There is a misconception in our community about the purpose of OpenAI—many wrongly assume that it was created to play Dota. That isn’t the case. Dota is a testing ground for a team of talented developers, who want to gauge how well their algorithms can learn to solve problems. Turns out, they do it pretty damn well.
The current meta might be slower than a couple of patches ago, but it still rewards proactive play. While many farm-oriented carry heroes are viable and can work really well in certain games, the majority of top tier carries are capable of mid-game pressure, with going late being the plan B.
Familiar faces round out this meta's top performing midlaners.
The offlane meta is returning back to its glory days, at least in a sizable percentage of games. Professional teams and individual players are typically looking for an offlaner that offers both good utility and damage, while being relatively gold and experience independent, or capable of securing his own farm early on.
Support meta is in a good place right now, with a healthy mix of babysitters, aggressive supports and trilane heroes. Both professional and pub scenes are open for experiments, and there is place and time for pretty much any hero in the game.
We take a look at the win rate trends, one week after the release of patch 7.21d.
DreamLeague Major had a few surprises in store. Vici Gaming scored the first champion title of the season for the Chinese region, while fan favorites such as Team Liquid, PSG.LGD, and Evil Geniuses underperformed.
Vici Gaming secure a TI9 slot with their Dreamleague Major victory over Virtus.Pro, Valve releases patch 7.21d, and Forward Gaming announce changes to their roster.
Bounty Hunter managed to look both amazing and absolutely inept in the DreamLeague Season 11 Major. When played by Secret.Zai he managed to quickly take control over the lane and come out as the highest net worth hero on the map by minute eight. Attempts to play the hero by other players weren’t as successful.
We generally refrain from analysing the tournament meta until after the tournament is over, but there is a hero we feel should be covered immediately. Oracle is currently the most popular pick and one of the most successful heroes in DreamLeague Season 11 with a win rate close to 70%.
The DreamLeague Major’s group stages concluded after a packed, two days of games. Mineski snuffed China’s chances to land four teams in the upper bracket, and Team Secret again looks like the strongest team out of the pack, sweeping a group that included Team Liquid.
After the last several hero releases, Mars can feel like old school Dota. There are no tree jumping abilities, spell duplications, vector targeting or transformations into a ball of pain. Instead, we have a hero that fits right in, and it is a great change of pace.
Vici Gaming confidently secured their spot in the upcoming Major in the last week’s StarLadder ImbaTV Minor. Despite questionable play-off format, it was still a very enjoyable tournament which had enough great games to serve as an appetizer before DreamLeague Season 11.
This next week, in partnership with Loot.Bet, we'll be featuring the Starladder Minor games on the front page. We'll take a look at the next day's matches, Loot.Bet's odds, and call out which matchups have favorable odds. Yesterday, anyone who bet on Flying Penguins to win vs. RNG, at 9:1 odds, had a decent payday.
Viper was dominating the professional and high level pub scenes. Valve has acknowledged that he was a problematic hero, along with a variety of buffs to many unpicked characters. While the patch itself is pretty small, we believe it will result in disproportionate changes to the meta.
Did you know you can sign in securely with Steam to access your personal Dota 2 profile?
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| Hero | Win Rate | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Chen | 42.77% | 1.69% |
 | Broodmother | 46.18% | 1.49% |
 | Outworld Devourer | 40.38% | 0.94% |
 | Huskar | 45.56% | 0.92% |
 | Bane | 47.99% | 0.99% |
 | Phoenix | 49.23% | 1.22% |
| Hero | Pick Rate | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Drow Ranger | 21.10% | 1.59% |
 | Windranger | 19.78% | 0.86% |
 | Sniper | 23.06% | 0.74% |
 | Pangolier | 7.76% | 0.56% |
 | Phantom Assassin | 25.88% | 0.62% |
| Mars | 13.77% | 1.14% |
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 | Treasure of the Crimson Witness 2018 Immortal Priceless Treasure | $578.70 |
| Trove Carafe 2018 Autographed by Alexey 'Lex' Filippov Immortal Treasure | $6.25 | |
 | Trove Carafe 2018 Autographed by Sergey 'Smile' Revin Immortal Treasure | $6.25 |
 | Trove Carafe 2018 Autographed by Vitalii 'v1lat' Volochai Immortal Treasure | $5.46 |
