Drafting Practice: Day Two

Love this tool:  http://dota2draft.the-cluster.org/
... too bad not more people use it.  Would be a great addition to the Dota 2 client!

Draft #1 Analysis:  Me as Radiant

His lanes are strong, although I don't think the aggro trilane would have worked - Dazzle is too much of a defensive support, and WK only has about 1-2 Hellfire blasts before he's out of mana.  A well-placed Cask or Hex (or both) would pretty much ruin his kill attempt.  Finally, Void could simply Time Walk away, and some spells / attacks on him would simply fail due to Backtrack.

Midgame, if Silence was cast, I could simply fall back, and then use Stampede to re-engage. Serpent Wards don't care about Silence if they are already cast, similar to Chronosphere.

Simply put, without a dominant early game, which my opponent isn't really set up for, he has nothing to counter Tinker's split push, nor Shadow Shaman's Serpent Ward's pushing power.  I suppose you could argue that Dazzle does well with Shadow Wave against pushes, Razor has his AOE, and TA can "cleave" waves, but none of those kill towers.

The only combo that would work well would be to wait until Death Ward is down from WD, cast Silence during the Chrono so that only Void could do appreciable damage, and then hopefully Hellfire Blast and kill Void with right-clicks.  He has lots of carry, but no AOE lockdown, and no reliable initiation (unless he tried the Wraith King sucker punch?).

Draft #2 Analysis:  Me as Dire

My aggro tri-lane would have a difficult time, here.  Disruptor MIGHT be the only saving grace, as it would be easier to arrange a "cage match" in the Kinetic Field, or maybe to Glimpse someone back into a Burrowstrike + Open Wounds/Rage.

I've tried a "support Slardar" myself, and I find he makes a very poor tri-lane hero.  He can roam decently, but in this case he's not going to do well trying to gank Batrider, who can simply fly over a cliff or use a cocktail to bounce him back out of range.

Beastmaster vs. NP is probably a wash, although range vs. melee favours NP slightly.  NP can also join other skirmishes at will, unlike Beastmaster.  NP Sprout and Beastmaster Roar both shut down melee carries quite effectively, magic resist or no.

If the game went long, his superior (many) carries would probably overwhelm my team, but counter-pushing against NP would be difficult for him, with only Beastmaster having any AOE ability.

There's very little he could do against a Batrider initiation against Brewmaster.

I think it would actually be a decent game, and a great deal influenced by the respective skills of the players.

Draft #3 Analysis:  Me as Radiant

I actually loved my last-pick Huskar on this one.  The nice thing about the Razor-Huskar matchup (for me) is that Burning Spears does magical damage, so it's no reduced even if Razor Static Links a lot of Huskar's damage away.  I think it would be an interesting lane matchup.  Late game, Huskar would fall off a lot, unless he could maintain a level and item advantage from an early-game snowball.

The tri-lanes are both nasty.  With melee carries, the stuns and slows would really impede them from doing damage, although an earlier Mirror Image on Naga would really make single-target stuns inconvenient, as they tried to choose the right target.  CM and SS would be good defensive supports, and would make it very difficult for WK to successfully reach and right-click any single target.

The solo lanes are a wash - no one would get an advantage there, and both would be able to farm their Blink Daggers relatively fast.  Neither would be likely to kill the other after Level 6, either.  However, both are powerful teamfight heroes.

I believe neither team has the advantage late-game, even though Static Link isn't very effective against an illusion hero, but Razor's ultimate would be very good at not only determining the right target for Link, but also to rapidly reduce the illusions.  Huskar would remain a threat to the supports throughout the game, and could be a decent initiator against that lineup, though he'd have to stack some armor to prevent getting right-clicked down, especially facing Vengeance Aura and Wave of Terror.

Very late game, or if Naga got ahead in farm with a proper Radiance, I believe Dire would have issues against the split-push of the illusions.  However, Venge would scale better than CM or SS, and AA's ult would remain effective throughout the game (and would also help vs. the split push).