What Can We Learn from DreamLeague?
DreamLeague is far from over, but some concepts and ideas from it are already making waves. Today we want to have a quick look at some of them and evaluate how well they fit into everyday pubs.
Mirana position five
This is quite new and a little bit greedy, but it does make quite a bit of sense. The hero is one of the few Universal heroes whoās never really been Meta and it feels like now is her time to shine.
Personally, we believe that Mirana is a lot better in a well coordinated professional game than she is in pubs, but there are some advantages that can be leveraged even without communication.
Miranaās extra Attack Range makes her decent in trades despite having one of the lowest Attack Damage values in the game. It ramps up well enough, as she is a Universal hero, but to actually win trades you have to be very precise with Starstorm. It is also the reason we sometimes see Mirana go for a 2-0-1-0 build by level three: getting Sacred Arrow can be good in lanes where contesting the ranged creep is problematic and it can be good in a lane with a stun setup (e.g. Sven or Wraith King), but for the most part reliability should be the priority.
Sacred Arrow is also generally better after the Night falls at minute five: landing an unexpected Arrow is easier and even if you miss it, you can create value by zoning out the enemy mid from a Power Rune.
All in all, outside of Undying and Phoenix matchups, we feel like there are better supports than Mirana, but the hero is undeniably fun to play and she can be an asset to her team with good defensive or aura items. Professional scene favours Drum of Endurance, but we would recommend building towards easier to use items like Solar Crest and Guardian Greaves.
Puck is always relevant
Late game Puck is very scary. It would be ok, if it was your typical slow hard carry with laning stage issues, but Puck is also quite scary during the midgame. In fact, outside of their laning stage, Puck might be one of the strongest heroes in the game, at least in the hands of professional players.
High burst damage, high elusiveness and incredible scaling make them relevant throughout the game. Very few core heroes can jump two supports in the backline and kill them over three seconds, while being invulnerable themselves. Personally, we feel like itās a bit of a problem, but we firmly believe it is a problem only for the absolute highest level of play.
Donāt get us wrong ā Puck is good in pubs, they are just not OP. The hero is still quite hard to utilise effectively and one mistake can cost them their life. On top of it, actually getting to a point where Puck is a scary DPS machine takes time ā the hero is mostly about teamfight control and setup for ~30 minutes.
Learning to play Puck will take time and patience. It also demands high quality connection ā ping is crucial to their elusiveness, as Puck players need to be able to dodge stuns and projectiles to squeeze the maximum out of the hero. That said, it is a 64%+ win rate hero across 40+ games and it is a hero that is absolutely broken in the right hands.
Batrider is a good soft support
0-1-2-0 lane build is making Batrider one of the scariest supports to lane against. The added movement slow on Flamebreak coupled with Blood Grenade and potential Firefly can deal a tremendous amount of damage, while preventing any disengagement.
This is highly dependent on actually landing Flamebreak, but any squishy support can be killed when Batrider is level three. Slow and squishy supports like Crystal Maiden and Ancient Apparition can even be gone on as soon as Batrider is level two. Especially if you have a strong kill hero in the offlane.
Weāve seen Batrider four also have great success when rotating mid during the nighttime. They can create a kill threat on pretty much any hero in the game pre-level six. Heroes like Storm Spirit and Ember Spirit canāt really disengage, while heroes like Puck can be baited into using their escape abilities beforehand.
All in all, this is a support that can have a tremendous impact on the game and during DreamLeague weāve seen Batrider take over the map and even outfarm enemy mids. Stealing stacks is also a possibility for the heron which should not be underestimated.
The hero is excellently suited for pubs, as long as you can learn to land good Flamebreak and your Offlaner isnāt asleep. Probably one of the most likely heroes to get nerfed in the next patch, so play him while you can.
Closing thoughts
New patch should be coming soon, but it doesnāt mean that we have to stop trying to learn from the old one. A lot of skills and ideas are transferable and meta is often cyclical. By playing meta heroes over a long enough period of time, one can actually learn all heroes in the game, while playing the most broken ones in every single patch.
We feel like the selection of āOPā heroes is especially fun in the current patch as well, but what are your thoughts? Are you ready to say goodbye to 7.35 or would you rather play it a bit more? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
