Stupid Question About Drafting

I really dont know, so I want to ask.

Picture this:
Sicily, 1934- oh wait, different story (GUESS THE REFERENCE B O Y Z)


You are playing captains mode, no hero has been drafted. Why, or what- would you draft? There are many lineups; pushes, teamfights, splitpushes, 4 protect 1, ganks, deathballs, etc. Why this lineup? Why not the other? Why are you compelled on this draft? Is this a simple "hmmmm.... lets do this" thinking, or more complicated?

What if your cores are banned? What would you do? Switch to a different lineup? Or make a more versatile draft? I dont even know how to exaggerate this, but simple: Why did you want this lineup?



I understand about patches and meta, but what is meta? Just a new trend? Or lineups with versatile capabilities? Why do people change meta? What IS meta? Why do people follow meta? Not create a new one? Why dont they pick their favorite heroes???


So yeah, I sounds like a dotoskrub for this stupid questions, but I am not familiar to the ways how people drafted on competitive.

ty all :)

Each team starts with one or more strategies, with a primary one in mind - push, gank early, teamfight, carry late etc.

You begin by banning out heroes who can wreck that plan, or that you don't want to face for whatever reason, while trying not to give the game away.

Grab your first few heroes, ideally your most flexible ones (i.e. heroes who can fit into multiple strategies effectively). This gives less away, and also means you can still change the plan.

Ban more heroes can give you problems, either specific counters to your heroes, or your strategy.

Pick more heroes, you'll probably start to give away the plan now, see where things are headed - will their picks counter yours, do you have appropriate ones for the laning, game phases, do they have synergy (i.e. work well together).

Leave your least flexible/surprise hero til last.

The "meta" is simply what strategies and heroes are commonly employed by the pro teams. For example "split push", "deathball" etc. Many players copy the pro's (often for good reason), so those kind of picks and strategies tend to become more popular.

do you mainly want to know about pro games, pubs, or do you want to draft yourself?

Well this is how I draft, still learning.

1) Make a plan A which is your main and plan what picks and bans you will want, let's say I want DP as a mid for the push power.
2) Plan B is if they ban your core hero or counterpick your core, look for another core hero maybe tinker or razor?
3) Completely change my strategy if all else fails, pick a couple of good babysitters and a void. Get that void fat and don't give away sloppy kills and should be fine.

Drafting in competitive

Drafting in competitive is kinda lot more complex, and features a lot more room about more directed bans, simply because big teams get known for what sort of strategies they aim for.

Respect bans are common enough things in competitive, because certain players and certain teams just do certain things so well. Like you don't let Aui_2000 get a Visage because he's incredible on the hero, and Cloud9 are a team that will happily first pick Drow/Visage because of there confidence with the strat. Or like give Xcalibur his Meepo. Simply because there's a smaller, but better known playerbase in pro games that such things are possible and fairly common place. Likewise in series, bans in second and third games generally remove problems from the prior game because the other team showed proficiency at using it.

Same general things Sando said applied - There are generally 2-3 to Heroes that are almost always first ban material, because of there general power, and ability to shape games around themselves so easily. Lycanthrope in the last patch is a good example.

I'd honestly say there's no concrete way as to how the drafts go from there. First pick/ban is generally either very versatile heroes that don't give huge amounts away about your lanes (Like Razor, Brewmaster, Centaur Warrunner (Thus leaving you open to respond to the opponents picks), or you go for specific hero combo's before they can be banned out, like Medusa/ Magnus. Second ban phase acts either to remove combo piece heroes with the first few pick-ups (Like banning Witch Doctor if there's a Faceless Void up, more respect bans, or obviously heroes that counter the strat you are aiming for.

There are also pocket stratefy drafts that pro teams will have practiced and pull out when nessicary - Basically a draft that a team has practiced that wouldn't be expected unless you knew what it was in advance, and thus you gain an advantage through suprise.

It's kinda hard to explain really.

As for the stuff about the meta - The meta is generally formed around the sorts of drafts and Heroes that are found to be strong on a consitent level. It's followed, because normally it proves itself to be the best strats at the time. It changes when people discover new unthought of strats that also work, and thus even through the life time of the patch the meta will change and develop even if the hero's themselves don't change. It's a common place thing in almost every form of competitive game.

