[Analysis] Top picks differ between skill levels and geographical areas

Its always interesting to see how differences between the particular dota scene you play in and the skill level of your team influences the heroes that are seen as most important to pick and ban. I do have a habit of lurking around dota forums quite often, and I see alot of discussion about which heroes are the top bans and picks at the time "of course bane is 100% a ban" "what do you mean Dark Seer isnt a first pick?". However it has alot to do with how good you are and what the common picks in your scene are - some people will be talking about the top picks of the top asian sponsored teams, whilst others may be talking about the top picks in their own low-skilled North American clan wars... its all very subjective to different situations.

Mid-skilled European
I suppose this is the sort of category that my dota falls into, so I can give a nice overview of what we as a team and opponents around our skill level tend to rate most highly.


These 4 guys are arguably the most important bans for us, i.e. we wont allow the opponents to take them as their first pick, though its fine to leave a way for us to first-pick one of them given the opportunity. They're too game-breaking to allow the opponents to take them, with the exception perhaps of NA whose not quite as dangerous as the rest but still a massive annoyance that it'd be much nicer not to have to deal with.


These guys are all "bannable" in our eyes as they're all very strong in their own ways, however we're much more likely to allow our opponents to first-pick these heroes, if it allows us two good picks afterwards. These guys are high tier, but not quite the top of the top that we have to ban them every time.

However, the fact that I come out with these heroes as being the most important doesn't mean that thats the case for all areas, and it doesnt mean that I'm trying to say that no other heroes *should* be top picks either, so lets have a look at some other things I've seen recently too.

Low-skilled European
Sometimes we come up against teams that are probably sort of a tier down from us skill-wise in our general search for random clan wars, and you definately see a different approach to hero picks.



For some reason more importance seems to be given to Kunkka in lower skilled games, which can seem rather counter-intuative because he obviously requires a bit of skill to play properly, but anyway he tends to get banned alot more often in lower skilled match-ups. Came across a team a few weeks ago in pick-league that first-picked kunkka, allowing us to pick up clockwerk and rhasta as our first and second pick - significantly playing out in our favour I'd say.

More significance seems to be given to heroes with nasty AoE stuff too, an enigma ban is common-place in lower level games, whilst tide, lich and treant all see a load more play than they would in higher level matches.

High-skilled European
So by this I'm talking about the proper top-of-the-top sponsored teams, the ones that you see at all the big LAN events, etc.



Chen is definately a massively important pick when teams have a player whose particularly good at using him, much more common in high level games and even quite often banned. Morphling has been seen a vast amount of the time recently - picked and banned alot, and for good reason because in the correct hands he's a very viable late-game carry who also ganks and escapes rather nicely to fit into the ganking style of gameplay. Abaddon and Dark Seer are also getting seen quite alot more often too, abaddon is great at removing debuffs from allies, healing them, and at the same time damaging enemies... coupled with the fact that he's annoyingly hard to kill he's great at dragging out fights and giving your side the upper hand. Dark seer is a tricky one, I'm still not quite sure of the best way to involve him in lineups, but it seems the pros are able to use him to good effect.

Also it seems in high skilled games, teams are much more likely to be allowed to pick the big nasties like TC and NA, because they know how to neutralise them reasonably well, and forcing the opponents to pick one of these guys can garuantee them a couple of nice hero picks too.

High-skilled Asian

My knowledge of the asian scene is rather limited to watching replays from some of the top teams every now and again, so this may be rather incorrect, but i'm just gonna list some heroes that I've seen alot more often than they're seen in European dota.



Now correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though carrying types of heroes that are also good when it comes to pushing are all the range in Asian dota at the moment.


But basically, before you mock someone for suggesting that Krobelus is a top-pick, think for a moment that perhaps thats because she is, just not within the dota scene that you're used to. If anyone feels i'm drastically wrong about any of this stuff, and missing off vital heroes from my lists, please feel free to comment and tell me that I'm being stupid :D