Who Influences the Metagame? (Dota 2)
Everyone who has played DOTA for a while now has noticed that once you raise yourself out of the beginners matchmaking pool that there is a certain way people tend to play the game. After hours of confusing instructions from friends and random gamers telling you what not and not to do, memorizing what heroes have what skills, and when it is okay to move to the jungle to farm a few neutral creeps to get some extra gold, you begin to feel confident in your ability to play the game independent of a tutor. But there is another element at play that is constantly changing as days go by. No, not the changes that Icefrog makes every couple months, but rather how the players take the changes and re-adjust the style in which they carry out the game.
Metagame, in a MOBA like DOTA or League of Legends, tends to dictate how people pick and choose their heroes. No, of course, certain heroes will counter others by making skills of theirs useless. (For instance, Slardar is a popular pick in the community to counter Heroes like Riki, Bounty Hunter and other heroes that are based around being invisible before and after they strike.) Since I have begun playing DOTA, the drafting trends have changed drastically, which may or may not be attributed to moving up within the matchmaking ranks as I improve my personal skill. When I look back, I can’t help but notice that in both Pro and Pub games, drafting choices on average have changed a lot.
For instance, when I first started breaking out of the beginning matchmaking bracket, I remember that the Pro scene seemed to revolve around who could Team Fight better. There wasn’t much stress on farming until everyone was fed and then hoping your hard carry killed the other teams before theirs killed you. This led to a lot of Black Holes and Riptides showing up in a lot of tournaments, and in response a lot of Rubik picks so that there could be the chance to steal these ults. Now, anyone who is aware of the Pro Scene has probably heard of “The Play.” Every sport usually has one moment in the history of it that is known as The Play, and DOTA eSports is no exception.
(The Play happened in The Second International, where Dendi of NaVi turned the tide of what would have been a fatal team fight for his team. After that, I noticed Rubik began being picked up as direct responses to Tidehunter and Enigma more often that I had seen in the past.)
However, as time went on, new heroes were introduced into the game and these new Heroes began seeing game time more often. Only in the PUB scene, however. It seemed that the Pros were rooted in their own Metagame, and the mass community was emulating their play-style, with heroes that in a Pro game would seem like a game-losing pick. Then, a shift started to happen in both scenes, both different. I noticed in pub games, early ganks seemed to rule the game in an attempt to feed the hard carry or the mid, to set off an imbalance. I noticed the Pro scene focused more on Tri-laning the safe lane to allow the hard carry to farm so that mid-to late game they could come out of farming and the jungle to get kills and make quick work of towers. Soon, this play style introduced many to the idea of an aggressive Tri-lane in the off-lane of the other team in response. And in turn, I began noticing Tri-lanes of both kind in my everyday play.
Lately, and especially in TI3, the game focused for the most part on seeing the whole team either protecting or trying to distract the other team so that the farming hard carry could be on the opposite side and get their items as quickly as possible. This, I think, is the main reason Alchemist has seen so much play in the Pro scene and in Pub play. (Of course, he’s been a pro choice for a long time, but I’ve noticed he seems to be the carry to choose over most other hard carries.)
(And that Greevil’s greed isn’t a bad skill to have on your hard carry for that matter. 30 bonus gold if you kill enough creeps. Yes please. )
And since, the most recent changes, both Pro and Pub games I’ve seen and played seem to reflect one another very closely. Obviously, Pro Games tend to go more quickly because they know how to farm more efficiently than most casual pub players, but hero and strategy play seems to be the same. Get an offlaner if you have a jungler, protect the hard carry while he gets farm, and hope your mid hero wins his lane and gets a gank or two off as soon as she/can. Get towers if you can, but kills and staying alive are usually more important. (Warranted they don’t have a newly buffed Death Prophet who can pretty much wreck anybodies shop faster. I mean seriously, her ult hits like a freight train now. I mean, really…look at this thing. )
What I still can’t figure out though, is who determines the Meta game. It’s not Icefrog, as much as he is trying to kill the jungle and Tri-laning with the new change (or as it seems to me.), but does the community see what the Pro teams come up with and try to emulate that with a wider array of heroes? Do Pub players try to make their own meta in hopes that others will see and copy them, and in turn getting the strategies to move up through the ranks to the pros? Or, simply, is it a mix of the two where professional players experience new builds in their streams and community games, where players take ideas from each other and it works its way both up and down the skill brackets?
Regardless, I think we can all share in the mutual reaction in the form of a long, loud groan when someone on your enemy team selects Nature’s Prophet and you realize you are going to have to deal with split pushing all game. Especially when you have already chosen your teams entire lineup before the 30 seconds is over. QUICK! Re-pick Spirit Breaker! He’ll never see if coming! Just remember, Barathon punches things about as fast as Treant does, so be sure to grab some attack speed on the magical, glorious Space Cow.