Ok ill try and help a bit just based off my knowledge which might be flawed but i think it still can help.




^^ Drafting works like a large scale battle. each captain "SHOULD" have a set idea or PLAN of what cores he wants to his STRATEGY and he should have heroes that can be changed in for them if they get banned .

for example : Razor mid is quite strong but a good back up is a Viper now you have 2 Core heroes that you can pick from for your mid spot or put them in safelane farming.

then you want another core that can be versatile that fits in with your strategy.

For Example : Faceless Void great hero atm HUGE game impact plus versatile in his laning. a back up to this could be Doom.

Now your 3 4 5 position can be saved to counter their draft or to add extra weight to yours.



^^ As a Captain before you even get a game you will have a STRATEGY you want to draft into.
say split push ... now with split push you want to ban out heroes that counter your draft like Nyx Storm Spirit or Death Prophet Tinker these heroes either hunt your split pusher and shut him down or just flat out out push you or in Tinker's case ...you cant push into him... its painful.

BUT in saying that you need to PLAY to your draft, too often i see people draft a split push and then constantly team fight from 10 minutes on. if you have a plan ...you MUST stick to it!





^^ Meta is a loaded question since it is soo fluid.

but the best description i could possibly give is:

Meta is the current heroes, drafts and play style that, under the current or most recent Patch, give the greatest advantage.

by this i mean, 6.8 deathball strats arose from small changes to the mechanics behind certain heroes. and before that Split push arose from another changes. Pro Teams keep testing each patch to find the best possible outcome from each one so when a new META arises its not usually a DIRECT result of the patch but a RESULT of the Pro Teams Constantly testing it out and finding ways to TAKE the best ADVANTAGE from it.


for drafting i would maybe explain this game.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/945879521

this game was one we did last night.

Strategy: Pressure/Teamfights/5manpush

cores: Faceless Void

first phase: we were afraid of a split push or countering team fight line up plus as with any first and second ban you want to get rid of some heroes that are just so powerful right now. thus Terror Blade ban.
then they kinda played into our hands by banning Silencer since he could have shut down our combo whombo pretty hard. and again with the Tinker. these bans by them were wrong. in your first phase you want to get rid of heroes that are TIER 1 but also are a threat to your draft. thus the Tidehunter ban.
We Picked Faceless Void Straight away because as a core we want him quick before he gets banned and since he is the core we needed him to our draft and we felt confident that with silencer tinker and tide and tb banned we could continue with our draft. then the Lich and Visage came out and we picked up a combo for FV with Skywrath Mage since he has a huge game presence and has great synergy with FV.

Second Phase: With the Visage Pick we automatically banned out Drow since the synergy between the two is quite high. then the Death Prophet which as a ban was quite good since it stops the forced push the fight under Exorcism and the laning presence. We pick up another combo with Witch Doctor and then with thier Viper pick we knew that he would be mid so we knew with his great laning phase we could either try and fight it or DRAFT AROUND HIM. how do you fight viper mid? ... you dont thus the Pugna mid with that pick we drafted some push and defense into our draft and with his playstle of just pushing the wave vipers laning presence was halved and his rotations wouldnt be a problem since if he left the lane his tower would fall. With the Spectre pick we knew theywanted to go LATE game thus we knew we had to force the finish in under 35 mins or shut down her farm so much that she couldnt get back into it.

last phase: Centaur Warrunner for offlane was a no brainer as they didnt have any stuns or disables and with his ulti the ability to disengage from a fight or charge into one was huge. Honestly axe was a horrible pick by them so all good and told we out drafted them and then out played them.

anyway hope that helps!!

(Shoutout to AngeloBangelo for his awesome help as well)

Thank you all, such great answers.


But none of you guessed the reference yet.... come on, guys


@Smuggels Did you pick Pugna after our match?

hahaha no not really but it did allow me to agree with the pick. since that ******** ward!!!!!

we were looking at Zues or a razor mid actually but we wanted push so we thought maybe jakiro but we wanted a more passive play so Pugna it was :D

Cool, I think im going to see the replay soon. I WANNA SEE THOSE WARDS