Practice Draft

Not that good at drafting, but will give this a go.

Radiant is full of ranged heroes, who are quite squishy but have a lot of burst and kiting potential.

So dire needs a hero that can initiate well, but be tanky enough to survive the initial damage thrown at him when he does. Normal heroes for this would be Lifestealer or Clockwerk but they've both got banned, so we should think of slightly more unconventional ones.

Axe with an blink dagger has great initiation and is able to hold multiple enemies in place through bkb. His second skill can help minimise kiting attempts. Counter Helix would work well in synergy with the physical damage theme coming from dire, and Culling Blade is great for quickly finishing a squishy hero off. The

Slardar also fills this role. With a blink dagger he can initiate, tanky enough to survive retaliation. And his first skill prevents enemies kiting him. Amplify is also very good for noticing when Mirana's ultimate has been cast.
Anyone think these two could work better than Juggernaut?

i actually think venge is a great pick here. they dont need much more teamfight and i think swap can do a lot of work here. becouse there is a thing as too much teamfight. she forms a great ganking duo with veno and with kunnka they can pick off anyone.
a lot of the dire spells are not instant, they have to commit the ommnislash instantly if they want to burst someone. becouse a lot of the dire heroes need to wait before casting their spells. concoction needs to charge, soul assumption needs damage to be done, and even impale is slow and hard to land. if they go on a hero and he gets swapped dire is screwed. radiant will conterinitiate and **** on dire with their teamfight.

i think nyx and jugg are bad picks here. shadow demon+maybe sladar would be better. it would give them better initiation as well as more burst becouse of the MASSIVE armor reduction. it also helps dealing with the luna BKB.
bristle proably wont get that much farm also so a less item dependant hero would probably be better, but it is hard to see that coming.

Rubick over the nyx assassin pick, greater utility, and impale isn't a reliable stun anymore. With the magic damage on the radiant, his passive would be lovely, and the plethora of spells to steal..swap looks like the money spell (pull a carry out of position with a beefy lineup).

I can't agree with the jugg pick, but it's not terrible and in an aggressive trilane with nyx and visage, he should be more than capable of wrecking faces . Dazzle would work very well in that lineup, combined with bristle he's a nightmare, not to mention the early nuking, combined with his poison, jugg would eat well. Slardar would be optimal with the amount of negative armor you'd be throwing out on the dire, especially in the midgame, when those agi heroes on radiance side start getting their armor value up.

There is a lot that can be done, I will also say alchemist mid will probably destroy kunnka, yes kunnka can tide him constantly, but with acid spray and unstable concoction, I don't think it would work out too well for kunnka, that lane would rely soley on radiance supports roaming effectively and keeping alch in check. Also, roaming supports, something to consider, dire would certainly be aggressive tri laning to get that jugg to snowball, and pressure the squishies, kunnka would more than likely get zoned out while alch free farmed.

tell me who wins this one: http://dota2draft.the-cluster.org/show?op=d&fp=d&pick=D2Zk2ZL2C0za1Zb3ZM2Zu1B1ZJ0&ban=ZTZrZKFgMZtZxZpZm

Radiant...because Dire thought a Jungling Lifestealer was a good idea -_-

I like Radiant's Defensive setup, Naga Siren allows you to say "nope, don't wanna fight this" and you can use it after Razor has latched his Static Link for an easy 8 second drain on whoever you want, i.e. Lifestealer. Lifestealer and Nyx Assassin combo well together as well, as in a defensive Tri-lane, you can't just jump on them due to Rage and Spiked Carapace, and in a Defensive Tri-lane, Nyx can Roam and Gank pretty effectively too. It's such a shame that Dire 1st picked Lifestealer seeing as how he was instantly Counter-Picked, but since Weaver and Bane were banned out, I guess Dire forgot there was still a Razor in the pool.

Advantage - Radiant

I'm not too sure about the Shadow Demon pick, Radiant already had a Naga Siren, so adding in another Defensive Support makes Roaming and Ganking a bit difficult, since both Supports don't have much Burst Damage, I feel that something aggressive would have worked better here, like a Lina for lots of Burst Damage, a Vengeful Spirit for less Burst Damage, but more Minus Armour, etc. The Lone Druid pickup gives you a great Late Game Carry as well as a good Pusher once he hits lvl 7. As for Dire, the Lich guarantees easy levels, setting up the Invoker pick nicely, as this gives him a head start on Farm in his Lane.

Advantage - Dire

The Gyrocopter pick is where they lost, since Dire already has a Lifestealer, this makes the Laning awkward. Do you run a Solo Safe Lane Na'ix with an Aggressive Tri-Lane Gyro? Do you run Dual Lanes? Do you have a Lifestealer Mid? Since 2 Supports were already picked up, this eliminates any possibility of a Support Gyro, so this Gyrocopter is going to need to Farm.

