After two days of daunting Dota 2 action and a total of 64 games played, the Arlington Major has seen 93 unique heroes picked already.
The PGL Arlington Major started off on a sour note, with a lot of teams not having their full rosters due to visa issues. But once the Dota 2 action started flowing, all that was left in the rearview mirror. The first two days of the Major have seen a total of 64 games played, and in them, 93 unique heroes have been picked from a total of 122 available! In premier tournaments that last over a week, it is always interesting to follow the meta. An early tournament meta develops and as the event goes from group stages to playoffs, notable changes to the meta can be observed. The group stages are half done – 32 best-of-2 series played, with 32 remaining. Let us take a look at how the early meta of the PGL Arlington Major is shaping up.
All stats are taken from datDota.
Most picked heroes from the first two days of the Arlington Major
The table below shows the 10 most picked heroes in the first two days (64 games) of the Arlington Major. Some of the heroes are very much expected – Tiny, Puck, Marci, Razor and Winter Wyvern were all in the most played heroes of the 2021-2022 DPC Tour 3. With there being no changes from the end of the DPC Summer Tour to the Arlington Major, it isn’t a surprise that a good chunk of the popular heroes overlap. However, there are few new faces to be seen in the mix.
Dazzle has been an extremely popular pick, and for good reason. The hero boasts a 56% win rate. Zeus and Death Prophet are two of the other new faces in the most picked heroes, who are versatile picks which can be played in multiple roles. But looking at their abysmal win rates, there is a good chance teams will start to shy away from them in the days to come.
The surprise omission is Beastmaster, a hero who was very popular in DPC Tour 3. He sits at a contest rate of just over 48%, signaling that teams don’t value him as much as they did in the regional leagues, where his contest rate in 824 games of the DPC Summer Tour was nearly 70%.
Most contested heroes from the first two days of the Arlington Major
Three heroes draw attention when looking at the contest rates – Tiny, Razor and Puck. All three of them have been contested in over 90% of the games! Amongst those, Tiny is out to set a new record, with a 98.44% contest rate (either picked or banned in 63 of the 64 games played till now!). The weird thing is, the Stone Giant was showing similar numbers during The International 2021 (TI10) as well. This is one hero that definitely needs a nerf heading into The International 2022 (TI11).
Unpicked heroes from the first two days of the Arlington Major
A total of 29 heroes have gone unpicked in the first two days of the Arlington Major (Primal Beast isn’t in Captains Mode yet). Heroes like Mirana and Witch Doctor, who were reasonably popular during the last Major (Stockholm Major) have been held back after nerfs. Others like Dawnbreaker, Dazzle, Marci and Pudge, who weren’t picked in the group stages back then, are quite popular now.
The heroes that have gone unpicked in both Majors are Axe, Bounty Hunter, Centaur, Meepo, Outworld Destroyer, Silencer and Tinker. These are heroes that could use a bit of a buff heading into TI11.
The meta in tournaments like the Arlington Major never stays the same – it’s dynamic, and changes as the tournament progresses. It will be interesting to see what the teams learn from the first two days and how that affects the picks and bans in the coming days of the tournament. There are 29 unpicked heroes after the first two days, but by the end of the event, that number is bound to be much smaller.
