WePlay AniMajor stats (and a bit of DPC Season 2)
Yo!
The second (and the last before TI) DPC Season just concluded with the awesome WePlay AniMajor. And, as usual, I’m here to give you some stats about the event.
Russian version (VK)
This time I tried a bit different approach. Usually I’m making a small Twitter thread full of pictures. This time I’d like to get all of the infographics here, while also adding some thoughts about the meta, additional records and stats, links to DPC Season wrap-ups and more.
You can check the full report for the AniMajor by following this link. And if you want to see stats for the full DPC Season 2 (regional leagues and the major), you can check the report here.
Let’s get it started!
WePlay AniMajor
Most of the Season 2 meta can be described as “heals meta”. And while most of the tanky heroes became less popular at the major, the most crazy of meta heroes still remain: most notably Winter Wyvern as both healer and an answer to heals, as well as Ancient Apparition, the ultimate answer to all heal strats.
Another notable hero in the top 10 by rank is Hoodwink. While not being as popular as others, she has relatively high winrate for her number of games. Main reason for that is a high damage nuke with Break mechanics (similar to Nyx), which allows to deal with some of the most annoying heroes of the meta, including Timbersaw and Dragon Knight (or heroes like Spectre). Similar reason made Doom more popular (although the hero is missing from the top-10 by rank).
But the king of the game is, once again, Terrorblade, being the most successful carry of the event.
Total of 17 heroes were uncontested (not picked or banned) during the tournament. And three more (Enigma, Necro, Riki) were only banned, but not picked.
While it may not look like a very flexible meta, keep in mind: all of the heroes were picked at least once during the DPC Season.
Combos
Most popular pairs list doesn’t seem to have any sort of obvious combos: most of the pairs in this list tend to look like a duo of generally good heroes. However, there are two general patterns to take note of: a bulky hero and a nuker (usually it’s either pos 3 and 4 or pos 4 and 5) or a bulky hero and a strong heal.
This doesn’t seem that surprising in the heals meta: while one team will try to go with the heals strategy, the other will try to counter heals with some burst or percentage based damage (where heroes like Lion, Phoenix and AA shine).
The most interconnected hero, however, seems to be Puck. The fairy dragon was already a nuisance during Season 1, and was the most contested hero in every region during Season 2. And even at the major he still remains the go-to hero.
Hero positions
While Season 2 meta looks generally more stable in terms of roles (the most flexible heroes are all mostly supports), there are still some things to take a look at.
For me the most notable thing about this meta is the carry pool. While every other role primarily mirrors trends of the whole season, safelane cores tend to have a slightly different approach at this stage. It seems that the most contested carries all were tanky frontline kind of type. Terrorblade and Faceless Void might not seem like tanky frontliners, but their spells and item builds usually turn make them comparably tanky or, on the other hand, allow them to deal with bulky enemies.
One thing to note about Spectre is the new Echo Sabre build (how D2Bowie put it, “The paradigm shift”). The main reason of this shift (and Spectre’s relative success as a result) is insane stats the item gives. Both Strength and Mana regen bonuses were buffed, which made the item too good to ignore, especially on a hero like Spectre, who needs both HP (Sabre gives around 300 HP through strength) and mana regen.
Records
In terms of records I won’t comment much, but rather I’d like to add some of the records I wrote about on twitter while the matches were live.
And, of course, if you need links to these matches, you can find them in the report, in the “Records” section.
