In the past I didn’t really talk about drafting. #1, I saw no reason to reveal my thought process, especially since #2, I don’t really care what most people think about me (and don’t need to convince anyone of my ability). #3, I’m also not a type of person who enjoys indiscriminately “discussing” things with every random person. I pick and choose who I like to discuss things with.
I still see no reason to reveal how I think, but it may be fun to talk a little bit about drafting without divulging too much. I’m also not sure how much longer I’ll be playing dota, so there’s not much reason left to “save” things anyway.
In this case study, I’ll look at how I approached drafting against ChowMains last week.
I always look at a team’s past matches. I try to get a general sense of what they played, if they played it well, and maybe how they think. For example, I dug up their week 0 match against Moca. They let through Moca’s prided TA, intending to counter it. There are certain players, the fewer heroes they play, the more fiercely proud of those heroes they get. I think it blinds them and they can’t see balance objectively. Other players take a more holistic approach to hero selection and counter-craft. This draft suggested to me that ChowMains might be the latter type of player.
Against Waifu in week 3, they banned Naga Siren in the 2nd phase in both games. Now out of laziness, I didn’t go look at Waifu’s team to see if there was a particular reason. If you were more dedicated, you could do that. But it planted an idea in my head that ChowMains might respect the Naga, and if I wanted her, I might need to take her phase 1. (As it turned out, I got her in Phase 2.) I also recall comments ChowMains made in previous seasons about Naga pickers. If you have a good memory and pay attention, random information people give may end up being useful.
By the way, I often like to ask in discord about certain players, or certain heroes, to see what people say. It’s not that I’m genuinely asking for my own learning, but I’m asking Socratically to see what other people think. Sometimes people will also mention that someone plays a certain hero, which wouldn’t necessarily show up on their dotabuff. The point is that if you keep your ears to the ground, you can learn a lot.
I also look at every player’s dotabuff, especially their heroes from the last 3 months, and 6 months. Not only am I looking for the absolute number of games played, but if there are any heroes that have a high winrate. I find this tack useful in deciding bans and formulating draft plans, but sometimes it will miss things. For example, last season I gave 4leks DP, but apparently many people in RD2L knew that 4leks was known for his DP. It didn’t show up in my dotabuff research.
Let’s take a look at 659’s 6 months hero history. He’s mostly been playing TA with a good winrate. OD is respectable, and though he’s been playing Lina, he hasn’t been winning.
So with that information, I could make some choices. I decided not to ban TA, because I think I can counter her. OD they had already lost with in a previous week, and so I also leaned against respecting it. Lina, even though I thought it likely that they would pick her, I decided to let through on the basis of the low winrate.
This is just one example. I made other ban decisions using the above method, even banning heroes that they haven’t pulled out yet this season. Out of respect for ChowMains’s team, I won’t spell everything out here. The reader can do his own supplementary research.
Here’s our game 1, and game 2.
Lone druid was on my mind for this match, as ChowMains has been playing it, and he crushed with it in week 3. I could justify banning it, but ChowMains is a flexible player and I might not get much out of the ban. Asking in discord, the LD pick also seemed to be more reactionary and not so much an auto-grab. I was also reluctant to ban LD because my own team plays the hero.
So deciding not to ban it, I had to keep it in mind, and potentially take it myself (thus blocking it). Now obviously if you decide to let a hero through, you better have some plans in mind to deal with it.
It’s hard, at this point, to talk much about the draft without revealing some trade secrets. So I’ll decline to talk about the specific picks, and go back to speaking about generalities.
After losing game 1, I tend to just ban out the problem heroes and make the opponent play something else in game 2. I always remember TI4 where VG lost to the same thing 3 games in a row in the final. This is arrogance and stubbornness. It’s easy to think you know what went wrong, and keep disrespecting the opponent. But more often than not, there is something missing in your understanding that you haven’t realized yet. I think it’s better to just psychologically reset, and make the opponent play something else in game 2. And remember, you may be able to improve something in game 2 (to better counter what they did in game 1), but don’t think your opponent can’t improve too!.
There’s a lot more I could say about drafting, but that’s enough for today.
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