Drafting Practice: Day Four, Analysis

Just FYI - this drafting is during patch 6.81b.

Draft #1:  Me as Radiant

We both have some serious push, but I have way harder carries.  Unfortunately, I got too greedy with them, and Faceless Void is unlikely to be able to do anything solo offlane.  I thought it was a good idea at the time, until the Pugna pick, because I didn't account for Silences + Nukes being just as effective as stuns (I saw few stuns, and thought I'd take a chance with an offlane Void).

I would probably rotate Witch Doctor offlane to support Void, and since both Pugna and Skywrath are both very squishy, some early aggression might pay off (or a very lucky Cask from WD).

His pushing power peaks earlier than mine, with Enigma, DK, and Pugna all coming online long before Gyro starts being a flash-farming pusher, and DP peaks a little later than DK, given that DP's level 6 ultimate isn't nearly as powerful as her level 11 ultimate (number of spirits goes up a lot, especially with more levels in Mysticism).

We both have quite the wombo combos going on here, but I feel that Silencer and Void can both easily disrupt his initiation combo, as long as they aren't both in the Black Hole, or bursted down during/immediately after a Ravage (which is indeed possible).

I have a nasty, nasty combo with Chronosphere + Death Ward + Call Down/Flak Cannon + Exorcism/Crypt Swarm + Global Silence.  Basically, if I get the Silence off, and a Chrono on 2 or more targets, I'm going to kill the 2 targets, even if they are BKB'ed (Death Ward and Exorcism are both physical damage, as is Flak Cannon, not even including Void's right-clicks.

The smart thing to do would be to rush Agh's on Void just to enable more frequent Chronos.


If he could get a successful Ravage + Blackhole onto Silencer and Void before I could counterinitiate with Chrono or Global Silence, he could do some serious damage.  DK would be very difficult to kill inside a Chrono without the rest of the combo, and Ravage could set up some really nice Silences and Stuns.

The other problem I have with my draft is a lack of reliable stuns.  On the opponent's team, he has DK's stun, two big ultimates with stun, a silence, Enigma's short-lived but frequent Malifice stun, and Pugna's Decrepify.  I do, however, have 2 unreliable stuns and 2 silences, plus Chrono.

The determining factor behind who would win is probably whether my opponent could get an early lead and push, versus whether I could prolong the game long enough for my carries to get farm.

I think I got a bit too greedy, though.

Draft #2:  Me as Radiant

Apparently today was a day of greedy line-ups.  However, in this case I might get away with it, as Lone Druid could farm with his bear, given that Leshrac is very squishy, Treant is a more defensive support (usually), and Bristleback only has a slow, and is primarily a tank (although yes, he can carry quite well).  OD will be fine against Viper mid, and Void + Warlock will ensure safe farm against Tidehunter, although if Treant and Leshrac rotate bottom while Shadow Shaman isn't there, they could kill Warlock quite easily (Void would likely be able to Time Walk to safety).

I drafted Warlock early, and intended to go for more of a wombo-combo with him, but when I saw the very-defensive Treant pick, along with Tidehunter (no stun early game), I started going greedy.

His main problem is that he has very little anti-push, other than Leshrac, who is a close-range pusher.  Warlock golems + Bear + Serpent Wards + Warlock Slow are going to be difficult to deal with.  A good Ravage followed by Overgrowth + Leshrac AOE could really hurt, but that assumes that Shadow Shaman doesn't Sheep or Shackle Leshrac or Bristleback, and that the bear doesn't get any Entangles.  With only 1 Int hero, OD's ultimate is REALLY going to hurt, too.

I think I did well on this one - early and mid game is stable enough unless he snowballs hard with Viper, and he has very short-range damage abilities other than right-clicks from Viper and Bristle.  I would have liked to see how this game plays out.

Draft #3:  Me as Radiant

Man, this guy loves Treant, and going Dire side.

Frankly, I think I could win this one with early to mid-game dominance.  Exhort Invoker can do well enough mid against Razor once he has Forge Spirits to harass, and the two enemy supports won't get much XP, can't leave Wraith King alone in lane vs. Batrider, and don't have enough lockdown to kill Batrider before he flies away.  Yes, if Batrider was dumb and took a Hellfire Blast + Cold Feet + Leech Seed, he'd be dead, but otherwise he could soak XP, force the supports to remain to protect WK, and allow my Earthshaker to take apart his Razor and his Doom.  Actually, I think CK + Wisp could take apart Doom by themselves, but Earthshaker would make it pretty much guaranteed (Doom has very little base armor and no escape from Fissure/Chaos Bolt/Reality Rift).

The other thing you may not notice is that I have quite the global presence with Wisp Relocate + Invoker Sunstrike.   Batrider is also highly mobile, and can jump in for pickoffs.   My opponent has a good defensive ability with Living Armor, but I have a fair amount of magical burst, which isn't going to be prevented with Living Armor.

It might be worth mentioning that he doesn't have a lineup that can do a Level 1 Roshan, or even an early Roshan - he has too many melee heroes, which leads to Roshan using his AOE stomp/stun, and he doesn't have any abilities, auras, or synergy to allow him to kill Roshan quickly.  Thus, it's more difficult for him to use the only Dire advantage.

Here, I'm in the position of having a weaker lategame, with CK as a stronger midgame hero, and Invoker as only a secondary core.  His Razor + WK + Doom is going to outcarry me hard, but only if they can get farm.  Razor's Static Link isn't all that useful against an illusion-based carry, and he has no strong AOE ultimates or Cleave to deal with illusions.  He does, however, have several good damage-dealing right-clickers, but Wisp and Invoker are both quite squishy if I could focus them.

Draft #4:  Me as Radiant

Okay, so I grab Lycan this time, since my opponent doesn't ban it.  That means a push strategy, so I follow up with Death Prophet after he picks Tinker.  I go Clockwerk to counter his Tinker, since Tinker would at least have to worry about being initated upon while split-pushing.  I protect Lycan with Sand King, who can jungle nicely for farm, and Jakiro, who combos nicely with Clockwerk, and also has decent push and anti-push, in addition to being relatively tanky.

He has Cold Feet and Roar as his only stuns.

His only anti-push, aside from Tinker's March of the Machines, is Beastmaster's Axes.  Beastmaster can't really spam axes (cooldown, mana), and if Tinker is helping with anti-push, he isn't split pushing.

Tinker can't catch Lycan to kill him (unless Lycan stupidly has no ult when split-pushing), and Tinker can't escape Lycan (other than a TP) once Lycan has BKB.  Yes, Tinker could Blink + Sheep on top of Lycan and Laser/Dagon/Rocket him for tons of damage, but by the time Tinker gets that much farm, I should be knocking on his Barracks.

His initiation is limited to Beastmaster's single-target stun, or an Overgrowth.  Overgrowth doesn't grant him much - I can defensively Ice Path, Macropyre, Cogs, Burrowstrike, Silence... almost every hero has some defensive against it.  It locks Lycan down for a bit, but there's no followup.  Sure, he could lob an AA Ice Blast on top of my push, but he can't go charging in on the heels of that against Ice Path, Burrowstrike, Cogs, and Exorcism / Silence.

I'm pretty confident that I'd have the edge in this draft.