With the group stage of the Riyadh Masters done, we take a look at the hero statistics from the 117 games played.
Image: TeeKeeuS87 on DeviatArt
A few days ago, GosuGamers looked at the Dota 2 meta based on the Bali Major games. It looked quite stale with a dearth of diversity. But a few days before the Riyadh Masters, Dota 2 patch 7.33e was released, which nerfed a handful of broken heroes to shuffle up the meta a bit.
The Riyadh Masters is flying past us, with six days of high octane Dota 2 already in the rearview mirror. The first two days were the play-ins, followed by four days of group stage games. In the group stage, in two groups of eight, every team played at least 14 games, and four teams were eliminated. A total of 117 games were played in the group stage, including the five tiebreaker games. Let’s take a look at the hero statistics for the Riyadh Master group stage to see if patch 7.33e has made an impact, as the teams gear up for the playoffs. All stats have been taken from datDota.
Riyadh Masters group stage hero statistics
Total games played: 117
Total heroes picked: 98
Number of heroes unpicked or unbanned: 19
Most picked heroes:
1) Rubick (53 games, 24 wins, 45.28% win rate)
2) Snapfire (43 games, 23 wins, 53.43% win rate)
3) Storm Spirit (39 games, 22 wins, 56.41% win rate)
Most contested heroes:
1) Snapfire (Picked or banned 102 games, 87.93% contest rate)
2) Timbersaw (Picked or banned 93 games, 80.17% contest rate)
3) Undying (Picked or banned 91 games, 78.45% contest rate)
Most banned heroes:
1) Undying (banned in 91 games)
2) Broodmother (banned in 87 games)
3) Bloodseeker (banned in 82 games)
Heroes with the highest win rate (20 games or more):
1) Keeper of the Light (23 picks, 65.22% win rate)
2) Io (20 picks, 60.00% win rate)
3) Ember Spirit (21 picks, 57.14% win rate)
Heroes with lowest the win rate (20 games or more):
1) Doom (23 picks, 39.13% win rate)
2) Terrorblade (25 picks, 40.00% win rate)
3) Timbersaw (25 picks, 42.86% win rate)
Most of the hard hitters from the Bali Major are not seen in the top heroes for the Riyadh Masters. Heroes like Techies, Pugna , Morphling and Medusa, though picked, are not the first phase choices they were a few weeks ago. While a few new heroes have surfaced, majority of the highly contested heroes at the Riyadh Masters are still ones who were being picked a lot before. This is not a surprise, as patch 7.33e did not buff any heroes. The hero that seems to have benefitted the most is Snapfire. She is the most contested hero of the tournament till now, and is being picked in multiple positions as a core and as a support.
The unpicked heroes list for the two tournaments looks very similar. However, there are rays of sunshine as heroes like Keeper of the Light and Razor, who didn’t see too much success in patch 7.33d, are now making a splash. There aren’t too many of them, but the playoffs might throw a few surprises our way.
There is prize pool of $15 million on the line for the Dota 2 being played this coming week. Gaimin Gladiators have won all five premier tournaments this season, but if any team can dethrone them and win the Riyadh Masters, they will take home $5 million, which is five times the prize money Gaimin Gladiators have won from the five first place finishes combined. Chinks have already begun to show in their armor, and the first big test for them is against Team Liquid on the very first day of the playoffs! BetBoom Team are in sublime form, and one of the strongest teams going into the playoffs. It is going to be an amazing week of Dota 2 action.
