I used to be undefeated as Samuro
And every game I played hm. I felt unstoppable. Surely, the Samuro winrate the community has been up in arms about the true power level of this hero. It meshed with my own experiences and I, like many others, would go on and first pick Samuro as many times as possible. Either that or first ban him every time.
Then I faced what seemed like the most unwinnable match of Heroes of the Storm in my life.
The Draft
Our team banned Malfurion and they followed up with a Falstad ban. To my team's delight, this allowed us to first pick Samuro. I did so greedily and gladly.
Then they picked Zarya and Gul'dan. I thought to myself that these were strong picks vs. Samuro, but we should still be ok. I was, after all, undefeated on a ridiculously strong hero.
They proceeded to ban Brightwing and we banned Lt.Morales to avoid dealing with a monstrous, unkillable Zarya. They proceeded to pick Illidan and Auriel and it was at this moment that I sincerely regretted picking Samuro.
We ended up with a very strange team composition on Warhead Junction:
- The Lost Vikings,
- Nova,
- Muradin,
- Li Li
- Samuro
VS.
- Zarya
- Auriel
- Illidan
- Greymane
- Gul'dan
The Game
Things went well enough in the early game thanks to The Lost Vikings soak and Samuro and Nova roaming, but once we hit level 10 it became apparent that the best way to counter Samuro was to stick together and have Illidan play aggressively the moment he reveals himself.
I consider myself an experienced Samuro player and I know the difference between losing a game on the draft screen and losing it on the battleground. This was surely the former. My Samuro felt so ineffective against Illidan that I made me question why more players don't use him as a hard counter.
Evasion destroyed me. Reflexive Block destroyed me. I'm pretty sure my Mirror Images were adding to his Metamorphosis stacks, as well, though I can't be sure. On top of this, Zarya's shields easily negated my attempts to focus other targets, all while Auriel had Crystal Aegis on deck whenever my team came close to killing one of them.
My Samuro felt so ineffective against Illidan that I made me question why more players don't use him as a hard counter.
All the while Gul'dan completed an impossibly fast Echoed Corruption quest thanks to proccing it off my Mirror Images. Samuro felt like a liability that game, which is something I didn't think was possible.
Just like old Warcraft 3 times
I'm beginning to understand why Korean Hero League seems to ban Illidan so often. He seemed much more effective than my Samuro and, looking back at their team's bans, it was clear they were gunning for an Illidan composition all along. The Falstad and Brightwing bans should have been an indication (Mighty Gust and Polymorph are amazing anti-Illidan tools) and the early Zarya pick only made Illidan stronger.
vs. 
I think that, true to classic Warcraft 3 strategy, Illidan is the best counter to Samuro, hands down. My auto attack burst damage was completely negated by Evasion. Samuro's uncanny ability to escape any skirmish was negated by Illidan's chase potential. You simply can't get away from Illidan and trying to do so with Samuro is more difficult than you would imagine.
You can blame my team's weird draft (likely overconfident because of our Samuro pick), but I think our opponents' declining the chance to ban Samuro and instead opting for a team that counters him brutally, was a winning move that I plan on trying when I get the chance.
I never want to feel that useless as Samuro again. However, I would gladly wish such a fate on my enemies.
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