Blue colour is representing West, Red the East.
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Most Contested
The 'Most Contested' list has been put together by combining the Top 10 picked/banned heroes of the West and East, ultimately bringing us to 12 different heroes.
Analysing the bar charts on the left, it becomes clear that there is a popular Top 8 which both scenes have in common. Below that, the four remaining heroes differ in popularity both in the West and East. While Shadow Demon and Leshrac are most commonly used in the East, we see that Gyrocopter and Io are the ones most picked or banned in the West. Io however deserves a special mention as she was picked or banned in every game in the West while only appearing in about 15 percent of the Eastern games.
Next, we look at 'Most Picked' and 'Most Banned' seperately. The ten listed heroes in each list are the overall most picked / banned heroes respectively with their corresponding Western and Eastern percentages. For example, Magnus and Rubick are the most picked heroes overall, with about 70 percent appearance in Western picks and just under 60 percent for the Eastern ones.
Most Picked Most Banned
Obviously, there is a strong connection between the most picked and most banned heroes: the most picked heroes cannot be banned a lot and vice versa. This is why we see only a few heroes, such as Magnus, in both lists. While the West seem to have only a few highly favored heroes: Rubick, Magnus, Clock and Gyro, the pick percentages seem to be more even in the East. The only hero whose percentage is a lot higher than the rest is Shadow Demon.
Focussing on 'Most Banned', both scenes appear to share a Top 3 consisting of Batrider, Nyx and Keeper of the Light. Io is banned in almost 90 percent of the Western games while the Eastern scene does not seem to care about the hero that much. The latter much rather ban out the Lifestealer instead. While the remaining heroes of the Most Banned list not addressed yet consist mostly the other popular heroes picked, for example Magnus and Dark Seer, it is interesting to see the increasing ban percentages for Puck in the West.
For a closer look at the most picked heroes, we split the latter into most picked in the first picking phase, and then second one. An illustration of how the percentages work is as follows: In almost 70 percent of all Western games, a Magnus was picked as one of the first three heroes.
Heroes that get picked frequently in the first picking phase are mostly the popular heroes which did not get banned, for instance Magnus or Keeper of the Light.
Here, it becomes clear again how much the East like to use Shadow Demon, a hero that did not even make it to the top ten in the Western scene. Frequently banned heroes have high priority here, for example, Nyx for the East.
Now, there are a few heroes which fall in the same category and can therefore be paired. For example, Carries: Gyro or Lifestealer for the West and Lone Druid for the East. Or Gankers: for the West, Clockwerk and Queen of Pain for the East. Moreover, Batrider and Nyx also form a couple -- they are both usually banned, but when they get through, are immediately picked up.
As seen above, Gyrocopter appears in about 25 percent of the Eastern games. Unlike in the West, however, he is mostly picked in the second phase. The same applies to Clockwerk.
Looking at the West, we finally see the appearance of Shadow Demon, the hero which is so highly favoured by the East. The prefered supports also differ; Lina is ranked higher in the East where Silencer and Shadow Shaman also make an appearance. On the other hand, the West prefers to use Jakiro and Chen a lot more.
Looking at the lists for the East, no jungling heroes appear apart from Lone Druid who is usually not jungled. The West, however, frequently picks Nature's Prophet and Chen. Lifestealer is not put into the jungle a lot in competitive play.
Note: These length of these lists differ because there were a lot of heroes sharing placements, like Anti-Mage to Shadow Demon on the West list.
