Rehgar strength is undeniable, Stitches continues to disrupt old strategies, and Tassadar manages to constantly stay relevant.
It's been a long time since we have seen a support hero have such a high pick rate and winrate, but the reworked Rehgar doesn't feel like most support heroes anyways. It doesn't seem like Kael'Thas will ever stop being one of the most picked heroes, but looking lower on the list, some interesting conclusion can be made:
- Stitches and his tranformation to a tier 1 warrior is complete. Boasting at least 1 first pick and a healthy regular pick rate, it's been a long time coming.
- Falstad has dethroned Jaina has a ranged assassin of choice. Mighty Gust is simply too good ignore and the nerf to Jaina's Water Elemental has slowly been causing a loss of popularity. The flanking role that Jaina once filled so well is now Falstad's territory.
- The stat that should surprise no one is Rehgar. His buffs have tranformed the hero from ignored to high desired.
- The nerfs to Muradin's Avatar are sizeable, and as a result his popularity is slowly falling.
- Leoric seems to be making a slight comeback, potentially due to the popularity of Stitches and the occasional counter to Cho'Gall
These stats are revealing, but don't necessary inform of us true hero strength. For that, we look at the most banned heroes:
- Thrall is so hot right now. His presence is felt everywhere ever since the scaling changes (which resulted in a massive Thrall buff) and he is rightly banned in more than half of all games. In a meta defined by stuns and team fight intiators, You can't get any better than Thrall with Sundering.
- As more battlegrounds become focused on skirmishes and location based objectives, Zagara grows in strength. Devouring maw is Void Prison levels of powerful, however it isn't attached to a niche hero like Zeratul. Instead, it is attached to the most powerful laner in the game that is also capable of incredible ammounts of sustained damage.
- Note that Thrall and Zagara's ban rates nearly double any other hero.
- Not seen on this list (simply due not many tournaments allowing her yet) is Li-ming. It's easy to predict that she will quickly rise as one of the most banned heroes once more tournaments start allowing her.
- Tyrande and Diablo synergize so well together, they are usually banned after the either is picked. In other words, it's useless to ban both Tyrande AND Diablo, as banning one of them grants sufficient protection from the deadly early game gank potential.
This early in the patch, individual hero winrates are tough to decipher, however some interesting trends can be identified regardless:
- Ilidan is starting to see some play thanks to Rehgar's incredible buffs. This heroes recent pick rate is directly a result of Rehgar's popuarlity
- Sylvanas's win rate (and low pick rate) is primarily due to Korean Super League 2016 matches and her popularity in that region.
- Johanna has a whopping 92% win rate played 11 times. Despite this, she doesn't often come up in discussion considering the best Warrior in his Meta.
These stats are an early reflection of the newest Li-ming patch meta. Stay tuned for more GosuStats as more tournaments statistics become available to us.
These stats were taken from 3 major tournaments and their matches since the Li-Ming patch: Super League 2016 - Season 1, Heroes Championship - Katowice, and Enter the Storm NA - Cup #2.
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