How do I raise my MMR?
It’s the age old question that everyone who plays Dota wants to know. Whilst we all like to watch those godlike players at the highest level who seem to have it all figured out, the truth is that 99% of players are well below 5K MMR. Pros like to tell people we all have the MMR we deserve, and there’s a lot of truth to this, but it’s not quite the same for players battling it out at the lower ranks who don’t have time to play all day.
Become a better player
Even if you do feel like you consistently play well in your games, that doesn’t mean you can’t improve further – and you aren’t going to get better just by playing more matches. If you aren’t good enough to regularly carry under performing teammates then you’re going to struggle to climb in MMR as quickly as you’d like. Take a few tips from the pros or learn to improve your farming efficiency and really focus on improving one aspect of your play each game. A few small tweaks will make a huge difference.
Pick high impact heroes
It’s important to play a hero you can have a high impact with each game. Snowballing mids like Invoker, Tinker, Storm Spirit or Templar Assassin are ideal since they’re capable of carrying your team through both the early and later stages of the match. Carries that come online fast and can get kills in lane, like Phantom Assassin, Luna or Juggernaut are also good choices because they aren’t too reliant on the rest of their team. Becoming really good with a tanky initiator like Axe or Centaur can also be a good move, since you’ll make life easy for your greedy teammates.
Get really good with one hero
Learning to play one hero extremely well and then just spamming it is a reliable way to climb quickly. You’ll need to play a hero with a high skill ceiling and who feels strong in the current meta. Once you’ve learnt all their match-ups, items builds and farming patterns you’ll reach a level of consistency that should keep your win-rate high. You need to be careful not to become too one-dimensional though.
Change your mentality
If you’re already a talented player but your win-rate isn’t great then the problem is probably down to your communication. Aui 2000 did a great series on how to approach the game, and if you learn to get your teammates to play together by communicating with them effectively then this will improve your win-rate more than anything else.
Recalibrate
As a final resort you could try recalibrating, either via an in-game option like the one the International Battle Pass 2016 offered or by creating a new account. Recalibrating takes absolutely ages so it’s not something you want to do unless you’re sure you should be playing at a much higher level – but it could save you time in the long run.