Non-Pro Picks?

I still wouldn't say Invoker is imba, very strong but very beatable. Ember is a bit too strong, Sleight of Fist has too low a Cd, especially with crits up, he just destroys heroes. The biggest problem is Lycan right now, with Ancient Apparition he spits out an insane amount of damage, watched silent playing him a few days ago with treads-vlads-Necro 3 in 15min.. Howl + Chilling Touch = murder, than several dead towers.
Axe may be picked to counter Lycan, but I haven't seen it all starladder 9, in d2cl a few times but not that prevalent, since Lycan is generally insta banned, but spin procs or not, the damage is too much, Shadow Shaman and Bane do a damn good job mitigating his damage though.
Fnatic busting out Meepo a few times in SL9 was pretty amazing though �

Axe is getting picked to counter lycan.
His minions proc more counter's, he can disable him through BKB with call, and beats him HARD in lane.
Go farm in the safelane RTZ :P

Perhaps, but Axe joined the meta far earlier than Lycan. Axe started getting picked soon after 6.79 came in. Alliance especially liked him as a safe lane carry. More lately he is mainly a jungling support and has fallen off a little recently.

Lycan on the other hand is one of the most recent additions especially in the western scene. The Chinese started the current Lycan fad where he was a tier 1 pick while his inclusion in a western team would have been a complete shock. After some success in the Eastern scene Western teams started to pick him up.

It's all about trends. IIRC Lycan hadn't got a massive buff in 6.80 or 6.79. He's just a trendy strat right now due to his pushing ability.

I dont know why you think axe was picked a lot in 6.79 becouse he was picked only 7 times.
In 6.80 its 58 times, which is just 3,9%.

And lycan got some nice buffs that really made him strong, he got a damage buff that made his laning stronger.
The buff to howl also really adds up with multiple units.
And not to forget the buffs to his wolves, the 80% resistance, high regen and earlier invis made his wolves REALLY durable.

There's a massive difference between saying axe started getting picked up in 6.79 and "axe was picked up a lot in 6.79" as you thought I said. Axe went from a WTF pick to a highly situational pick, it's not like he was ever getting picked up every game or getting banned out. However you are mistaken in thinking that Axe's viability came after Lycan started getting picked up. Perhaps in the Chinese scene where I don't recall seeing much axe at all while Lycan had already been a tier 1 pick for a while.

Lycan is the perfect example of what was my original point about the pro meta being more based on trends than a few heroes who are better than all the rest as it has been in the past. Lycan wasn't a bad hero when he wasn't getting picked in the western scene but was in the Eastern. It's just that at the time the western teams were going crazy for Luna. Lycan got some high profile games in China the western teams saw the proof of his viability and of building a strat around him and started picking him. But there was an interim period for a while where picking Lycan would have seemed very strange in the West while he was an expected pick in China even though the same hero was available to both.

I don't think Lycan's buffs were massive, although I suppose that's a subjective term. But the meta before 6.79 favoured later game carries with less emphasis on push strats. Which is the reason Lycan was not picked up then.

Undying (I am determined to bring this back to my original point :P) is in a similar situation a few small buffs and a few games where he does well and he could easily become a top pick. The hero isn't bad and in drastic need of fixing. He's just not trendy at the moment. There are heroes which are in need of drastic changes Bloodseeker and Omniknight spring to mind but the number of those heroes are much less than they were before. Now almost anyone is viable, whereas before there were many heroes who were not viable at all.