Drafting and Team Strategy

Wow, I didn't read everything but I read most of them. Thumbs up but I find that it still misses something. I think you need to talk more about different type of strategies and how to counter them. For example, something simple. Against a clashoriented push lineup, you generally want to pick a hero like Keeper of the Light or get a strong split push lineup with heroes such as Nature's Prophet and Weaver.

This is a great guide and has really helped me in my first captains mode.
I think it's better to have 2 carries as a back up plan though.
Overall this is a great guide. If you have the time play some Clockwerk or Bloodseeker.

+1

Added the first drafting analysis for Orange vs DK (with extra fuzzy wuzzyness). If it's useful I'll happily add a few more - please let me know if there's anything I've missed or needs further explanation.

You mean this one?

Orange vs DK (Lower Bracket Game 3)

Play Video

OOH OOH sando plz type your views on the match where orange picked ursa in TI3 and destroyed their opponent think it was LGD or DK :-)

If you looking for more current Ursa games, then here are the 3 best Ursa games from TI3

Team Liquid VS MUFC (Lower Bracket - Featuring a Carry Omniknight)

Play Video

Team Liquid VS Rattlesnake (prelim Game 2 - Featuring a Support Alchemist)

Play Video

Team Liquid vs Tongfu (prelim Game 1 - Featuring a Viper pick 8D)

Play Video

I demand you teach us how to draft the Black King Bear!!! 8D

Sando take my +1

Thanks for all the great feedback guys - will try to answer some of the points:

- Yep still typos :(. Will try and sort, pls keep spotting.



Most ranged heroes can 'reasonably' well, it's not terribly efficient, but these heroes can't really jungle either so this is the best available option if there's no ganks to be had and the offlane is a deathtrap. The 3 heroes mentioned can almost farm/level about as fast on ancients as they could from a normal lane.

- Split Pushing. It does has it's place, and is especially valid when you're trying to push rax against opposition with a lot of team fight. It's definitely useful as an option, but I'm not personally convinced it's something to particularly aspire to. Much better to be able to just win a team fight if you've got that kind of advantage.

- Team Fight Strats. Mentioned under turtling - you're absolutely right that it is almost a separate strat, but essentially it's about getting your heroes safely to level 6+ and then forcing fights.

- Team Fight Items. You're absolutely right, these items are very important for team fights, same with Assault Cuirass etc. I kinda made the assumption that both teams will be getting at least Mek/Drums in any reasonable level of competitive play, but it's still worth pointing out. Team Fight abilities are not replicable though.

- Synergy section. Was lots of fun to write :). Yeah, it could go on forever, so I tried to stick to an overview of how to look at combining skills in general. For specifics I'd suggest:

Evil Lane Combos

Bugger - was trying to find Peppo's excellent trilane guide...it's on here somewhere, well worth a look.



Ooo, it was a good while ago, the Defence II maybe? Did have a look on Joindota but couldn't seem to find it. I just remember it because it was the first time pretty much that Ursa had been picked in competitive play and everyone was like "WTF! They'll get slaughtered!", played beautifully and made it work for them.

Yep will try to have a look at some suitable pro games and do as you say. The main issue is that the pro teams don't seem to make a lot of mistakes in drafting, and this can make it less illuminating in some ways.

Fantastic guide. Will definitely be using this as reference in my next few Captain's Mode games.

Great guide Sando, really helpful.

For ancient stacking, you've put those 3 hereos as the best ones for it, but can't hereos like Windrunner and Mirana do it quite efficiently on the radiant side?

And I think there's a spelling mistake in the mids section, third paragraph it says "can't afford to let your direction opponent...", meant to be direct?

Amazing guide though, will be useful when I try some captains mode again.

Time to add Elder Titan to the list, I'm fairly sure he was higher priority for bans/picks during Starladder than Batrider was in his prime.

This guide is great and is much needed... I think of all the games I've played where one side or the other has such an incredibly low chance of winning the game, before it's even started, because of poor picks and lane choices. If every player read something like this there would be more close matches, which are undeniably the most fun for everyone.

I've been day dreaming of a similar guide, so here are some things I would humbly suggest to add your already great guide:

I think you could add several other team strategies:

While pushing in general certainly counts, I think it could be split into team pushing and split pushing.
-Teams with natures prophet, phantom lancer, or tinker will be better suited split pushing. The other members of the team should have strong ganking, team fight or early kill potential to be able to handle 4v5 confrontations where your split pusher is off doing their work.

-Teams with enigma, chen/enchantress or beastmaster/venge would be better suited pushing as a complete unit to take advantage of stacking auras or strong team fight potential.

To keep going in that vein, I think you could also consider teams with strong "team fight" to be a strategy in itself. You mention this throughout the guide but don't consider it a "strategy." In my experience a well organized team with significantly better team fight and initiation than their opposition can absolutely dominate with this strategy in mind. You could also consider this just taking advantage of a poorly drafted enemy team, though.

In your "poor team fight" example, you mention there are no real good "team fight" items. While there is no replacement for the perfect Ravage or wall/vacuum combo, I would argue that putting particular emphasis on quickly acquiring items like mek, pipe, drums, necronomicon and vlads all improve your team's overall big clash effectiveness.


I think your synergy section is really good, and to be fair, could go on forever. However I think a section about common lane combos would be awesome. Examples: kotl + phantom lancer, CK + wisp and OD + shadow demon. I think that would help new players start thinking in the right direction, and could also give them ideas for things to try with their friends.