Ignored But Not Forgotten - The Unpicked Heroes of TI7
The International 2017 saw 107 different heroes picked across the entire event, 109 were picked or banned. These are record breaking numbers, records set by the event just the year before, at TI6. With a meta so diverse where nearly all 112 available heroes seem situational enough to be picked, one can’t help but wonder what has to be wrong with the heroes that haven’t been considered even once.
Last year, the forgotten heroes of TI6 were the likes of Leshrac, Bloodseeker, Lina and Visage, all of which have been buffed since then and have seen much more play as well. That means, the ignored heroes from TI7 may have a couple of buffs ahead of them.
Bane
Most supports look towards Bane with envy, jealous of his quite well rounded stat gain. This International, it was Bane that looked at other supports with Envy, as he was the only support hero not considered for a pick or ban throughout the entire event. Bane has always been a good support, a strong hero to zone out offlaners with and with two disables, Bane can be a literal nightmare, especially for heroes who rely on magic immunity to be effective in fights.
In the current meta however, Bane’s ultimate feels incredibly useless. Every team looks to secure at least one hero with an AoE stun and even as a 4 position support, Bane could only dream of a Black King Bar for himself. While he does serve a purpose beyond his ultimate--he’s a good laning partner and can set up kills/stuns--there is a strong case to be made that his remaining utility is largely overshadowed by that of others. Yes, Nightmare can set up a stun and with Brain Sap potentially a kill, but it is rather underwhelming in comparison to a Fissure or Burrow Strike, both of which tend to allow for a longer range of initiation as well. Most pro teams look for more damage in 4 position supports, the likes of Earthshaker, Sand King or Earth Spirit can reliably threaten the life of a core with minimal help, whereas Bane definitely needs a committed hero or two for a gank. For a hero that thrives on picking off cores, Bane isn’t as mobile as others, since items like Blink Dagger or Force Staff aren’t as consistently good as they are on others.
Lion
Banned once, Lion was only slightly more relevant at TI7 than Bane. Similar to Bane though, Lion suffers from being a lesser version of the currently popular heroes. As covered in our blogpost about unfavored heroes in the meta, Lion has a skillset very similar to that of 
Shadow Shaman’s, only that Shadow Shaman has an ultimate that suits the current meta’s push intensity.
Any lane harassment needed is also overshadowed by Shadow Shaman’s high base attack, making Lion seem all the less useful right now. The much better level 20 talent (+ 4 Wards Summoned vs. either Magic Resistance or Spell Amplification) is the final nail in the coffin that is Lion’s meta viability. It could be argued that Lion can shine when Shaman is banned, but Rhasta was banned only 6 times across the entire event and was only picked 36 times as well. Teams hardly needed to look towards Lion.
Spectre
Even though split pushing has become more prevalent, most teams still look towards brawlers and fighters as carries, heroes that can engage early and don’t necessarily need much help in the laning stage either. Any space bought in the laning stage should ideally pay off soon, but none of this applies to Spectre. Spectre is a relatively weak laner who still needs help even after a Radiance has been acquired. Her lack of pushing power and early teamfight presence make her an exploitable pick. Split pushers like Morphling or Anti-Mage have a much stronger laning presence and tend to come online faster and more importantly, they also push faster.
In a meta where illusion heroes have been nerfed so significantly that most of the heroes based around them feel underpowered, Spectre seems to be at the bad end of the spectrum. She was never one of the strongest illusion based heroes, yet suffers from their nerfs and as a split pusher and carry, she’s currently overshadowed by virtually everybody else.
Tiny
Tiny also made our list of unfavored heroes of the meta, but unlike other unpicked heroes, we believed there was potential for the hero to shine. He did not. Tiny is a weak laner that often needs babysitting and he doesn’t have much fighting potential early on, rather pick-off potential. His limited mana pool and the relatively high cooldowns on his spells (17 and 8), coupled with his low attack speed make him a rather weak brawler for the first 20 minutes. Until Tiny picks up his Agh’s, he also doesn’t split push well. With a lot of AoE stuns available in the current meta, Tiny would be forced to purchase an early BKB, though he can realistically only purchase one after an Agh's and an attack speed increasing item, or else he'd have no impact.
For a carry, there are just too many reasons not to pick Tiny right now, especially since there are much more capable Io combinations as well.
