Early hardcore push strat and how to counter.

well i wasnt talking about early fighting carries. i just said that you dont want a carry that is useless early. (obviously :P) and other heroes that are really strong at fighting early like brewmaster or undying.

for a carry gyro is good yea, since he is able to teamfight with earlygame items since he has usefull spells. just rightclick is not going to do the trick.


this game romark had morphling, which is probably one of the most abysmal heroes against these kind of strats, he is so bad from behind its not even funny. maybe they should have gone for something like a drums on him just so he can survive a bit more.

Get an aoe monster( Jakiro, Sand King, etc.) to go into an abandoned lane and soak up xp. When they're Level 6, jump in and murderize the enemy team.

They were a coordinated team isnt it? I havent seen one game where a 5 stack lost to pubs.
To overcome a coordinated team, you shoud have a team youself. That, my friend, is the first thing you have to do.

Prevention is the second thing. How would it be if you had caught them at rosh? Sweet right? What of you assessed situation at drafting itself and responded accordingly?


Picking counter pushers is the third thing you gotta do. Ion shell their tank whos bearing tower damage and watch the idiots scatter.
Sandkings sand storm does the same thing, like a slow poison people tend not to notice.

4th point is counterinitiation. You need to have such heroes who can counterinitiate. Magnus, dark seer, earthshaker, sand king axe come to mind.


Counter early aggression with early aggression. I mean Earth Spirit.

Lastly try having a snowballer on your team which benefits from foghts so he transitions in late game better. He need not be absolutely best he needs only be better than the enemy team.


Run a strat youself. Anti armor, AoE, aura strat, stack up on durables.

Try Tusk in your drafts. 5 man snowball hurts like hell and serves as a spell immune shelter for the whole team.


Defend you highground. They have a disadvantage at tier 3 towers, use it to your advantage.

Thats all from me.

Actually kypho he is in a 5 stack. Isnt it obvious?

Sand King and Dark Seer would have been better support picks here. Easy counter push a long with a lot of free farm for them. Timbersaw would of made a better pick than Centaur. Centaur needs a Blink to be fully successful. Timbersaw has chain.

Also Legion Commander would of been a godsend in this situation. Overwhelming Odds for days.

To counter pushes, you need large AoE nukes that can stun or do huge damage, so you can take the opportunity to get in and kill them fast before tower goes down. My favorite counter pushers are: Earthshaker, Warlock, and Death Prophet. Or simply out push them and get heavy pushers like they did. In that amtch you got wrecked becuase they had some of the best pushers in the game. Luna's Aura + Beastmaster's Aura + Nature's Prophet Treants + Enigma's demons + Pugna's tower nuke = instant death to towers.

Legion Commander with maxed Overwhelming Odds has been effective against this strategy in the past. It annihilates necro units and gives the entire group a pretty sizable wallop too.

Just need more counter push, and more heroes who counter pushers (not quite the same thing).

Good counterpushers are:

Jakiro - Every spell he has can slow down a push, and he also has good pushing ability with his auto-cast.
Sand King - Same as above, plus invis. He can sit under his own tower and just sandstorm everything to death. Can't really cast and run like Jak.
Earthshaker - Can literally block a path for several seconds to stop a push dead. The more units present, the deadlier he becomes.
Undying - Decent at providing a lot of units to do his work. Makes a lot of chaos during pushes with a ton of units present. Relies on his ward though.

Good counters to pushers:

Legion Commander - Blink or Shadowblade and Duel just wreck solo pushers. She's pretty ineffective against group pushes though.
Doom Bringer - Essentially the same as above, with more chasing involved. Provides a bit more teamfight presence with auras and scorched earth.
Mirana - For solo pushers like NP she can get an easy arrow off. For groups she can use her ult to flank and catch enemies off guard, or pick off stragglers who are making their way to join their team.

Basically any ganker with initiation ( Slark, Bounty Hunter, Riki, etc) is going to do well against heroes like Nature's Prophet. You have to be faster than them and wait for them to try and escape, then cancel their escape. Silences, bashes/stuns, and good initiation are the key.

How is Keeper of the Light not included in counter-push?

I mean, obviously that wasn't everyone. After a few examples you get the picture: AoE creep clear or stuns. Gyrocopter is also good, Sven, Medusa, Axe, Lina, etc. There are a ton of decent options.