Know the heroes your allies are comfortable with and try to draft a lineup that synergises well, at the same time, banning heroes that you think may mess up your synergy or heroes you just don't want to deal with.
Think about a strategy first, then ask your teammates: "Can you play X?" "Hey, could you do Y?"
Try to last pick your mid and ban its hard counters like ban razor immediately after/before you pick od.
Dont pick stupid like sending an alch solo vs trilane and expect farm
Ban pushing heroes if you have minimum counter push
Try to understand enemy captains strat.
Also if someone else gets captain tell them what you are good with
For me if you let me support i'll screw up and always tell the team that i am not good at supports and if they do understand english i usually get mid/carry that im good at. I also say dont pick AM if you want me to carry because as an aggressive player i like carries that have early strengths
I do try to tell them what I'm good at, which is mostly support. The majority of the time, they tend to listen. But I've had a few random, fleeting moments where they don't, and it pisses me off because I end up playing a character that I'm terrible with.
When you have a 5stack, everything's great. You can work out a strat ahead of time. "Hey guys, this next game I wanna play a push strat and try and win at ~22-25min. Here are some hero combos that work for that; who can play what?" You get to have your strategy and debate session ahead of time, and you get to ban out all your counters that you don't want to fight.
When playing Captain's solo queue...it's different. You just ask people what heroes they can play, who can mid/support/offlane, etc. Use your ban time to the fullest to discuss hero picks, even if you know you're going to snap-ban OD or whatever. Working to get the most time possible allows for more strategizing. I really don't enjoy doing that though - you tend to get screwed a lot by language barriers and people demanding heroes that don't fit the team. So if you're not at least 3-stacked, I'd have to suggest Captain's Draft. Simplifies picking enormously.
Advice for Captain's Mode based on stack size:
1-stack: Pray to the God that abandoned you long ago.
2-stack: Lane together. You'll be able to ensure that you win the lane, rather than maybe supporting a bad or being supported by a bad and losing lane because of it. Stick both the bads in the same lane; they won't lose any harder.
3-stack: Have at least a dual lane, and try to take mid as well. Mid is skill-intensive, and it's harder to feed in the offlane unless you're awful.
4-stack: Stick your pubbie in the jungle. Keep some wards up and he'll be fine.
5-stack: Magical Christmas Land
"I absolutely HATE getting a captain that picks to what they want, and I'm left with a hero that I've no idea how to play (or even worse, that I feel I'm terrible at)"
Please don't queue in CM seriously. I'm not trying to be a faggot to you or anything. But when I'm the captain and I got this kind of players it's really annoying. You should queue AP and learn more about the game before queuing CM.
^ this
if you want to play a specific set of heroes then go play AP
the captain picks, not you.
That's exactly why I don't play CD or CM yet. i have like 10 heroes that I'm comfortable playing, any others and it would be a pointless exercise with me failing hard over and over again, that shit aint fun for anybody, especially me.
Once I get comfortable with playing more or less any support then, and only then, will I play CM or CD games, otherwise it won't be fun and then what's the point.
Expect me ruining CD and CM games sometime around 2025!
No average player is comfortable with all heroes and if you, Inspy, claim you are, you're full of it. Good captain (in pubs) will take into account what his teammates are comfortable with and try to adjust accordingly. Great captain will still outdraft and outsmart his opponent.
Trying to fit people into a tactic which you've so "ingeniously" lifted from pros might not work for pubs, because those people ARE NOT pros and those people don't play together each and every day. Expecting five random people to be able to super effectively utilize certain tactics and combos isn't very smart thing to do.
Forcing established tactics only shows captains lack of fundamental understanding of the game and his inflexibility and inability to adapt and create tactics which will be a right fit for the players (who are human) which he has in the team.
And all pick is horrible. It's the worst mode and no one should ever play it. It's awful.
@Potato
I got your point and you're prolly correct. But in CM, I'd expect some more skilled or experienced players. I've had players who don't know how to play venomancer sup and went 1 2 1 2 1 .. (plague ward 1) when I told them we push strat.. And his friend Undying max Decay first with tombstone only 1 ... and I had to tell them everything. Sometimes this shit is just so much to me to explain everything from scratch. I don't expect a player who can play every hero coz I can't play every hero too, but not that kind of players I've mentioned at 4.5k mmr. If you want to queue in CM, you should be prepared with the current heroes meta. You should be up-to-date. This is the least requirement I expect from you.
its easy
u only need to know every single hero which hero counters it which heroes synergyses properly in laning stages and future stages of the game and then u combine everything and there u go win
'But in CM, I'd expect some more skilled or experienced players.' So do I, but today I got matched with a Rubick that left base without ANYTHING (wards, tangos, literally ANYTHING, he had a empty inventory), didn't know what a trilane was and was stealing farm and pushing the safe lane with his bolts. The funny part is that we won.
In my opinion the most important thing to remeber in pub/lower level cm games is having a a well rounded team. As long as you have decent disable, one or two core hero who you can rely on in the late game, lanes that will let your item dependent heroes farm while putting pressure on theirs, and basically haveing all of your bases covered is far more important than relying on gimmiky all push strats or Void, Witch doctor, CM. Only worry about counters that are obvious, like banning nyx if you have squishy int heroes or picking him if they have too many and getting Slardar if they have a Riki. As long as you have decent lanes, team fight abilities, and one or two heroes with carry potential you should be fine.
U can't just by reading some stuff know how to captain, u need too much experience, even the best players, the professional ones, can't draft properly if they were given the captain role, they can draft for sure, but some are better than others, even though in game they might be better than their own captain.
![Sarastrasz[A]](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/5d/5d8ed6b33ecc8d29b17bafa2ffb8073c695f53f4_full.jpg "Sarastrasz[A]")
I would say the most important thing is the first bans, If the enemy captain bans OD you should ban DP, if they ban viper you gotta ban OD, you pretty much never want to be in a situation where the enemy has DP and you dont have OD, or a situation where you have OD and they have viper.
If you have firstpick, picking CM is always good because CM is pretty much always viable and the pick doesnt give anything away. Same for Veno or Rubic.
Bristleback is a really strong counter to naix but the hero pretty much needs CM on the team.
I'm not playing some high rated MMR where HOLY SHIT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW EVERY HERO. I just know there are heroes I'm not comfortable with their mechanics and feel it would be a detriment to the team as a whole. doesn't help if I get a hero that I'm not good at and I feed.
I'd rather do that then play AP where everyone wants to play a fucking carry. It's also part of the reason where I give a range of heroes that I'm comfortable with. In my mind, there should be one of those that should fit in some way. I also play support the majority of the time to take a little bit of pressure off that.
Please sign in to post comments.
Mostly looking from a solo or partial group.
I'm still learning the game, so I don't know all the counters, so I try to ask for input from the other players. I absolutely HATE getting a captain that picks to what they want, and I'm left with a hero that I've no idea how to play (or even worse, that I feel I'm terrible at). I also don't want to do the same, so I tell people to give me ideas and suggestions. I also don't know all the counters, so I look for that information, as well.
But, I had someone that got butthurt about it, and thought that as a captain I should just pick. I personally just hate getting stuck with a hero I don't know how to play.