Victory - Radiant

As for the Last Picks ( Faceless Void "respect" ban?), Elder Titan was a good pickup, he can Harass whatever he's up against, and even get Kills if he's against a Solo Lane. Combine this with the Razor and Lone Druid Cores, and you hyave a ton of Laning options, it's impossible at this point to see who is going where on Radiants Team, allowing them to adapt based on Dire's final Pick. As for Dire, I like the Invoker pickup, thanks to the Lich he has an easy way to secure easy Exp and a Farm advantage, right from the start. The only problem is, he's goin to suffer against a Razor in Lane until he gets Cold Snap as Razor can just walk right up to him, Static Link him and make him go sit in a corner while Razor takes all the Last Hits and Denies, Spirit Bear won't let him have much fun either, and Elder Titan isn't going to give him any room to Farm, so no matter what, I see Invoker having a rough Laning Stage. Worse still, with no viable Solo Offlaner ( Nyx Assassin is a terrible Offlaner imo) this is gonna hurt Dire's Lanes even more.

Now, the Lanes. With Radiant, it's hard to say what the optiaml lanes are, because aside from the Supports having to form a Defensive Tri-lane, you can rotate the Cores as needed. As for Dire, I would put Lifestealer on a Solo Lane and since Dire has no strong Offlaners I would make an aggressive Tri-lane with Gyrocopter, Lich and Nyx Assassin and place Lifestealer Top. That's the only way I can see to lane this, since Jungle Lifestealer isn't going to keep up in Farm or Levels.

The way I see it, as soon as Radiant notcies that Lifestealer is Jungling, they should get 3 Hand of Midases (possibly more), this'll ensure that Lifestealer stays well behind them. Razor should then pickup a fast Mekansm, then go for his Aghanim's Scepter so he and Lone Druid can zap down Towers in the blink of an eye. Shadow Demon and Naga Siren should Gank Invoker as much as possible so that the Tier 1 Mid dissappears, leading to easy Ganks on Lifestealer with Elder Titan, while Lone Druid takes down the Top Tower. From here, Push Push and Push some more to Victory.

Yeah, definitely Radiant advantage there. As soon as they've secured first blood bottom, I'd send the supports away to roam top/jungle as Razor vs Nyx Assassin is an incredibly easy lane. The only problem they have then is Lich reducing their XP, but between dominating that lane and probably killing Naix/Invoker when roaming it should be well under control. After that, as Xyrus says, fast Mek/Scepter on Razor and push like crazy with the bear, Dire should never get the chance to use their carry potential.

Yeah, not entirely sure about the Shadow Demon pick, you haven't really got anything that needs setting up, guess it buys 2.5 seconds of link time for Razor but I'd rather have a stun/nuke/slow that will achieve the same thing with more damage.

Maybe the shadow demon was to have something piercing the naix rage, but I would rather have bane in that chase

radiant.

though they have 2 supports who are normanly used for setup which is a bit wonky, the nyx should het no farm whatsoever, since he isnt that good of an offlaner.

lifestealer also is going to farm quite slow and even when he gets it the shadow demon and razor can deal with him quite well.
though the invoker is a nice pick the radiant lineup will peak at a time where the lone druid and the elder titan aura are really strong, and the razor can also do some decent work.

i dont really know what happens in a lone druid invoker matchup. i theory druid beats almost everyone but invoker is really tough to out last hit with forge spirits.

Radiant definitely won that draft posted by SeekHeart: a simple Ward behind the small creep camp (there's a hidden spot that can be used to block it; you have to cut/eat a tree though) and also planting an Observer in the Dire jungle completely stops that jungling Lifestealer and prevents the dual lane from creep pulling. Middle LD is a bit strange: as they had two very farm-dependent core Heroes you could've assumed they were going for dual lanes or jungle Lifestealer; so an off-laning Lone Druid would've had a great advantage.

By the way, the Radiant team can simply focus on getting level 6 and quickly pushing the tier 1 towers to make the Dire side lose their map control and, in turn, prevent the two carries from farming; ganking Lifestealer with that support duo should also be super easy. Naga is a pretty "old" pick, other Heroes could've filled her role in a better way ( Crystal Maiden or Venomancer for teamfights; Lina and especially Leshrac, who also pushes rather well, for combinations with SD), but as you picked her first there's nothing you could do about it.


And for everyone who doesn't know, Shadow Demon is the second best counter to Lifestealer (the first one being Bane): a Demonic Purge completely nullifies N'aix's effectiveness. I consider Beastmaster and Doom less useful because they need a farming role to be effective and, most of the time, a support that counters a carry doesn't interfer with your strategy (or at least not as much as Beastmaster and Doom do).

i decided to draft myself for fun. i was radiant.

the result: http://dota2draft.the-cluster.org/show?op=r&fp=r&pick=E2j2ZX1B2Zo0ZL2ZD1ZM0ZF2A2&ban=ZSZrPxCmZbyZKa


my plan was to pressure them a lot with bristleback, so their supports couldnt roam a lot. then i would pick trump card and lane crusher viper to destroy their mid.

but during the draft i decided to pick up a gyro and go agressive. i wasnt sure if it was the right call but atleast i would stop them from taking my bottom tower early with pugna.
the bristle could go solo safe against what i expected to be a nyx.

i think my lone druid was a pretty good ban becouse he could probably stand against my viper and also becouse it fits their pushing lineup.

it turned out he picked an ursa but i think my trilane can handle that by freezing the ursa, their 2 squishy supports will also have a really hard time standing against the acid spray, especially when gyro is throwing flak cannon shots everywhere.

my mid will definately win, my top probably too, since pugna is really squishy and especially in the sidelane bristle is better. im less sure about my trilane but it should be ok most of the time.

i also have the lategame pretty much secured and my midgame is pretty good too.

what do you guys think?