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BLAST Slam V Meta Recap: The Return of the Walrus
BLAST Slam V broke the pattern in the Grand Finals and now it's time for our meta recap to break expectations. After an interesting succession of events on the tournament, now it's time for us to check how it affected the Dota 2 metagame.
We will check how the changes in the meta compared to other tournaments while also highlighting the most performant teams with each of the most popular heroes. In the meantime, we should also revisit the Shadow Meta to check the new possibilities for your ranked matches.
BLAST Slam V: Meta Recap
Tusk is Alive and Kicking
The tournament's Top 5 of most picked heroes starts from the bottom up with Gyrocopter in 5th place. He had 29 appearances out of the 93 total games played. His 15 victories and 14 defeats placed him barely over equilibrium with a 51.72% win rate. OG had the best results with the hero winning 3 out of 3 games using him.
Tied with the same 29 appearances, Tusk comes in as the most effective hero of the Top 5. After 18 victories and 11 defeats, he achieves an impressive 62.07% win rate in our BLAST Slam V Meta Recap. Tusk was very popular with MOUZ (5W/2L) but had the best results when played by Tundra Esports and Team Yandex (3W/0L).
Centaur Warrunner returns in third place, but with a very underwhelming performance this time. After playing 37 games, winning 17 and losing 20, he drops from his former 77.78% to a 45.95% win rate. Centaur lost a lot of performance but 33 played him to perfection giving Tundra a perfect score after winning 8 out of 8 matches.
Jakiro is Popular But Underperforms
Second place brings back another popular core: Dragon Knight. Davion has participated in 38 games, won 23 and lost 15, amounting to a respectable 60.53% win rate. He fell out of meta after successive nerfs on his facets and now returns triumphant as the second highest win rate on the BLAST Slam V Meta Recap. MOUZ and Yandex both had 75% win rate with this hero but MOUZ had more games on him (6W/2L)
Finally, Jakiro grasps to the top with 44 appearances but after 20 victories and 24 defeats he is the least performant hero on the Top 5 with a 45.45% win rate. We have been waiting for a big update for a while now, and if his results indicate anything, it is that he needs at least a small buff to get to a 50% win rate. Once again, Tundra demonstrated why they are the BLAST overlords by getting 100% win rate in 5 matches playing Jakiro.
Shadow Meta Recap: Back to the 70's
The BLAST Slam V Meta Recap has a unique twist similar to the broken patterns of the tournament. The only hero that is on the 60% win rate and over bracket and not already on the Top 5 of most popular heroes is Shadow Demon. Since there are no heroes in the above 80% bracket either, let's check who are the lucky ones to perform close or above a 70% win rate on the event:
- Timbersaw (77.78%)
- Leshrac (75%)
- Naga Siren (72.73%)
- Skywrath Mage (72.73%)
- Juggernaut (70.59%)
- Shadow Demon (67.86%)
The Top 6 of “Shadow Meta” heroes is evenly split among cores and supports. On that note, the highlighted hero on the core side of things is Timbersaw. Despite being an ATF hero, he was notably ineffective on The International 2025 (0W/9L) and now he Timber Chains his butt back to meta.
On the support side of things, Naga Siren and Skywrath Mage share the crown. Both heroes had great appearances on the tournament but go in opposite ways on the latest patches: While Naga had nerfs to Deluge and Song of the Siren, Skywrath had a small buff to his Aghanim's Shard.
Closing Thoughts
BLAST Slam V put an end to the hope of Centaur fans that the hero would dominate the offlane. At the same time, this seems to have been an event of meaningful returns. Tusk is back as the best support, Dragon Knight is also back with his versatile strength and Timbersaw might show Team Falcons a way out of their apparent slip during the DreamLeague.
DreamLeague Season 27 is almost upon us and patches during DreamLeague are not unheard of. If Valve indeed decides to drop a new patch during the DreamLeague, the timer is on to take advantage of these trends while they last.
Will we get a big update before the year is over? Only Valve knows that for sure. But if you want to get informed about the latest news as soon as they are out, remember to check our news section!
Featured Image Source: Twitter (@BLASTDota) and Steam Community