All of these certainly makes for very interesting matches to watch!

nice analisis. where winrate, most pick, all Ti8?

I have been LOVING the matches this year. High pressure situations and TONS of ties and overthrows has made for a tournament where I have almost zero idea what will happen next. Right down to a rule violation that leads to Nahaz fleeing Twitter.

Do the bracket predictions and write about it. Love the blogs. LGD will win it all

Finally Venge is back in pro-games. Have been waiting for it since 2015 - I find her strangely spectacular to watch.

no mention of wk in the offlane?

Navi go

Which 6 heros weren't picked?

@Heihachi

CK, Dark Seer, Dazzle, Slardar, Slark, Techies.

Depending on the cheese strat employed we might see Dazzle and CK picked, but given the dual lane strategy currently used I don't see much hope for Slardar (worse version of other stuff) or Dark Seer (has trouble dual laning). Techies is super difficult to make a case for, but that's almost exactly why he can be so powerful: people don't see it coming.

but y is wk picked by some teams so much?

I wonder why no one picked CK he sure lacks fast farming but his still one of the strongest of late game heroes

Dark seer is the poorest hero now through

@Mr. Poopybutthole

I'd guess, judging from previous Internationals, teams don't want to rely on a hero that relies so much on chance. By the late game it's expected that the opposing team will have at least one form of hex to get rid of phantasms, and his greatest ally, Io, got nerfed so that the tether partner needs to be more self sufficient, which in pro matches CK usually isn't.

These are just guesses though, it does seem odd that the amount of reliance many drafts have on some form of push and late game that he would be completely ignored.

Broodmother?

I too want to know what is up with the Wraith King picks.

Gorgc alrd point out the meta on his stream

I'm gonna venture another guess:

Dual lane setups allow for greedier lineups. This is why we have seen support Ursa. With that in mind, any hero with a single target stun and an aura is really valuable when you are full of carry potential heroes. Venge is getting the same treatment, and if you put them in the same lineup and give Wraith aghs, you have a teamfight full of carries that will come back twice.

>Midrange carries don’t work too well—with lower tower bounties and lower kill bounties their timings are a little bit off and faster cores simply outpace them and can play aggressive, while slower carries generally have enough time to get items and levels for holding highground and eventually outscale.

Cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships

Translation:

The changes to deny experience (and jungle, and mid T1position) in 7.0 & 7.07 destroyed the meta, so that ONLY a 2-1-2 setup ever works anymore. No more 3-1-1; no more roaming (or dual roaming); no more dual mid; no more jungling; no more aggro trilane. JUST 2-1-2.

THEREFORE, sucky heroes like CM (that e.g. otherwise destroy lane equilibrium) who were situationally good only in certain 2-1-2 matchups only are now viable. Because their one strength is exploits the bad aspects of a bad meta.

One step closer to being LoL...

Wraith king is also picked too much i think

Wraith King has been quite a staple in the TI8... You should have written something about it. I would like to hear why he is being picked so much. I get that he can be played in multiple roles like Mirana, so I guess that is it. I didn't think we would see him in a role like this... Biggest surprise to me this year. Also all the early Huskar picks were quite surprising since he isn't that good at the moment... I was looking at it as, damn, he will be nerfed again making him unplayable.

But WK looks like a nerf to happen... So get your WK games in now while TI is still going on.

Ursa and wk is pretty cheesy strat. Especially how min 1 rosh really change perspective of china strat (which is sometimes really coordinated and balanced). But this will hurt 2k bracket since everybody thinking 4 core strat = win. We need that article.
And also on the other hand there is no beastmaster pick (if i remember correctly), so dotabuff largely miss that

Another reason for the prevalence of wraith king and venge picks in this meta is coz of the mango price decrease, which essentially allows them to get lots of cheap mana regen burst to spam their stun/nuke earlier on

no more bat rider...

What about ember spirit and tinker?

Wraith king pick is a juke pick imo.
Its almost the same reason why venge was almost always the first pick.
As the AI game showed us, hero picks determines the win rate. Wraith king can be put on top and bottom, hell kuroky even use him as support at one time.
Its pretty reasonable. He has the aura, and he helps with pushes. Not to mention its hard to kill him.
Versatility is everything in this patch, thats why liquid is so strong. Have you noticed how 3 of their carries have used clinkz? Hell they can even put miracle on the offlane with ursa and they can still play properly.

@mode:Bankai
Divine 4 player commenting like a herald smh.