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How Boxi's support Morphling Destroyed Team Spirit
Team Liquid took down Team Spirit in the first round of the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs. The series was a clean 2-o for Liquid, with two impressive stomps back-to-back.
A big part of the team's success was due to their support Morphling played by Samuel "Boxi" Svahn. Read on to find out how to play it and what inspired Boxi to master the hero.
How to play Morphling support like Boxi
If you're playing support Morphling, then the first thing you need to do is pick up the Flow Facet. It turns Morphling into a strength hero with reduced cooldowns.
Flow Facet provides a 25% cooldown reduction when agility and strength are even. This is increased to 60% when Agility doubles strength (175% to be exact). Flow impacts Morphling's base spells and his abilities when he transforms into an enemy.
Liquid picked Morphling early in their draft and made him a flex hero. We believe that while he is a viable support, it's pivotal to see the enemy lane and your partner before picking him up.
Boxi's support Morphling did well early on because he was against Phantom Assassin and Chen. Both heroes lacked stun and burst damage, allowing him to shift to strength when necessary. Against high burst or lockdown lanes, Morphling support might not be ideal.
Another reason Liquid's morphling worked was due to having multiple good heroes for Boxi to turn into. Sand King was the best hero to Morph but Magnus and Rubick were solid picks as well.
Support Morphling item and skill build
While rushing Khanda might look good on paper (and can work in some situations) that's not how Boxi approached Morphling.
Start with some Iron Branches, Boxi's main goal in the first 10 minutes was to finish his Magic Wand and spam some Blood Grenades. Wind Lace was picked up early, as Morphling is one of the slowest heroes in the game.
Thanks to the Flow facet, Morphling will have low cooldowns on all his spells, so high mana regeneration is critical. Two Null Talismans and Arcane boots go a long way to ensuring Morphling is always ready to fight.
The big item to aim for is Guardian Greaves, which can purge negative effects and allow Morphling to shift attributes when needed. An Aghanim's Shard adds a layer of defense for the hero.
The Skill Build was quite surprising. Boxi maxed out Waveform after investing two points into Attribute Shift and one in Adaptive Strike. After that most points went into Attribute Bonus instead of maxing out the hero's basic abilities. Morphling's Innate ability provides double stats from Attribute Bonus, so getting an extra 4 stats every level up is a massive boon for the hero.
Team Spirit inspired Boxi to pick Morphling
Ironically, Team Spirit put the idea of Support Morphing in Boxi's head. The players on Spirit regularly share their thoughts on which heroes they think are strong. Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov made a recent tier list of the best offlaners.
When the series concluded, Boxi revealed that particular tier list led to his pick.
"We saw Collapse Tier list, and it said Morplhing is S-tier offlaner. And then I played it a little bit, I lost the first 10 games but I think it's pretty good. I think it's nice that you can play carry Morph or support Morph, a bit like you can play carry Monkey or support monkey."
Thanks to their victory, Liquid is now in the upper bracket semi-finals of Riyadh Masters 2024. You can check out all the action live on Twitch.
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Featured Image Source: Team Liquid/Valve
