Captain's Mode Team Compositions

Heya all,

So I've gotten really interested in the strategic side of DoTA 2 when it comes to things like team compositions and the art of picks/bans in Captain's Mode. I don't think there's a guide that's been built on this yet and it's something I'd really like to get community input and ideas on for developing a comprehensive one.

What are your thoughts/ideas on team compositions? Tri-lane vs. having a jungler? Good team compositions strategies like AoE disables/nukes etc.

Please share your thoughts and ideas and I'll start trying to compile everything =)

Thanks!

- R

Reeeallly depends, what you're asking is a hard question to answer.... Basically, CM picking isn't much different from assembling a team in AP, RD, or SD. Everyone wants a team with a balanced roster ans strengths throughout the game.
Some things you have to consider in CM is, what order to begin picking your team; therefore exposing the general stratigy your team is planning on running.

But, and probably the most important, is who are we going to eliminate, or alow to slide through the banning stage. For example: Your team has first pick, you have a strong mid solo player on your team so naturally, you want Invoker. Therefore, a good ban would be someone like Rubick, or Night Stalker. Now, Rubick is fine to ban out on the first round, but you only have three. So Night Stalker can stay in the pool so you can worry about other, more valuebal heroes.

I know this didn't really answer your question...xD but I dont really like it when people go into a CM game with a planned team. Especially when heroes like Naga Siren, Lycan, Enigma ect. or included...you're simply not going to get all of them. Good luck!

Yeah, it certainly seems like flexibility in picks is something you need to have, if you go in with one lineup, one plan, there's a good chance it's going to get messed up in the ban phase.

You can't really go into it wanting a specific composition. Unless your composition is made up of really low tier heroes, you stand a chance of not getting it.

Now there's a million different ways to build a team. And even when you have a jungler, I would consider that as having a tri-lane, as that jungler should be supporting the lane next to his jungle with pulls and ganks. An example would be Chen or Enchantress. They both apply a tremendous amount of pressure on a lane, even though they are junglers. This is turn gives everyone more experience and gold while still basically having a third person there for support. In pubs they may just free-farm the jungle, but in a competitive game having a jungler is just like having a tri-lane but with more benefits, as that jungler should always be close by for support. That said, the reason you will see a more literal tri-lane is because a jungler may not fit in and it's best to have a different hero for mid to late game purposes.

The non-jungle tri-lane is usually classified as either a kill lane or a defensive tri-lane. A kill lane is there to either get kills and take a tower, or just take a tower fast if the enemy team is smart and abandons the lane and doesn't feed you. A defensive tri-lane is effective versus gank-heavy teams, and it is there to ensure you carry gets maximum farm, though other lanes may suffer still.

As for what you're asking, I'll try to briefly go over some specific team compositions:

Standard: I call this standard because you see it more often. It's a good balance of everything, really. You'll typically see a carry/support in the easy lane, a ganker mid, whatever suicide laner and a jungler. This is most low-tier CM games. It's reliable, and the team can still vary.

Pushing: This focuses on ending the game before the 30 minute mark. The plan is to snowball your way to victory with a huge gold advantage before the enemy team's carry can do anything. If a push team fails, there is little hope for late game.

AoE: A low-tier strat. Basically, this relies on mid-game teamfights. Your team has to roam together forcing fights. It relies very heavily on big engagements and often times calls for good execution. Basically, you'll see teams pick Tide/Sand King/Enigma/Lich/Lesh and just focus on big fights.

There's more, but it's hard to classify them as with the current hero pool, there's no one set of heroes that will beat the other. The "team comp" is usually just a combination of what the team needs and counters to the enemy team. If the team lacks any kind of anti-push, hell lets pick Sand King. They picked Rubick? Let's take Night Stalker to shut him down.

to be able to pick/draft for CM, one have to have deep knowledge in the game, such as the OP hero combo, the laning, counter-ban.

1. have a strategy on what kind of team that you want.

for example, you want pushing team. There are a lot of pusher hero available such as : broodmother, lycan, furion, chen, enchantress, leshrac, undying, pugna, windrunner, venomancer, rhasta, etc.

2. have a clear idea of the laning phase and the combo

a lot of new drafter only picks hero based on their imagination. For example, 1 of my clanmate is asking opinion about a lineup. His lineup is DS, enigma, SF, sven, omniknight. So omni repel enigma, DS vacuum everyone, Sven and SF will rape with AOE. The problem with this is, if enigma jungling and DS solo offlane (or vice-versa), sven and omni will have to lane a double melee + DS is likely to get banned in the first ban phase.

