There’s been a slew of announced tournaments and qualifiers since the start of the year. A lot of them had very notable teams, who didn’t secure direct invites, and as a result the quality of the games was very high. The meta developments seen during those qualifiers were also quite interesting, as it seems the pro players keep on innovating and coming up with new ways to play the old patch.

Phantom Assassin

One of the bigger heroes of the qualifiers, PA isn’t that different from what she used to be. The hero wasn’t buffed in the last several patches per se, but due to a game-wide decrease in survivability, her burst damage is relevant once again.

Another big factor for the hero’s popularity is her Shard. Bristleback is one of the most contested heroes in the professional scene right now and while the laning against Bristle is hard, once PA gets her Break through Fan of Knives, the matchup turns on its head.

Another kind of interesting alternative to the usual Battle Fury, into S&Y, into BKB build is the emergence of Echo Sabre on the Methodical facet. It kind of makes sense theoretically, though we aren’t sure it is a good idea in general. The Harpoon progression is nice, since it is a decent stat stick in the later portions of the game, but in general we would advise against it, even though pros do it.

We would certainly encourage regular PA play, though. She is possibly the greediest carry that works in the current meta, with one of the highest scalings in the game.

Bloodseeker

Another hero who is making waves in the meta. Nothing’s changed for the hero, and we believe his popularity is mostly a result of Pangolier popularity.

Don’t get us wrong — the hero is pretty good even in the later portions of the game and has one of the highest tempos for early rotations. That said, he is unreliable and requires a great deal of foresight to be effective — learning when to commit will take a lot of time.

He can also be played in a rather greedy manner, rushing Radiance. As a hybrid farm acceleration and teamfight tool, Radiance is a very effective purchase on the hero, but depending on the situation, going Gleipnir and BKB is probably preferable. You don’t always get the time for the Radiance to pay for itself, especially considering Bloodseeker can be rather squishy.

Hence S&Y is very popular on the hero, though after we’ve seen the latter being built even on Puck in a couple of games, we are starting to believe that maybe the item is a bit overtuned.

Night Stalker

This one is weird to me. I don’t know why the hero is getting more popular and what exactly he offers in terms of teamfight, but he was a highly contested hero during the qualifiers.

Perhaps the reason is that Dota is an information game and Night Stalker is the best scout in the game. Getting massive flying vision during a teamfight can make positioning trivial and spellcasting more precise. Professional players are probably great at capitalizing on this type of advantage.

However the hero’s laning stage is kind of tough. Of course he can start the game with the nighttime facet, but we’ve actually seen the second facet be rather popular as well: the reduced vision mechanic is certainly powerful and annoying to deal with, as long as NS himself gets at least something in lane.

All in all, we don’t think it is a good pub pick, but feel free to argue against it in the comment section below. Maybe there is something we are not seeing here.

Lycan

Lycan, on the other hand, is a force to be reckoned with. There are two viable facets, one aimed at making his zoo as powerful as possible and the one that is incredibly annoying when you face it in pubs.

The zoo one is the default and Lycan can quickly take over the map with strong tower push and support pressure. This playstyle isn’t different from what it was historically, so we won’t spend too much time talking about it. Get your army, pressure towers, kill supports, win games.

The wolf-focused one is probably a much bigger deal for pub play. Level six wolves can eat most supports, they can set up kills and they are extremely sturdy, with the extra built-in magic resistance. In an uncoordinated pub game, where players typically split up a lot, this is downright oppressive.

This is probably the best time to play Lycan for some MMR gains, in our opinion. Not many players are prepared for it and it can transition into an extra carry with ease, since as Alpha Wolf Lycan you can rush Hand of Midas and still be highly effective.

Also, Wolf Bite PA, Slark, Ursa and even Spectre are very scary. The last one is especially funny, since you can bite Spectre and then cast Spectre’s Aghanim’s ultimate for some absolutely devastating teamfight damage.

Closing thoughts

Somehow the meta keeps on developing and while the complaints about the duration of the patch are understandable, it seems there is still room for innovation. We aren’t saying that we don’t want a patch, we absolutely do, but realistically we don’t need it quite yet.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Share your opinion in the comment section below.