One of the potential benefits of the longer patch lifecycle is that the execution gets to be in the spotlight in every single game. Because there is little room for a drafting stage surprise, games are mostly decided by better coordination and execution. The meta itself might not be too exciting, but the level of play at this Major feels like it is the International all over again.

The Major starts very soon and we feel like a discussion on it is in order. We are not going to try and rank the teams, though, as it seems like an exercise in futility: a lot has changed since the International and smaller multi-regional tournaments are rarely indicative of the actual power levels of the teams. Instead, we would love to speculate on how the best professional esports teams in the world might try to develop and experiment with a very old meta.

It seems it might take a while for Valve to release the new patch, so far a little bit longer we are stuck with the current hero and item meta. Today we would like to highlight the most important items in the current patch and discuss why exactly they are considered stronger than average.

It’s been almost six months since the last big patch release and while we are all desperately waiting for a new gameplay update, there is no denying 7.32 was a very good patch. Great hero and strategy diversity, as well as many small, incremental fixes made for a very eventful half-year and today we would like to take a trip down the memory lane to remember what 7.32 gave us.

We know that the DPC is technically not over, but with a potential patch coming some time soon we might not have time for a recap at a later date. This DPC season was full of surprising new developments and today we would like to highlight the most important of them. Friendly reminder: this is based on Division One professional games and your experience in pubs will definitely vary.

The rise of ranged position one carries opened the melee position five support route. It is definitely a good thing, as some long-forgotten heroes are now starting to see play. At the same time, once players figured out how good heroes like Treant Protector are, they started trying to get away with even greedier and even squishier carries, ultimately ending up with Lina, Shadow Fiend, Drow Ranger and Sniper as the biggest trendsetters. Only one of them is not like the others.

Lina is the number one carry of the patch and it is not even close. Great laning stage, high farming speed, impressive scaling and flexible builds make her a little bit too strong in the current patch. Strong, but not unbeatable and today we would like to talk about how to deal with Lina.

Between the DPC games and a ton of third party tournaments, it is easy to figure out which heroes work and which heroes don’t. Today we are going to look at each position individually and tell you what hero tends to perform the best in it.

There is a huge difference between giving unconventional carries a try and doing the same with supports, especially in ranked matchmaking. Supports are typically picked first and as such, they usually need to be very flexible, straightforward and fit multiple different strategies. Supports we are going to discuss today are not necessarily the best idea in your everyday solo pubs, but given their popularity and success in the professional scene, they are worth giving a try in a party.