Day Seven Drafting Practice: Uncertain Outcomes

Draft #1:  Me as Radiant

Honestly I don't know how his aggro tri-lane would do.  My opponent and I argued about it a lot, and he felt that Lycan would get highly shut down, and even killed with Chilling Touch.  Or, that WR would simply harass him until he could no longer farm.

I'm pretty sure I destroy his other 2 lanes though - PA isn't going to get anything done vs. Batrider, except a few last hits with Dagger, and Tide isn't going to have a good time vs. Silencer mid.

Mind you, he COULD abandon the tri-lane and leave WR there to hold back pushes, and then roam AA + SS and make Silencer's life in mid very difficult...

One of the problems with his tri-lane comes when Silencer hits 6 and neither AA nor SS are anywhere close because of the tri-lane.  After a few levels, Lycan can even go jungle, while SS and AA will have a hard time catching up on levels.  Of course, he'll also have an early Ravage (if he manages to use it before I silence him), and quite a lot of CC.

If Batrider can get an early Blink (which he should be able to), he can kill almost any of the opponent's supports solo (except Tide), unless SS is very fast with his Hex.  This will mean also that PA is never going to feel safe farming when Batrider can just Blink in and kill her.

Draft #2:  Me as Dire

Here I am, getting greedy again.

I think mid lane is a tie, since Zeus can just stay back and farm with Arc Lightning, but I should be able to drive NP out of top lane (or kill him a lot), but my LD isn't likely to get much done bottom, although it will be difficult for them to repeatedly kill the bear.

My opponent admitted to me that he was going for a "global effect" line-up, which he saw a pro team draft once.  It looks quite effective on paper, except that he's relying on NP having a good game and being able to split push to prevent / avoid / tradeoff during teamfights.   He has squishy heroes and nothing to save them with during a Chronosphere.  Of course, if Spectre gets off the ground, his Haunt will tear my supports apart, too.

He might also have forgotten about Rubick's Null Field, which increases my team's magic resist, and also that Viper's Corrosive Skin gives extra resist as well.  He's not likely to be killing me with nukes, and if he roams his supports, LD's bear is going to shut down Spectre.

My team's real issue would be with Nyx - I have very squishy, Int-based supports, and a roaming / initiating Nyx would be very difficult to counter.  It may also prevent my LD from solo farming or pushing if Nyx gets a few items up.

Draft #3:  Me as Dire

Okay, so my Earthshaker isn't really going to be able to roam.  He puts a very push-heavy tri-lane against my tri-lane, and I pick the tanky CK as an early-effect carry in response.

I have decent anti-push with SS, Invoker, and Beastmaster, although I really don't have much to counter his split-push from NP, who will have a good laning phase given the matchup.

This game would largely come down to the success of his aggro tri-lane, and whether I could get farm on CK so that he could snowball into the midgame.  He's going fairly midgame-centric himself, so it would be an interesting match.

This particular opponent placed great stock in aggro tri-lanes with supports and no true carry.  I suspect he would farm his Leshrac in this tri-lane (I suppose Veno could be the other choice?).