Day 3 of the preliminaries are finished, but which heroes were trending? Which were fluking and which were dominating? Lets take a look.
Out of the original 16 games, only 14 were played since Moscow 5 decided to forfeit their two games against DK. The statistics of the complete preliminary round have reflected the steady state the game currently lies in.
You do know that you can head over to play.gosugamers.net to see the picks and bans from each and every game? Head over to the full standings of Group A and Group B to see which team picked which hero!
| Most Successful Heroes [Day 3] | ||||
| # | Hero | Wins | Losses | +/- |
| 1 |  Dark seer | 4 | 0 | +4 |
| 2 |  Tidehunter | 4 | 1 | +3 |
| 3 |  Nature's Prophet | 5 | 2 | +3 |
| 4 |  Sand King | 5 | 2 | +3 |
| 5 |  Leshrac | 6 | 3 | +3 |
From the above table we see that the third day brought in Dark Seer and Tidehunter to the top of the table. The most successful heroes from day one and two, that were Rubick and Invoker, are nowhere to be seen. It actually comes as a surprise that Rubick has fallen into the failure-zone, that is, his win rate has actually fallen to forty-seven percent for day three.
| Least Successful Heroes [Day 3] | ||||
| # | Hero | Wins | Losses | +/- |
| 1 |  Venomancer | 1 | 6 | -5 |
| 2 |  Enchantress | 1 | 5 | -4 |
| 3 |  Queen of Pain | 1 | 5 | -4 |
What we see here is a complete departure from the statistics of day one. On day one we saw Venomancer as one of the hottest picks of the lot and the most picked hero. Yet, over the course it has traversed right to the bottom of the performance chart, in spite of being the most picked hero. Enchantress and Queen of Pain share the place of the second-least performing heroes with a registering a victory for every five defeats.
| Most Picked Heroes | ||
| # | Hero | Picks (max. 113) |
| 1 | Venomancer | 64 |
| 2 |  Invoker | 62 |
| 3 | Leshrac | 60 |
| 4 |  Rubick | 58 |
| 5 |  Morphling | 54 |
| 6 |  Chen | 51 |
| 7 | Tidehunter | 51 |
Almost all the games have featured the above heroes and it is clearly indicative that these heroes constitute the creamy-layer of the heroes in the current meta game. Venomancer has turned out to be a monster utility support and Invoker has always been a top solo-lane pick.
| Most Banned Heroes | ||
| # | Hero | Bans (max. 113) |
| 1 |  Naga Siren | 105 |
| 2 |  Lycanthrope | 97 |
| 3 | Dark Seer | 88 |
| 4 |  Broodmother | 66 |
| 5 | Nature's Prophet | 59 |
| 6 | Chen | 57 |
| 7 | Enchantress | 53 |
No surprises here as Naga Siren is still sitting atop her coveted first position followed closely by a Lycanthrope. The latter mentioned also leads the cumulative total of bans and picks with a total count of 110 closely followed by Chen and Nature's Prophet on 108. This indicates a definite imbalance that the hero brings to the game whenever picked, which is why most of the teams choose to avoid dealing with them.
| Most Successful Heroes [Prelims] | ||||
| # | Hero | Wins | Losses | +/- |
| 1 | Rubick | 36 | 22 | +14 |
| 5 | Morphling | 32 | 22 | +10 |
| 5 | Leshrac | 35 | 27 | +8 |
| 5 | Dark Seer | 16 | 10 | +6 |
| 3 |  Bounty Hunter | 15 | 10 | +5 |
The entertainment value that a Rubick packs definitely outweighs any other hero at the moment and he would most likely be permanent fixture throughout the tournament. Morphling has turned out to be the most picked ranged carry in the tournament along with Bounty Hunter in the melee category. The erstwhile top carry, Anti Mage is sitting on a negative score of -1 with a forty-seven percent win rate. The AOE-damage specialist, Earthshaker, was picked a mere seven times along with being banned seven times.
| Least successful heroes [Prelims] | ||||
| # | Hero | Wins | Losses | +/- |
| 1 | Broodmother | 6 | 16 | -10 |
| 2 |  Enigma | 11 | 18 | -7 |
| 3 | Enchantress | 18 | 24 | -6 |
| 4 |  Shadow Demon | 9 | 15 | -6 |
| 5 | Queen of Pain | 12 | 18 | -6 |
| 6 | Nature's Prophet | 22 | 27 | -5 |
Enigma, Shadow Demon and Broodmother have been featured as the being one of the least successful heroes but Enchantress gives them a run for their money. Surprisingly, Enchantress wasn't in the bottom five of the performance chart on the first and second day.
Although statistics only paint a partial picture and are subjective to interpretation, they definitely aid in a probabilistic approach to the game which often reveals a lot more than meets the eye. The numbers could also be suggestive of impending nerfs or buffs on the most and least successful heroes respectively.
Thanks to our buddies at Dota Academy for providing the pick and ban statistics for The International.
Source: Dota Academy
More information: The International 2012 coverage
