Mid WD was one of the strats used in the last TI qualifiers. It was pretty strong. Offlane Medusa was also one of the strats Liquid used and won with throughout the year. Safelane AA, though, sounds absolutely atrocious.

Sure, some people will say “But my teammates don’t have the skill to play like pro players, so they shouldn’t be using these strategies”. I get where they’re coming from, but I don’t like the idea of people needing to literally be pro players before they’re allowed to try out strategies that have proven to have some worth.

At some point, learning to adjust to bad drafts is part of the Dota experience and learning process. Draft issues manifest in many ways. Sometimes your team won’t have enough disables. Sometimes your team has a carry Tidehunter. You can’t control what other people want to play in a video game, but you can adapt how you play lanes, how you play fights, and how you play the map to help make your team’s draft work.

And if we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ve all lost to some drafts that we think absolutely should not work. Like I lost to a pos 4 PA that just rushed spirit vessel and nullifier in TWO DIFFERENT 3k average games, and after that, I told myself that I lost every right to complain about weird drafts, since they’ve somewhat proven some degree of viability. So I’ll always play through weird drafts and try to adjust. Immediately reporting weird picks or off-meta picks seems shortsighted. You can report them after the game, but at least wait and see if they actually try to play their role and responsibilities before you consider reporting or abandoning.

I hope that helps!