Out-pick Idiots – How to Score Free Wins

Written by Christopher "KingTomato" Thomas

So you like mobas? That’s pretty cool I guess… You’re undoubtedly one of those kids who spends many hours a week playing DOTA/HON/LOL (hopefully not smite) depending on what’s cool. You play; you have fun; and you are sitting around 50% wins. Anything wrong with this picture? ABSOLUTELY. Having fun with 50% wins? If you can’t win more often than a coin flip comes up heads, you better sit down, pull out your notebook, and start writing little son. “But Tomato,” you might say, “I have fun whether I win or not.” And you know, that may be the case, but there is not one person in the world who can argue that you have less fun when you win more. Winning is fun, and I’m here to teach you how to do it. Throughout this article, I will explain strategies for All Random, All Pick/Single Draft, Random Draft, Captains Mode, and Captains Draft in terms of drafting and team composition. The focus will be on Dota 2, but the information in this post is true regardless of what moba you play.

“Who is this Tomato and why does he get to tell me how to play Dota?” you might ask. I suppose I do owe you faithful readers a little background. I am a long time moba player with history in HON/LOL/DOTA. I have played under the aliases KingTomato, Glamorous Pink, and recently just Tomato, so any J4K members should be fairly familiar with me. I am currently 4800 rating in Dota 2, and I don’t feel like I’m at my peak yet. I’m an experienced drafter, and I draft almost every chance I get. My dota buff is not too impressive, but I did share this account with a brand new player in its beginnings. I play a mean shadow fiend. I’m better than you, so get over it (unless I’m not in which case I’m sorry).

So why is team composition and drafting skill important? The team that plays better should always win right? WRONG. Rule #1 of non-professional games: the team with the better composition wins 75% of the time. It’s true. When playing the filthiest of pub games or the
“pro-est” of match making, the skill difference between the teams is simply not enough to determine the outcome of the game. I would say that only a few out of every 100 games I play are decided by clearly more skilled players. This trend is so true that an experienced player (including myself) can tell the outcome of a game just from the picks with about the same accuracy (75%). This is why drafting and team composition are so important.

Well what is team composition? I will refer you to a previous article “Knowing your hero roles” along with a future team composition focused post for this information. Don’t play 1 position Crystal Maiden, and don’t play 5 position Luna. It’s pretty simple. So without further delay, let’s jump into some strategies.

Game Modes

All Random

I hate all random. In a game where the players with the better team win 75% of the time, why anyone would play a mode that decides who has the better team for you is beyond me. If you playin’ all random I feel bad for you son, I got 830 games but AR aint one. I suppose it can be rather hilarious when one team is all str-melee, but in terms of strategy there is not much. I do, however, want to stress repicking. Repicking is the only control you have over your team in all random games. Repicking should not be utilized just because you don’t know how to play a hero or don’t want to. Get good, kid. Try to decide if the hero is misplaced on your team before you repick. All random is also a great time to learn some of the more difficult heroes in the game.

All Pick/Single Draft

I hate all pick and single draft. Coordinating which idiot plays what hero when everyone wants to play their favorite and still picking a good team is a prayer for pub heaven. Combine that with the fact that you can wait until the two minute rune spawns to pick your counter pick as well as the inclusion of the broken heroes and you have a recipe for the scummiest game type around. If being scum doesn’t bother you, either insta-pick a god tier hero (Earth spirit, Legion commander) or wait until the other team has completely chosen their line-up and counter-pick. Never pick an easily countered hero when multiple opponents have not chosen yet. This is the fastest way to be countered and useless. Don’t be the reason why your team loses before the game starts.

Random Draft

I only hate one thing about random draft: that there is no prep time before the first person has 20 seconds to pick. They are often afk, slow, or stupid because this person randoms 60% of the time. Then with all of the time in the world, the opposing team grabs the two strongest heroes in the pool and the game is over. Other than that it is a pretty fun and fair game type that doesn’t take forever to start playing (like CM and CD). The most important remark I want to make is that you can swap in random draft. Therefore, if supports are scarce, don’t be an idiot pub and first pick one of the 8 good mid heroes on the board. Try to prioritize what is lacking in the hero pool so you don’t get stuck with Centaur Spiritbreaker supporting a PA.

Captains Mode

If you love competitive dota and maybe someday want to hit the scene, captains mode is the game type for you. Every tournament and serious competition is played captains mode. First off, in any captains game type, the newly released heroes are not pickable. If you are tired of getting wiped off the map by good earth spirit players or legion commander, captains games are for you. The picking stage is complicated so I will try my best to summarize with a flow chart. 

A good strategy is to pick a core and a support in the first round. Off-lane heroes work well as first core picks because most are difficult to fully counter (i.e. Timbersaw, clockwork, bristleback). Picking two supports first round should be avoided except in rare cases because the other team will have the luxury of banning the best cores for your team with their remaining three bans while you are stuck banning cores and supports. Picking two cores will leave you in a similar and possibly worse situation because the god-tier supports are rarer than a pub who asks for Crystal Maiden. Mid heroes should generally be left for last pick because they are easily countered and losing your mid lane can put your team way behind. The exception to this rule are heroes like invoker and viper that are very difficult or even impossible to counter.

Captains Draft

I LOVE CAPTAINS DRAFT. It is without a doubt the best game type in Dota 2. It involves all of the skill of captains mode with more at stake. You can out-pick the other harder in CD than any other mode. This means free wins. As before it is important to prioritize what’s lacking in the pool; in fact, in captains draft it is VITAL and will determine which team is better in most cases. Allow me to explain with the diagram below.

  

Advanced tactics for first and second pick

I’d like to give two different picking strategies. When you have first pick in captains mode or draft, it is best to ban out as many strong heroes as possible. For example, let’s say there are five top tier picks that almost guarantee wins in pug games (which is fairly accurate at any point in the meta). If all four bans are top tier heroes, first pick casually takes the last one and builds a strong team with the first pick advantage. This is ideal for a first pick and this idea can be extended to as many “first pick first ban heroes” are in the pool. As a second pick, you’ve read this post and taken notes so you are equipped to deal with strategies like this, so you pull something sneaky. Instead of using both of your bans on top tiers you casually slip one or two annoying A tier heroes into your bans (viper, OD, clock, etc). Now look what happens, two of the five top tiers are banned and three remain in the pool. First pick is almost forced to take one, and second pick gets the other two. Second pick can also counter with this strategy if first pick doesn’t ban a top tier.

Strategies in captains draft that differ from captains mode

Unlike in captains mode, captains draft enjoys four consecutive double picking rounds. This makes it much easier to nab strong combos like kotl/PL, lifestealer/(Puck, storm, or clock), without counter bans or “steal-picks” by the other team.

I hope this guide is useful. Stay tuned for more maps that lead out of the pub sewers and into the limelight.