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Shadow Shaman Rules The Roost in DreamLeague Season 26
DreamLeague Season 26 is over and Parivision adds another notch on their belt. The team has won two consecutive ESL events in a row and secured an invite to the Esport World Cup and The International.
We're not going to examine how incredibly strong Parivision is. Instead, we will be looking at which heroes are at the top of the Dota 2 meta in patch 7.39b and which heroes are lagging behind.
The state of the Dota 2 meta in patch 7.39b
Before we go into details, it's important to note that DreamLeague Season 26 was played on three different gameplay patches. So we are narrowing our research to the last week of the event and excluding all games played before patch 7.39. We will also only include heroes that have been played at least five times, as anything less than that is simply too small of a sample size to take seriously.
Shadow Shaman is the most popular support right now
The most popular support and hero overall is Shadow Shaman. He brings a whole lot to the table. The hero is surprisingly durable thanks to his innate and built in spell life steal. His disables are always great, and he can break annoying passives. Shadow Shaman also mows down towers later in the game. It's a very rare but appreciated, ability for a support to have.
The second most popular hero is Oracle with 21 appearances. Arguably one of the best innate abilities of the game along with a whole ton of sustain for his team. Oracle did recieve a minor nerf in the last patch, but he still won 2/3 of the games he played.
Lina made a comeback in DreamLeague but only appearance wise. While she was picked in 18 games, she lost more than half of them. Players are back to experimenting with physical damage to mixed success.
Unlike Lina, Kunkka won most of his games, with an astounding 70% success rate in 17 games. The hero really provides everything on paper. He is incredibly durable, has several disables, and can scale into a physical or magical item build.
Templar Assassin terrifies her enemies
If there is one hero nobody wants to face, it's Templar Assassin. The hero received 47 bans, the highest in the event and deservedly so. She did slip through in five games and won all five of them. The hero has gone through two rounds of nerfs but still might be too strong in her current state.
Bristleback comes in second with 42 bans. He also impressed in his ten appearances with six victories. BetBoom in particular ran the hero as a tempo carry to great success, with a fast Aghanim's Scepter and Sange and Yasha to overcome their enemies.
The moment we saw Nature's Prophet's Soothing Sapling Facet, we believed the hero would sky rocket in popularity and he certainly did in DreamLeague. Played as a global roaming support, he can show up and sustain his allies while trapping his enemies. After buying Vessel, Teams would use him to get utility items and be a general nuisance around the map.
Morphling can't go with the flow in Dota 2 patch 7.39b
We've talked a lot about the most successful heroes this patch, such as Shadow Shaman and Templar Assassin. But it's important to also shine a light on the current...well... losers in the game.
Morphling takes the crown as top (worst?) loser right now. While he was only picked in five games, he lost four of them and the last round of nerfs will likely keep him in his spot. At least he shares the record with Gyrocoptor.
The second worst performing hero is Ringmaster, with 13 games under his belt but only three victories. He no longer gets souvenirs from deaths to Roshan, his mana cost on Escape was increased, damage on Impaling Arts reduced, and overall he is just significantly weaker. Is he going through an adjustment phase or is the hero genuinely in a weak spot?
The weakest hero with at least 15 games played is Pangolier. Winning only six of his 16 games, Gaimin Gladiator's favorite weapon continues to have a blunt edge. He did get a slight buff to his Double Jump facet yet people still overwhelmingly prefer going Thunderbolt instead. While he may be an eyesore to some, Pango remains one of the most exciting heroes to watch.
And that's it for our summary of the recent DreamLeague Season 26 meta recap. We will continue to post news on the latest Dota 2 patch.
READ MORE: Exploring New Hero and Item Combos in Patch 7.39
Featured Image Source: ESL
