looking at her skillset from back when she was released, one can only wonder how overpowered the hero used to be. Even after a long series of harsh nerfs she still manages to win more than 55% of her games in the 5k+ bracket, making her the 5th most successful hero in highest level pubs right now.

It’s been more than half a year since we did our last Tier List, and now is an excellent time to have a look at how meta has changed since then. During this period we’ve received numerous small patches, all aimed at making pub play and The International balanced as possible.

Zeus is still the same hero at his core, but there have been a few significant changes, since we last talked about him, that have edged him more towards relevancy in the competitive meta.