OK guys I got really bored at home so I decided to make a thread about picking in CM. This thread specifically discusses the "rock paper scissors" nature of the picking phase but feel free to discuss other things that are related to picking. Anyways, what is it that you need in a team to win a game anyway?
There are 3 main strategies that a team can use to win a game. Those are the turtling strategy, the pushing strategy, and the ganking strategy. The turtling strategy is basically choosing a hero that has the potential to be unstoppable and nurturing him all game until he does become unstoppable, then pushing for the win. The pushing strategy involves getting heroes skilled at pushing (Pugna, Chen, Syllabear, etc) and raxing lanes asap. The ganking strategy is used to shut down enemy heroes while at the same time getting strong in order to be at a higher level than your opponents to win.
Of course no team strictly sticks to just one of those strategies all game. However, almost all the teams that I've seen specialize in at least one of the strategies. Let's assume a team specializing in ganking (team A) is facing a team that specializes in turtling (team B). Right off the bat the ganking team is at a disadvantage. Team B's plan would be to keep the towers up as long as possible and to keep their carry's income at a high level. When a ganking team approaches the enemy carry hero to gank him, a good turtle team will send in thier support to help him out and most of the time reverse the situation and own the gankers. A good turtling team would have wards set up that protect thier carry hero, making it extremely difficult to attack. Not only that, but this entire uphill battle that the gankers face can end as soon as the turtling team wins even just one important team battle!
The turtling strat does have a weakness though, and that's a pushing strat. These days turtlers usually go with 2 carry heroes, or perhaps even as many as 3. With a team that is entirely focused on pushing is pushing mid, you need at least 3 heroes usually to stop them. When half of your team are carry heroes however, you would need usually 4. Carry heroes without money can't do much against an army of summons and aoe spells coming at them left and right. By forcing the vulnerable carry heroes to the front line prematurely, pushing teams can create a big advantage by preventing their farm. If instead the carry heroes decide to stick in their lanes and try to farm, a good pushing strategy will have knocked down the mid raxes early. Of course this creates a HUGE advantage for the pushing team, as now pushing other lanes will be easier with the constant pressure coming from mid. Recently Icefrog gave pushing strategies huge buffs with the TP scroll nerf and the reduced exp/gold from big creeps.
Pushing strats have a huge weakness though, and that's against a ganking strat. When you are trying to push a lane you would usually spend your mana trying to knock down the tower, either by using aoe spells to knock down creeps or creating your own. This leaves you vulnerable, and basically just makes you a super creep with a brain. A good ganking team will get you disabled and dead in a few seconds if you are ou tin the open next to their tower. When your team groups up to try and push they can own your team fast just by having a couple of AOE stunners.
In other words, pushing strats > turtling strats, turtling strats > ganking strats, ganking strats > pushing strats, assuming both teams are even. Keep this in mind the next time you are picking a team in a CM game. You will probably be surprised at how much easier the game is after picking a correct counter strategy against your opponent. Of course in game it is a lot different, because the flexibility of the heroes lets your team have multiple strategies, all with the same hero! And of course sometimes it becomes turtle vs turtle, gank vs gank, rarely push vs push and etc so you have to be adaptive. It is good to practice all three strategies, because as the versions come and go each strategy will become better or worse depending on the conditions of the game. Example of that would be 6.64* (thx Savibo), where turtling ruled the day thanks to the easy carry hero saves possible by the multiple tp ability. Right now the game is pointing more and more towards a pushing strategy. I wouldn't be surprised if the next new heroes are good pushers. |
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