Wraith King
Wraith King has always had issues fitting into any meta. The hero doesn’t exactly excel at any particular meta style. He doesn’t push particularly fast, isn’t the best fighter and certainly doesn’t auto-win his lanes. Fighting with him before his ultimate reaches level 3 seems dangerous and he doesn’t farm particularly fast enough to get to an early level 3 ultimate either. His lack of mobility usually forces him into a Blink Dagger, most of the time on top of a Black King Bar. While the same could be said about Sven, Sven has flashfarming abilities and can instantly take out a target quite reliably. Wraith King can deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time as well, potentially just as much as Sven, but he gets to that point significantly slower and his aura, while great for pushing and fighting, is not as useful as Sven’s. High armor is more expensive and generally more useful than lifesteal.
Wraith King has always been a situational pick, but even for situations where he would fit in, he just doesn't seem like a strong pick right now.
Buffs When?
As mentioned earlier, history shows that unpicked heroes in such a meta are likely to receive a lot of buffs soon. There are reasons for why these heroes aren’t picked, but small tweaks to both the game in general but also the heroes themselves could remedy that. That said, some of these heroes have always been situational, so them not finding any play in this particular tournament, even if it is The International, doesn’t mean that anything drastic needs to change for them. A lower mana cost or cooldown here, a bit of Strength gain there--there’s plenty of small ways to help these heroes become stronger, especially with talents in place.
11 !!!!
OK YOU WON THIS TIME
Ez katka
It's strange how you go up the ranks heroes become increasingly worse; with WK he is very bad at pro level but in low 1-3k games, he seems to dominate the game, unless counter picked.
That's just be cause 1-3k player can't counter any hero
buff techies?
Buff Spectre? No thanks
No mention of Techies wew
Kappa
techies is not in Captains mode
spec is unsustainable safe laner. this meta favors safelaner who's sustainable (ex. necro), can push (ex. AM), or do both (ex. lycan) on the other hand, spec needs babysitting and lots of farm. lane her against an aggressive dual offlane, her early laning stage becomes shitty. a 6 stack item spec is just a tanky carry w/ AOE.
tiny & wk cant be pick as pos 4. they lack mobility, low mana pool, and short cast range of spells.
bane & lion aren't suitable for pos. 5 or defensive support. aside from they don't have pushing capabilities, they also don't have skills for protection or buffs (ex. lich armor, dazz heal & grave, appa chilling touch) plus they lack AOE skill. that's why I think they were ignored this TI.
THIRST!!
BUFF VI KA
I've seen a fair amount of people recently in comments who are outraged that Bane didn't get any play 'because he is so good'. This article did a good job of explaining his weaknesses, but I feel like more could be added to his list of problems.
Putting someone to sleep lasts a good amount of time, which in theory is really nice, but in practice it's a huge liability. You have to break sleep with magic damage, or else the sleep moves to you. In a hectic teamfight, you'd think the pros could avoid this, but even the pros deny aegis sometimes, even at TI. It limits the pairings you can employ with the hero, and forces you to expend an extra skill when maybe only one was needed to get the kill. If you wait and group up around the hero, the enemy might counterinitiate. In the case of OD's Astral Imprisonment, you have no worry that you will accidently sleep yourself, during a fight there is no chance a support can transfer the sleep away from his carry, and even as an escape skill you're given better guarantees of damage and CC. All of this adds up to a very clunky skill.
And then there is his ultimate, which is basically a mini black hole with half the cooldown. But if your ultimate is channeled, you REALLY want to make sure you can get as much of it off as possible. Witch Doctor can bolster his chances with a cask, Shadow Shaman has the same thing without damage BUT IT ISNT AN ULTIMATE, and Enigma can often guarantee a full channel because, well, who can stop him when they are all in the hole?
Bane is just a clunky hodgepodge of worse versions of other skills.
Envy? XD
Remember bout Treant Protector?
Ok tbh, none of these heroes need buffs.
In 1000~2000 mmr games, if these 5 heroes were in a game, tiny would roam early and get a heap of kills from the enemy support dying and then the game would stall for about 50 minutes and bane would have bkb, lion would have aghs and spectre would have 0 problem farming. And whenever the enemy team tries to teamfight, wraith king's ult would just scare the living daylights out of them.
I would be so happy if my team was spectre, tiny, wk, lion and bane rather than 2k mmr players trying to play meepo
Agree with the comment above. TI level games are such a small representation of all dota games. Spectre, especially, is still insane in pubs.
yeap. in another perspective those heroes that may be doing very well in TI may not be doing too good in pubs... hmm.
