MarsTV Dota League – EHOME’s Rise Continues
EHOME reformed during 2015 and currently includes four players who are relatively new to the professional level. The team is captained by veteran Zhang “LaNm” Zhicheng. Under LaNm’s guidance, EHOME has been placing well in various tournaments. They placed third at Nanyang and followed that up with a 4th place finish in Frankfurt. Perhaps their most surprising result was their 3-0 victory over Evil Geniuses in the Grand Finals of MarsTV Dota League. It seemed like EHOME had a solid strategy for their matchup against EG – an Ursa pick first game seemed to catch EG off guard. Combined with Lone Druid (double bear strat!), EHOME won the match in 33 minutes. By the third game, EHOME’s last pick Offlane Enchantress proved to be too much for Evil Geniuses to handle. Enchantress’ damage output was absurd by the end of the game. According to datDota’s database, eLeVeN’s Enchantress had the second highest hero damage output in the match.
DatDota’s Stats on MDL Grand Finals, Game 3
The Rise of the Offlane
The 6.86 patch brought a number of changes to the offlane, in both map and hero alterations. New neutral camps were added, giving offlaners a chance to farm more gold. Nature’s Prophet was buffed, Batrider is viable again, Lone Druid is suddenly picked up all the time. As a result, the current meta seems to emphasize the importance of the offlane. Recent tournaments have seen players like AdmiralBulldog of Alliance and Universe of EG have a huge impact in games, moreso to an extent than in previous patches. eLeVeN’s Enchantress during the MDL finals topped the net worth chart. While Evil Geniuses may have lost the Grand Finals, Universe in particular stands out as a playmaker for this tournament. Universe played his signature Faceless Void (glad to see it back!) and hit a number of well – executed Chronospheres. Heroes like Lone Druid have come back from relative obscurity in the pro scene to priority picks/bans.
It’s refreshing to see pro Dota take a step towards emphasizing the position 3 players. I enjoy watching the antics of players like Bone7 and IceIceIce – Offlane play is more unpredictable and variable than mid or safelane. I’m excited to see what the upcoming Shanghai Major holds. Will teams like Alliance continue dominating with players like AdmiralBulldog having an enormous impact in games, or will the competition have figured out a way to shut down the offlane hard?