Our annual The International blog posts always started with TI lauded as the “biggest esports event of the year”. It was always a celebration of Dota, the showcase of the highest level of play in the deepest, most complex online game there is and we believe that this is still true. However, it is impossible to deny that this year TI was a bit lacklustre and today we would like to discuss some things that could return it to its former glory.

The International playoffs have started and the meta is slowly solidifying. There are definitely some ideas that are slowly being discarded, while other heroes are only gaining in popularity. Today we want to have a look at the outliers — the heroes who are both popular and either very successful or seemingly weak.

The Group Stage schedule has finally been released. The sixteen participating teams are sorted into four groups, four teams each. There are no eliminations in the Group Stage of TI this year, so everyone will have a chance to show themselves during the playoffs and considering the level of the competition this year it is a good thing.

The long-awaited Ringmaster is finally in the game and it looks like the hero is not just viable, but is extremely powerful. That said, his winrate starts being an outlier only in higher level games, so it seems that tapping into his full potential isn’t necessarily trivial. Today we are going to look over why the hero works so well in higher level games and how to replicate his success.

7.37b did little to the overall idea of the current meta. We are still playing in an extremely tanky patch with a lot of healing and sustain. Dota being Dota, though, there are always ways to adapt and overcome. Sometimes they aren’t obvious, or they can be hard to pull off, but when played correctly they can work wonders for your win rate. So today we are going to have a look at some of the best heroes to play, if you want to deal with the most popular picks of the current patch.

As expected, the latest patch was very focused on refining the new facet mechanics. It also improved the overall balance of the game, with many heroes from our wishlist getting some very well deserved buffs. These seemingly small changes had a profound effect on the overall meta and today we would like to highlight the biggest winners of 7.37.

Facets introduced a lot of balance chaos to the game. There are many heroes who can perform great with one facet and be completely unviable with another. However, there are also heroes who are simply too weak in the current meta, regardless of what facet they choose. These heroes desperately need a buff and today we are going to have a close look at them.

Discussing the professional meta seems redundant — hopefully there is a minor, post-tournament patch to deal with some of the more problematic heroes. Instead, we would like to highlight a couple of our small grievances with the current balance of the game and start a discussion about what we would like to see changed.

There are bad, statistically game-losing Facets and there are “bad” hero facets. The ones that receive mockery, while technically being decent in some scenarios. Today we are going to go over facets that we feel get underserved hate and analyse how and when they can be the better option.