This horse has been flogged for hours, but I’m joining in. This meta is STALE, and there are so many interesting heroes that are non-viable. 7.34e has done little to change the prevailing meta and has not provided any incentives to play the many losers of this patch. It’s absurd to see heroes go unpicked at TI and receive no buffs.

First off, a link to Dotabuff’s TI hero pick stats so you can follow along.

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High Pick, Low Nerf

- BLADEMAIL: Untouched lmao

- Chen: Meta-warping tempo. But hey, people can’t play him below Immortal bracket, so why nerf the aura deathball?

- Dark Willow - Can still hand out bonkers amount of damage with Aghs, just won’t be able to kill your throne 1v5 with a spell prism and three items

- Dazzle: Can be caught more easily in fights now, but still lanes and farms like an absolute beast and boasts way more payoff than a Tinker. How is this hero’s ult not seeing number changes…

- Grimstroke: Second-most picked hero. Revolves around pressing E on tanky core meta but only gets a minor niche nerf to his E

- Primal Beast (lmao 62% winrate while being first-phased and all he gets is a minor mana nerf on levels 2-4 of Trample?)

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Low Pick, No Buff

- Mirana - Widely lambasted by casters as awful. Bizarrely had her core viability removed.

- Marci - come on, an increased the cast range on Sidekick? What are these, AI-generated patchnotes?

- Bounty Hunter (arguably the worst Aghs in the game, especially after reliable gold changes. Arguably the worst shard in the game, since it just encourages the enemy to buy more vision. Talent tree revolves around making shit spells OK. Bizarrely had his core viability removed. High base armor is all this hero has going for him.)

- Broodmother: At least had a dominant time earlier this year; not confined to the interminable Hell that most of these other heroes are

- Lycan: Helm Dom and Helm Over are just not items any longer, and this hero matches up terribly against most cores and 7.34’s farmed enemy supports

- Juggernaut: Does poorly against coordinate teams

- Venomancer: Will this hero ever be viable at TI again? Area denial by wards was barely a viable strat when the map was 40% smaller.

- Sand King: Briefly decent earlier this year, but is sadly on Valve’s Heroes-That-Aren’t-Allowed-to-Be-Good list. Thank god he was nerfed after one tournament. Meanwhile every time Lina ruins a meta it takes 3 letter patches to do anything about it.

- Arc Warden: Bad Lone Druid

- Tinker: Bad Dazzle

- Ember Spirit: Bad (but at least has been viable in the recent past)

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No Pick, No Buff

- Abaddon: A below-shit-tier hero, and bizarrely got nerfed before TI despite being shit-tier then and seeing no play. I guess Bruno lost to an Abaddon or something.

- Anti-Mage: Lose lane, Farm mid-game and lose objectives, then lose late-game to better scaling enemy cores. What a game plan, but at least it’s not countered by BKB – wait.

- Drow Ranger: Similar issues to AM, just in ranged form. Weirdly has a channeling ability on an auto-attack ranged hero… just rework Multishot already so it benefits from attack speed

- Lion: Good ganking abilities on a fragile slow little stick. Isn’t Spiritbreaker or NP, isn’t even Tusk. Has fun gameplay as a core hero that is just a meme in competitive. Buffing Earth Spike godawful range is nice, but it’s still not enough. Give base HP/armor or give base damage already.

- Shadow Shaman: Similar issues to Lion. Weirdly gets his hex damage amp buffed even though it’s almost always a setup stun and heroes will take most damage after Hex. The +5% damage amp is so minor and wrongheade that I can’t consider it a buff.

- Mars: You may have forgotten this hero existed. Ever since his base stats were nerfed to hell, this hero has been a walking ultimate. Like a melee-range super crummy Enigma.

- Meepo: Had about a week-and-a-half to shine this year with Aghs before that got nerfed again. Longest resident of Valve’s Heroes-That-Aren’t-Allowed-to-Be-Good list

- Slardar: Finally seeing some interesting growth in his playability as a mid hero. Can shut down melee mids, but gets ruined by ranged cores. Has a very awkward midgame timing (or lack thereof) where he either rushes blink and gets outscaled or rushes Midas and can’t fight. Too reliant on poor enemy picks/play to be more than a gimmick at the moment. Is able to solo Tormentors, and is probably the most viable hero on this list.

- Ursa: Easily kited, not scary, stats have been nerfed too much

- Winter Wyvern: Ult (and core potential) both nerfed into the shitter earlier this year. This hero is now a farm-dependent support with bad base stats/mobility or a core that scales into nothing. But hey, she counters Meepo.

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Wrap-Up

There are so many more heroes that had fewer than 3 games in TI but haven’t seen any love at all, but I got tired. It’s just too egregious. This meta is basically “pick seven heroes from this pool of twenty, then pick two from this pool of sixty, then pick 1 from a pool of 90”. That is not a healthy meta, it is tremendously skewed.