Now, let’s go through some of the DPC Season 2 records:
- Pyw with the most camps stacked (17) in VG vs Execration, Game 1
- iLTW with the earliest Manta as Anti-mage (17:06, 2 minutes earlier than median in DPC Season 2 and 5 minutes earlier than median in 7.29d immortal ranked) and earliest Eye of Skadi on Anti-mage as well (22 min mark. 5/6 minutes earlier than median) in Nigma vs Execration, Game 2
- YapzOr with the earliest Windranger Blink timing (15 min mark, 10 minutes earlier than median) in iG vs Secret, Game 2
- Emo with the earliest Leshrac Eul’s timing (9:32, 3 minutes earlier than median) in iG vs Secret, Game 1
- Nightfall and iceiceice were both competing for the most pings in a single game this whole season. Nightfall got the all-season record, iceiceice got the second place. Then at the major iceiceice took the first pings record of the event, followed by second one, after which Nightfall got it back. However, master iceiceice gets it all in the end, proving that he is the one and only pings master
- The first rampage of the event by Arteezy as Terrorblade (not the last one though, and it was also the game with 12k gold comeback no less!) in TNC vs EG, Game 2
- The second rampage of the event by poyoyo as Spectre in Liquid vs VG, Game 1
- Four different heroes with records in a single game. K1 as Spectre got the earliest Power Treads (5:12, 2 mins earlier than median) and Skadi (22:17, 8 mins earlier) on this hero. Arteezy as Naga Siren got the earliest Butterfly (22:20, 7:30 earlier than median) on the hero. Abed as Windranger got the earliest WR Maelstrom (10:46) and Fly as Winter Wyvern got the earliest WW Arcane Boots (7:36, 6 mins earlier). All of this happened in EG vs Beastcoast, Game 2
- VG.Ori with the earliest Templar Assassin Dragon Lance timing (8:27, 4 mins earlier) in Spirit vs VG, Game 2
- iLTW with the most tower damage by a single player in a single game throughout both DPC seasons as Luna (30k) in Nigma vs EG, Game 2
- Dy with the most HP healed this season (before the final day) as Winter Wyvern (34.6k) in VG vs Spirit, Game 1
- And a whole bunch of season records in the same game again. 23savage with the most HP healed as Juggernaut (37.8k), most sentries placed by Whitemon as Grimstroke (52), most map pings by iceiceice as Dragon Knight (492) in T1 vs EG, Game 2
DPC Season 2 Wrap Up
And as a finishing touch, let’s look at the DPC Season 2 meta once again!
In case you missed it, I had full coverage of all the DPC Season 2 regional leagues on my twitter. You can check all the threads here:
Here’s my personal favorite: a table with the most contested heroes for every DPC region (pre-major).
In this post, however, I’d like to take a look at the final form of the meta, combining all regional leagues and the major into one package.
Records
Items
Some additional notes
- I was so happy with so many shoutouts during the DPC Season and the major. Thank you all!
- Is there a “Slacks factor”? Are teams who are picking Windranger in the second/third match of bo3 series are destined to lose? It seems like… it doesn’t matter
- The secret ingredient of winning major tournaments by Aui: “just luck”. Jokes aside, English panel as a whole was entertaining and hilarious, and I was so happy to listen to Aui’s analysis, as well as Tsunami, Ephey, Cap, Jenkins (and everybody else, of course)
- I want to write a big text about this, but as a quick insight: mid T1 tower, especially early one, is extremely important. And the second tower that’s rather important to get is enemy safelane T1 (which opens up space for your own safelane core). It was the case for a long time now, and during the major it became even more clear, as the best teams of the globe were fighting for these objectives. Here are some quick stats on this
- Heals amplification is most likely to be nerfed, just like status resistance. I’d like to point out, that Echo Sabre deserves a nerf too (because of insane stats), but even more important would be a Strength HP bonus nerf
- One of the main things everyone talked about this season was Aeon Disk. Here’s the list of the items with the highest ranks during DPC Season 2. While Aeon Disk is here (and it’s kind of expected), some other items to point out are Shiva’s and Skadi (healing counters), Satanic (morbid mask is affected by satanic’s stats) and Sange and Kaya (status resist, Sange and Yasha is just a bit lower on the list with 88.9 rank), Swift Blink (very swift and buffed a lot), Refresher and Octarine (win condition lategame items). I can’t find a good explanation for why is Assault Cuirass (and Buckler as its component) so high on the list (aside from it being broken).
- I guess AC and Satanic are getting bonked in 7.30
And that’s about it! Now it’s time for The International 10 qualifiers and the event itself!
I’ll try to keep up with all the stuff I’ve done throughout the DPC seasons. Let’s get ready!