I was thinking... perhaps these unpicked heroes need to be complemented with another hero that covers their flaws? Eg. Bane ( good single target disabler) can be paired up with an AOE type support to run lanes ( Disruptor)?
for those carries who are not flashfarming fast enough like WK, perhaps they can transit to a support/utility core type?
techies is banned in captain's mode, why though
How bout Zeus? Does anyone pick him at all?
НЫЫЫЫЫАААААА!!!!!
Give wk an active on his vamp or something, make him better yet harder to play in some way.
The 180 sec cd on level 1 haunt killed spectre. its too long
@Soul Raider you don't know what Kappa means? BibleThump
Too much twitch chat memeing from me I suppose, I was being sarcastic abt the Techies mention
Unlike others, carries like Spectre, Wk against hard dual lanes cant find space also early jungle and lane rotations is very hard for this heroes. And after laning stage if enemy pushes there is nothing to do except split push also they'r not good at that. Lane Aggression into Push wins the game against this kind of carries ; And as u mentioned Shadow Shaman does that. Thanks for blog
Bane has historically been picked in metas in which Mirana or Batrider are popular, at this TI neither were favoured simply because both have been heavily nerfed to the point of being off-meta. That said his Q is arse tier and prob needs added functionality, either a spell power debuff or a slow would be enough.
Lion has historically been better in longer games because of his teamfight potency, and longer duration hex. 2 things made shaman better than lion in lane, buffs to shaman's base damage and his base strength, this basically made lion a bad shadow shaman.
Spectre simply is not favoured this meta. Illusions and radiance have been nerfed countless times and in games where 10 mins in you are fighting for your tier 3 towers, spectre, one of the most farm dependant heroes is trash tier. Lategame spec is still godly, she just cant reach that point.
Tiny is ass at the moment. He has massive mana problems, is weak in every lane, is fairly predictable and requires blink + aghs every game. He is a worse sven in terms of a hyper carry and does not snowball like other bursty characters like QoP or Storm. Jack of all trades but master of none, it takes too much to make a Tiny work.
Wk is also bad. He is very dependant on scaling his damage to make the most out of his w and e. He is almost useless for the first 30 minutes and does not offer anything other than tankiness and single target damage + stuns, he is one of the slowest characters in the game, is melee and right click reliant. He cant push or de-push and has no innate mobility or farming tool. Honestly I think his aura should get reworked to give him life back on hit and some other functionality
@King of the Hill
I wouldn't say Bat was ignored, but the question still comes up if there are better combos for bat and mirana and the answer was always yes. Bat worked much better with bane back in the day that you would send bat to the midlane and get an early six ahead of your blink. Now, bat can still get that six before blink, but he is offlaning, so it makes much more sense to just farm him up to blink and use lasso if necessary. Once blink comes around, the bane setup is largely unnecessary. Same thing with mirana not being a roamer anymore. She is a core more often, and prefers to farm rather than roam for kill setups.
Wraith King support is legit btw
best support
wk is a viable support but there are heroes that offer much more than stun and a lifesteal.
@Brock Hall
I just wanted to point out it is possible for bane to end nightmare whenever he wants, you don't have to do it with just a spell as long as you are alive (Also SS shackles do damage, just much less; but Bane's drains mana, has much higher range, and goes through BKB).
lol i think most of the ppl commenting dont understand what they r saying about bane..
bane is strong but his skill set is easily countered with a strong dispel/phas oute/other random stuf fcounter pick if u make it an early pick. pro teams like to save core picks at the end so the hero just doesnt come through because he cant make plays as much as other heroes can as the 3-5 picks.
VOLVO MAKE SPECTE BETTER AND NERF SVEN!!!
I can understand why Andrew wk ; ) isn't picked. It's because diffusal, am, and illusions exist. That's why I usually ban am and don't instalock him. Diffusal can be bought by almost any illusion/agi hero. also I tried the raidiance rush on him and it didn't work out for me although we still managed to win vs a fed alchemist. Looks like armlet is the way to go currently. Your not getting raidiance to farm. Your getting it to force people to fight you or die from the burn and it's actually pretty funny when they run and die from raidiance which was why for the longest time when I still played him, it was my staple build but 6 months later, it doesn't work. I didn't do enough damage and I wasn't tanky enough to kill alchemist alone and that's when Im lvl 25 and 6 slotted.