The article was written based on teams’ drafts only for the current 6.84 patch in collaboration with Jaishil “Drifter” Mistry and it highlights their current playstyle.
Team Empire
Achievements:
3rd D2CL Season 4
1st StarLadder Season 11
1st jD-MLG Pro League Season 1
1st D2CL Season 5
2nd MDL
2nd Esportal Dota 2 League
The visa curse that crippled the team’s attendance at major events made them to fade from everyone’s attention and they became one of the most underrated teams in Europe. However, Team Empire is considered one of the most aggressive teams from CIS and they seem to have finally hit their stride with the current roster.
Although “aggressiveness” is the attribute that defines their playstyle, the Russian squad has a slightly different approach to the current meta. They always build their drafts around Resolution, Silent and yoky who instead of semi afk farming their lanes, they are the ones who provide the early rotations and make Empire to be extremely dominant over their opponents with cores like Bloodseeker or Viper.
Empire’s offlaner yoky can be regarded as one of the most disruptive players in the scene because his plays are defined by boldmoves that are setting high pressure on the enemy supports, forcing rotations and making his opponents to invest time and gold in order to stop him bullying an entire trilane. That’s why Empire prefer to ensure an Axe or Clockwerck for him, while Io and Undying are top bans in their drafts.
Team Empire Roster:
Airat "Silent" Gaziev
Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok
Maxim "yoky" Kim
Andrey "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko
Ilya "ALOHADANCE" Korobkin
Cloud 9
Achievements:
2nd WEC 2014
2nd WCA 2014
3 - 4th ESL One New York
2nd Dream League Season 2
2nd The Summit 2
5 - 6th DAC
3rd StarLadder Season 12
5 - 6th The Summit 3
3rd MDL
5 - 8th ESL One Frankfurt 2015
2nd Dota Pit League Season 3
The forever second place finishers in major tournaments, Cloud 9, once known for their innovations in terms of drafts and playstyle have become at some point criticized by their fans for repeating up to exhaustion the same two, maximum three heroes for EternalEnvy and Bone7. But things have changed lately and Cloud 9’s drafts for the last two months are anything but predictable.
The current meta forced them out of their appetence for long, drawn-out games that usually were just variations on the classical "four protect one" theme. Looking at their 6.84 record, we discover a team in a continuous search for a strategy that can tilt the opponents.
Here is a true fact that can be said about Cloud 9: over the course of the last five weeks, in the three tournaments that Envy’s team participated in (MDL, ESL One and the last stage of Dota Pit 3) every team member played at least ten different heroes: Bone7: 15 different heroes; MiSeRY: 14 different heroes; N0tail: 13 different heroes; Fata: 12 different heroes; EternalEnvy: 10 different heroes.
Cloud 9 Roster:
Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao
Adrian "FATA-" Trinks
Pittner "bOne7" Armand
Johan "BigDaddy" Sundstein
Rasmus "MiSeRy" Filipsen
Invictus Gaming
Achievements:
3 - 4th i-League
4 - 8th WCA 2014
5 - 6th i-League Season 2
7 - 8th DAC
2nd StarLadder Season 12
5 - 6th The Summit 3
5 - 6th i-league Season 3
5 - 8th MDL
3 - 4th ESL One Frankfurt 2015
It’s been a rough competitive season for Invictus Gaming who did not manage to finish in the top three of any tournament in the last months and one of the most concerning loss was registered in i-League 3 when they got knocked out by Newbee.
However, IG’s roster has three former TI champions carried by the legend BurNIng himself, and despite their non-existing results in 6.84 they still are a force to be reckoned with.
The Chinese champions seem to not find a way to work around the current meta. Their drafts are a mix of signature heroes that can be labeled almost as safe or comfortable picks, with the addition of few "flavour of the patch" heroes. For instance, Ferrari_430 has not played yet a single official game on the popular mid pick Leshrac, BurNIng being in fact the one who adapted the most to this patch from this point of view. If Chuan doesn’t get the chance to play his signature Rubick he will appeal to his old school Chen or to his highest win rate hero in 6.83 Witch Doctor. Looking at their bans we can assume that either IG aren't willing to blindly follow a patch trend and they rely on their strongest heroes or that they simply can't adapt to the current meta and choose to circumvent it.
Invictus Gaming Roster:
Xu "BurNIng" Zhilei
Luo "Ferrari_430" Feichi
Luo "Luo" Yinqi
Wong "ChuaN" Hock Chuan
Zeng "Faith" Hongda
Virtus.Pro
Achievements:
4th Dream League Season 2
2nd Dota Pit League Season 2
2nd Dota 2 League Season 5
2nd StarLadder Season 11
5 - 6th jD-MLG Pro League Season 2
1st Dream League Season 3
3 - 4th ESL One Frankfurt 2015
1st Esportal Dota 2 League
3rd Dota Pit League Season 3
After a disastrous run at The International 4, Virtus.Pro had to go through a difficult year that included the unexpected decision to drop their entire squad only to rebuild it almost from zero. Going through many roster and name changes, from NVMI to VP.Polar or Asus.Polar, they finally regrouped under the initial Virtus.Pro name in April this year and since then they've been doing great.
Similar to most CIS teams, Virtus.Pro are known for their super aggressive playstyle which makes them somehow predictable. However, in the new 6.84 patch VP found a way to surprise their enemies with unorthodox picks like Bloodseeker played as support or the carry Silencer.
Their drafts are focused mostly on getting strong heroes for God and Illidan who are not afraid to swap the carry - mid roles if circumstances are asking for it. Although they fully embrace the 6.84 drafting trend, VP remain one of the fewest teams who are constantly still running the classical Drow-Visage combination and the ones who would appeal from time to time to the tried and proven Illidan’s Slark.
Virtus.Pro Roster:
Ilya "Illidan" Pivcaev
Sergey "God" Bragin
Alexander "DkPhobos" Kucheria
Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk
Artem "fng" Barshak
More content on GosuGamers