3. Balance out what your team need.

let's say you choose a pushing team, my first draft ever is picking veno, leshrac, chen, furion, broodmother. Let me tell you that this team composition is stupid. All of the heroes are squishy, We have no teamfight potention, the other team just get tidehunter and QoP and that's all they need. They can kill the chen before chen can ulti. We also have no reliable stun at all, all we can do is split-pushing with brood and furion but once we reach the t3 tower, it's easy for them to defense.

4. Once you get your team composition in your head, think about what hero could messed you up. Ban that hero..

For example, if you wanna get naix, ban or pick enigma for god sake. If you want to push, ban tidehunter, tinker, earthshaker, or maybe KOTL. If you want a teamfight lineup with a strong carry that needs farm, ban some OP pusher like leshrac, chen, furion, lycan.


Some advance banning/picking will require some mind games. You can't ban all the good hero, the first pick will get what he want but the other team will get double pick. So if you got the double pick, stop banning all the OP hero and you can double pick OP heroes. Or you can even bait the enemy team to pick a particular hero. For example, we ban slardar as the last ban phase, the enemy has no more bans so they pick gondar. Why? because we ban slardar so they are thinking that we will pick some invis hero like riki. We manage to messed up their lineup because of that.


having a jungler is always good because the jungler will get that extra farm that nobody needs. And the jungle also can gank, makes it as good as trilane. I think that really depends on what kind of lineup and strategies that you want.

The biggest mistake you can make in a CM - is to 'react' to the enemy teams pick. By the end of the first banning phase you will need to know what kind of line up they are going for, or you are going for. Who has first pick, will swing this factor. but don't just counter pick heroes, you will lose.

The most important part of a CM is knowing your role. KNOW IT WELL. if 1 person is not doing his role, the line up is screwed.

all the points above are correct - the only way you can successfully play a strat is to practice it. don't rely on 1 hero messing up your total strat if he is banned, like Dark Seer - an auto ban, auto pick hero - that if you get him, it is great, but becuase he's banned so often you don't practice him - next thing you know, your team comp is screwed up.
so a variety of 1 strat, is the best way forward ie//
if you get lycan first pick - he will jungle, push, you need a suicide lane with good pushing skills - enigma, furion, brood are good choices, they can pull the enemy wave around the tower to you, so you can get some safe farm from your tower. plus their push power - DS is good if he is not banned. mid would also be a good furion. ETC - now look what happen just 1 pick, and your have 3 options for top lane, + your other 3 heroes. THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO PRACTICE - your line up, based on your intial pick and ban. and a variety of that.
lycan,furion,enigma,tide,qop - push heavy
lycan,enigma,tide,sk,qop (furion banned) - gank heavy//clash heavy when ulti on cd
lycan,furion,darkseer,engima,sk (ds, furion were not banned/picked) - push heavy, with clash power (op lineup if every you got it haha)
lycan,qop,sk,tide,warlock [whatever] (becuase furion,ds,enigma all banned, while you banned ganking mid heroes)
Now do this over and over, but a variety of who was picked and banned - with your various combos of picks. Then do it all over, when your radient, dire, AND when your first pick, last pick etc.. too much man too much haha

KNOW THE ROLE THEY NEED TO PLAY. if you're going gank - lesh for example, may want to max other skills first, and build items differently to the usual edict build. KNOW YOUR ROLE :)

Atlas said everything I wanted to say, well, he's a great captain tbh. xD

Good luck building this guide, you already have a lot of ideas to consider adding in. :)

Going along with the same vein of this post would someone be willing to private match CM me or do the dota2 draft sim with me and then talk about bans, picks, laning etc?

hey, we can do some fake draft from PM =p...... why don't you go first and get first pick =o.. i'm lazy to open the dota draft sim...

What gives people the impulse to ban heroes such as Tidehunter and Lycanthrope, is what COULD happen later on in the game. For instance take a look at this team's picks and bans...

Team 1 (Picks and Bans)

Picks
Lycanthrope
Shadow Shaman
Vengeful Spirit
Rubick
Broodmother

Bans
Slardar
Nature's Prophet
Bounty Hunter
Dark Seer
Chaos Knight

Shadow Shaman, Vengeful Spirit top and Lycanthrope jungle sets up a very powerful trilane that will enable Lycanthrope to get plenty of early kills due to the disables Shadow Shaman and Vengeful Spirit both have. However if this does not work, Lycanthrope can easily jungle without worrying about a wild Nature's Prophet blinking in on top of him (due to the ban). The bans on both Slardar and Bounty Hunter increase the amount of gold spent on Sentry Wards and Dust of Appearance to negate Broodmother's farming capability.

Basically, the point of banning the heroes selected by the captain is to strategically inhibit the other team from destroying your team composition. Another example would be banning Chaos Knight as he is difficult to handle if your team lacks the crowd control to shut him and his illusions down.