Help with drafting

Hello there, my name is Swmapmist, and I'm currently part of a fledgling 'pro' team called the Swampy Knights. While we pride ourselves on being fairly good at the game, we always seem to fall short when it comes to drafting. Whether its a lack of knowledge on good strategies\team comps, the meta, or counters, we'd like some help in learning about how to effectively draft so that we can start to really get into the competitive dota sphere. Thank you for your time.

well first welcome to dotafire .

second:

a bit more information would be nice?

what specifically are you requesting help with?

Well, as I said above, most of the basics of drafting I and my teammates understand. I'm looking for help with actual hero stuff, such as what heroes counter what, and what team comps are actually good. We tend to get outdrafted more than outplayed, and I want to work on stopping that as we continue to improve our actual skills.

Alrighty then.I will enlist a few handy tricks when drafting.

1)Always pick the supports first:why? because when your first 2 picks are supports,your enemies might be tempted to make a core pick (like Slark or something for ganking) giving you the opportunity to heavily counter-pick that hero.

2) Almost always keep your first core an agility/strength hero who can carry as well as semi carry or a tank (Dragon knight,Lycan,razor,centaur warruner,axe and ember spirit come to mind) followed by your primary carry(void,dusa,spec,luna,snip take your pick) or your mid-laner (whichever you think best)

3)Observe the enemy bans.If they ban Doom and Storm Spirit you can be pretty sure they are going to pick Invoker/ Nature's Prophet and Phantom Assassin.I'll write down a table.

Doom-casters (look for combo-wombos_
Storm Spirit-split pushers
Bounty Hunter/ Slardar:don't ban Riki,if they pick him you have already won :D.
Earthshaker:pushing lineup with or without illusion heroes incoming!
Lion:just ban single target agility carries.
Bane:same as Lion
They banned carries?:they just wasted a ban-slot (except if you picked Keeper of the Light+ Shadow Demon then Phantom Lancer is a sure ban)
natures prophet:bleh.
Tinker:they afraid bro.pick more nukes.
Batrider:are you guys professionals?

Also always pick 2 stunners (atleast) in your team.

jesus... thats quite a lot of information your asking.

you should by now know a lot of hero counters no?

Nyx against intel heavy line ups...

Anti Mage is a good hero to deal with Wraith King... that kind of thing?

because if you dont understand that then its going to be tough going for you.

you should also understand by now the synergy possessed by certain match ups ?

Legion Commander and Skywrath Mage

Faceless Void and Witch Doctor

i guess what im trying to say is the whole "Drafting Strategies" is a lot of information.

for example.

one draft might be quite weak laned in a certain way but when you lane it different it can become quite strong.

heroes can be the same.

plus banning is a huge part of drafting.

if i were you i would do three things.

1. look at pro drafts and bans.
2. search for drafting threads in our theory section. i have a couple of theory exercises that people have got in on that explain a lot.
3. keep drafting... see what works, some drafts might not fit you guys and some might. keep drafting haha.

Just a small pointer try to watch some pro games and keep an eye on the meta for some insight in to what popular at the moment.

Thank you guys for the tips, they're really appreciated. Yes, we do watch a lot of pro games, I was actually in NY for ESL1 last october, but we still don't really understand why their choices are made. With such a fluid meta it's hard to realize who's bet for what role. And yes, we do understand the basic wombo-combo strats, but not the actually strategic combos that put together good comps. More often than not we end up either way over counter-picking our opponents, leaving us lacking in ways to push\teamfight\ect, or or we under-counter pick and get facerolled. One of our other problems, and the main other one that we would like help with, is making sure that we are banning our heroes counters. We understand the counters that we see a lot (Panda countered by silence, for instance) but there are many heroes played on ladder that you won't see in pro games that we know a lot less about. Also, we'd like to try to get someone to practice-draft with us. We do it with custom games to test our skills and run drafting scenarios, but it would be nice to have someone who's better at drafting there with us when we do it.

biggest piece of advice probably the best one i know of when drafting.

dont be reactive.

BE PROACTIVE.

dont say oh **** lets counter what they picked with this... because then you will end up with a weird hap hazard draft.

have your core draft and bans PRE PICKED before you even get a game.

so for example a god tri core - disengagement/push/teamfight/lategame/anti carry/DPS

Centaur Warrunner
Razor
Terror Blade

then you look at your core bans... - anti illusion/anti push/lategame problems/early game push

Lion
Ember Spirit
Death Prophet
Faceless Void

these bans will force your opponents into less strong picks to fill those roles.

so now you have a strong core but your opponent picks a good hero that will be a problem... now is when you look at your two last picks.

they pick an Axe - tough to lane a tb against so as your pos 5 you draft a Shadow Demon which does extremely well against a Axe in lane.

then they pick a Meepo as their hard carry so you think hey alright how about a Lich ...

anyway hope that helps