We take a deep dive to look at the meta that has evolved around Dota 2 patch 7.31d, which will be the patch on which most probably the Arlington Major will be played.
The third and final Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season of 2021-2022 is done and dusted, and all that stands between now and The International 2022 (TI11) is the PGL Arlington Major and the TI11 qualifiers. The third season, or the Summer Tour, started in the first week of June, while Dota 2 patch 7.31d was released on the 8th of June. So barring a few initial games, the majority of the season was played on patch 7.31d.
Heading into the final DPC Major of the year, it doesn’t seem like there will be any changes in patch before the decision of which 12 teams get a direct invite to Singapore will be made. So let’s take a deep dive into what the current Dota 2 meta looks like based on the games of the DPC Summer Tour, which will also give us an idea of what to expect at the Arlington Major.
A total of 824 games were played in the DPC Summer Tour across all six Dota 2 regions (China, Southeast Asia, South America, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe). A total of 121 heroes were picked in the season, with 100 heroes picked in 10 games or more. The data has been taken from datDota.
Most picked heroes from the 2021-2022 DPC Spring Tour
Tiny tops the most picked hero list from the DPC Summer tour, with a pick rate of a whopping 47.45%! The hero is mostly played as a core (either position 1 or position 2), but is also seen in a support role from time to time. The versatility not just in roles has kept the Stone Giant on top for a while now.
Two of the latest additions to Captains Mode, Dawnbreaker and Marci, are in the top five most picked heroes. The two ladies have received buffs recently to make this happen, but it seems like Dawnbreaker will need a bit of an additional boost, as her win rate is down in the dumps at 42.31%.
The only two heroes with win rates over 55% in the 15 most picked heroes are Puck and Beastmaster. Both those heroes are also a part of the top cores of the 7.31d pub meta, so they are making a splash casually as well as professionally!
While 7.31d was mostly about balance changes, a few heroes were significantly boosted by minor changes. One of those is Clockwerk. Clockwerk was just given one buff, but that was enough to make the hero a strong contender in professional games.
Most contested heroes from the 2021-2022 DPC Spring Tour
More often than not, the most picked hero doesn’t tell the complete story as the highly banned heroes fail to make an appearance there, but for this meta, it seems like the most picked heroes are pretty much the most contested ones. Puck has an insane contest rate of 87.38%, considering this is across 824 games. Tiny and Marci aren’t too behind with contest rates of 75% and 74.39% respectively.
The highly contested heroes that don’t feature in the most picked list are Viper, Batrider, Timbersaw and Bloodseeker. Viper is the highest banned of those, with nearly 400 bans (third most banned hero after Puck and Beastmaster)! No one wants that kind of toxicity in their games.
Heroes with the highest win rate from the 2021-2022 DPC Spring Tour (picked in at least 10 games)
A look at the heroes with the highest win rates throws in some very new names. Luna, with a decent number of games under her belt (43), has a staggering win rate of 72.09%! Treant Protector and bane are other prominent names in the list, as they were picked in nearly 100 games, and still managed to have a win rate of 60% or higher. These heroes are suited to very specific situations, and have a high rate of success in those situations.
Unpicked heroes from the 2021-2022 DPC Spring Tour (picked in less than 10 games)
This is a relatively diverse meta, with only 22 heroes being picked in less than 10 games (Primal Beast is yet to be introduced to Captains Mode). Meepo was the only hero that had 0 picks to his name. All the others were picked at least once. Hopefully, there will be a patch before TI11 and some of these heroes, like Drow Ranger, Legion Commander, Shadow Fiend and Techies, who haven’t been a part of the professional meta for a while will get some time in the limelight.
Distribution of games based on duration
Looking at the distribution of games based on the duration, we can see that there is a very high chance of games ending in the 30-40 minute bracket. Of the 372 games that ended in that bracket, 277 ended in the 30-35 minute bracket and 95 ended in the 35-40 minute bracket.
Splitting it through the middle, 52.4% of the games ended before 35 minutes while 47.6% games went over 35 minutes. The meta isn’t an extremely quick meta, but it doesn’t necessarily favor very long games either.
The current meta based on patch 7.31d isn’t very dissimilar to what we’ve been seeing for the past year. It is a very balanced and diverse meta, which is what the analysis here shows as well. Lot of heroes and strats are viable. However, even though it is one the most stable metas Dota 2 has seen, it is really calling out for a change.
