MDL Disneyland Paris Major, Upper Bracket

This is thelast tournament of this patch, which makes it surprising that the current meta isnot entirely solidified. Only ~20 heroes haven’t been picked and even though thetop tier heroes are contested in almost every game, the rest of the hero poolfinds its way in and out of games relatively evenly. We’re bound to see someinnovations, especially in the form of creative counters to the most popularheroes.

JoinDOTA is a Dota 2-portal dedicated to broadcasting, community, tournaments, news & coverage of Dota 2, the game created by Valve. Team EG (rank #22) is 13 places beyond Liquid (rank #9). Teams had 11 encounters in the past, EG won 6 times. Liquid won 5 times. EG current winrate is 40.00% against Liquid's 60.00%.

Drow is arguably the meta-defining hero right now, which means that by the end of the tournament we will see teams which are confident in first-picking her, and others which have prepared creative strategies to counter her. This is what makes EG vs Liquid an especially interesting series to analyze:

EG went for first-pick Drow two consecutive games, while Liquid countered her with two different strategies with mixed success.

At the time of writing the article, Drow was picked 16 times, banned 48 (2nd most contested hero), and has a 56% win rate.

In an interview, Kuro said that he thinks she’s “not broken, but she’s really close”. He probably said that because Drow is very strong but counterable. This statement is reinforced by the fact that he let EG pick her in game one and two of their series.

Eg Vs Liquid Prediction

There are two major aspects to the hero:

To beather, you usually need to have a plan for dealing with both aspects. In thatsense, an early-pick Drow defines the strategies of both teams to a significantextent.

What makesher “imbalanced”, is that her farming mechanic is so good (2) that she can oftenthrive even in games where:

• She losesthe laning stage (she doesn’t need items to farm the jungle, just lvl6)
• She getscountered by gap-closers (thanks to Hurricane Pike)

In thatsense, the key to her success is (2), which is hard to counter when playingagainst good, coordinated opponents.

Drowis currently the 5^th or 6^th most popular hero in pubs (onpar with Sniper) and the only one with a convincingly positive win rate (~ 55%)out of the six:

Above: Pudge, Lion, Jugg, PA,Sniper, Drow

This means that learning to play her is a goodidea, but learning to counter her is crucial if you want to win pubs consistentlyright now (more on her counters below). That said, it’s fairly likely that shewill get nerfed slightly in the new patch (most probably her farming mechanic).

Liquid used Brood in their first game against EG’sDrow extremely successfully. Brood is a great counter because she has an answerfor both (1) and (2). She is extremely fast in her Webs, which lets her get ontop of Drow relatively easily. Moreover, Drow doesn’t have AoE or mobility todeal with the Spiderlings.

More importantly,however, Brood is extremely strong in the early-mid game when Drow still needsspace to farm. This allows Brood to take control of the enemy jungle, and takeaway map control from Drow, even search for her in the jungle, which greatlyreducing Drow’s ability to flash-farm.

Broodhas faded out of the meta a little bit in the last few months, but Liquid’sconvincing success vs EG with it is likely to make the go-to Drow counter bythe end of the tournament. According to Dotabuff’s pub stats, Brood is the herowith the highest win-rate advantage over Drow, suggesting she is currently her hardest counter.

Sniper is a counter to Drow that works very differentlycompared to most. He simply has higher range than her, so he makes it hard forher to get to him in fights. Equally importantly, he is one of the bestanti-pushers in the game, which makes it hard for Drow to utilize her mid-gametiming to push high-ground.

Accordingto Dotabuff’s pub stats, PL is a good Drow counter. This is quite straightforwardto understand – he can get on top of her, and she lacks the AoE to deal withhis illusions. PL, however, is unpopular right now for one reason or another(slow farmer, countered by Crimson, etc.), which makes picking him against Drowrisky. Naga Siren, however, could providesimilar solutions. It is a bit harder for her to get on top of Drow compared toPL (her Net and ultimate help), but her illusions present a similar problem forDrow. Moreover, Naga is a great flash-farmer thanks to the interaction of RipTide and her illusions, which means that even if Drow finds her farm, Naga willbe able to keep up.

Despite thegame plan, Liquid were unable to win game 2. This is because Drow offers aninteresting strategic option to the team that picks her:

She worksboth in the mid or safe lane, and more importantly – she works both as a pos. 1or pos. 2.

This means that if youfirst-pick Drow and the enemy team over-commits in picking counters, you canuse your last pick to draft your true pos. 1 win condition hero.

In thiscase, EG chose Alchemist. Sniper and Naga are theoretically good vs Drow,but they lack the damage needed to deal with Alch’s regen. Moreover, they are bothnot active heroes that can take map control away from the relativelygreedy Drow + Alch combo. This, along with the brilliant play from Cr1t with ES,enabled EG to find their farm and reach the late game, where they simply had anadvantage in fights and managed to secure the victory.

Nyx is not a perfect counter to Drow by any means,but he is the most successful hero on the tournament so far for a reason (he has 85% win rate at MDL at the time ofwriting this article). Vendetta is a great tool to scout and find Drowwhile she’s farming. Combined with at least one other ganker, Nyx can makefree-farming the jungle very hard for her in the early-mid game. The success ofNyx, however, isn’t that directly related to Drow. He is just a great counterto a big percentage of the top-tier picks right now (Dark Seer, Enigma, NP,Oracle, Ember, Bat). He is useful against Drow, but you cannot rely on him tobe your sole solution for her.

Eg Vs Liquid Ti8

Spectre is one of the heroes that teams have tried touse to counter Drow. Spect’s ultimate directly counters (1) by letting her findand get on top of Drow instantly in fights. Moreover, it could also be used tocounter (2): if you have teammates that can hunt Drow, Spect can join the gankwith Haunt. That said, Spect has a timing problem against Drow. Drow hits avery strong mid-game push timing, which comes before Spectre comes online. Thismeans that if you rely on Spect to win against Drow, you need to also have aplan how to survive the mid game push of the Drow team or how to delay hertiming by actively ganking her and taking control of her jungle.

Eg Vs Liquid Lol

Phantom Assassin is another classic counter that can work. She obviouslyhas a great mechanic to get on top of Drow, but she is a slower farmer.This means that if you rely on PA to beat a Drow, you need to play aggressivelystraight out of the laning stage (together with your whole team, PA cannot makemoves on her own) to take away Drow’s map control. Otherwise, you risk letting theDrow find her farm. With Hurricane and later in the game MKB and/or SilverEdge, Drow can deal with PA late game.

Tinker & Zeus work vs Drow a bit like Sniper. They cannot geton top of her and they cannot contest her jungle (without the help of theirteam), but they can damage her in fights from a safe distance and they aregreat at anti-pushing, which prevents Drow from ending the game in her strongmid-game timing.

SinceDrow is meta-defining, understanding her counters is also crucial if you’rebetting on MDL matches. Understanding which lineups could work against her andwhich lineups have problems can give you a big advantage for live betting. IfDrow doesn’t get banned, pay close attention to the draft of the enemy team(does it have some of the counters we talked about above?) and to the lastpick(s) of the Drow team (in case they try to move Drow to pos. 2 and pickanother win condition hero). Evaluating these factors well enough could giveyou an advantage over the odds.

Eg Vs Liquid

Thanksfor reading! If you found this piece interesting, make sure to follow our social media (below) to get notified when we post something new! You can find the 2nd part of our Drow analysis (VP vs Minesky and LGD) here.