With the play-in for the Riyadh Masters 2024 Dota 2 tournament complete, we look at the team and the hero statistics for the three days of Dota 2 played.
One of the two biggest Dota 2 tournaments of the year has begun. The Riyadh Masters 2024 kicked off on the 4th of July and had three days of play-in games to decide which eight teams would advance to the main group stage of the tournament to play with the invited teams, and which four would be eliminated.
A total of 65 games were played in play-in stage, which included games amongst two groups of six teams, a tiebreaker and two decider series between the fourth place team of Group A and fifth place team of Group B, and vice versa. As we head into the group stage of the main tournament, here is a look at the team and hero statistics for the 65 games played. All data has been taken from datDota.
Riyadh Masters 2024 Play-In Team Statistics
Riyadh Masters 2024 Play-In Hero Statistics
Total games played: 65
Total heroes picked: 92
Number of unpicked heroes: 32
Most picked heroes:
1) Hoodwink (32 games, 20 wins, 62.50% win rate)
2) Pangolier (23 games, 7 wins, 30.43% win rate)
3) Sven (20 games, 11 wins, 55.00% win rate)
Most contested heroes:
1) Tiny (Picked or banned 60 games 92.31% contest rate)
2) Weaver (Picked or banned 59 games 90.77% contest rate)
3) Monkey King (Picked or banned 57 games 87.69% contest rate)
Most banned heroes:
1) Monkey King (banned in 51 games)
2) Tiny (banned in 47 games)
3) Shadow Fiend (banned in 44 games)
Heroes with the highest win rate (10 games or more):
1) Shadow Fiend (18 picks, 72.22% win rate)
2) Lifestealer (15 picks, 66.67% win rate)
3) Dark Seer (19 picks, 63.16% win rate)
Heroes with lowest win rate (10 games or more):
1) Chaos Knight (11 picks, 27.27% win rate)
2) Pangolier (23 picks, 30.43% win rate)
3) Jakiro (13 picks, 30.77% win rate)
After the release of Dota 2 patch 7.36c, there was a shift in the meta, and some new heroes like Monkey King and Shadow Fiend can be seen to have gained priority. Old faithful heroes like Chaos Knight and Pangolier are suffering with low win rates as they continue to be picked after nerfs.
With $5 million on the line, teams are bound to bring their best, and that is what we have seen from the play-in games. Teams like Entity, HEROIC, Blacklist International and PSG Quest were ruthless, and will be teams to watch out for in the Riyadh Masters 2024 group stage. Having more professional games under your belt can help with momentum, but it can also mean opponents have more data on you. Irrespective of whether the directly invited teams dominate or the play-in ones, we are in for some edge-of-the-seat Dota 2 action for the next two weeks.
The group stage games of Riyadh Masters 2024 Dota 2 will begin on the 10th of July. 
For more match results and updates on the go don't forget to check out our Telegram channel.
