Hero Meta Breakdown
Despite having played Dota for almost a decade, it feels weird watching friends play sometime, especially when they play in a different bracket. A friend of mine picked up Dota about a year ago and he does not watch any guides or pro matches, so his progress has been rather slow. He hasn’t even calibrated his MMR, but the bracket he plays in is quite interesting to watch - to say the least. When we talk about his games, he mentions successful itembuilds and heroes he deems overpowered, some of which I basically never feel any impact of in my own games.
So what are the differences between certain MMR brackets? It’s always difficult to really nail these differences down, as one person can’t play in all brackets at the same time. Luckily, we just recently released our newest feature - a tool that allows you to dissect certain differences between each skill and MMR bracket. We played around with it and came to quite a few interesting conclusions.
Picks
When talking about popular picks in pubs, disregarding the bracket, there is one hero that always likes to chip in. 
Pudge has been one of the most favorite and iconic heroes in DotA/Dota2, which is reflected in his pickrate - he’s the most played hero with a 31% pickrate of all time and a 29% pick rate just this month.
Some may say now “yeah sure, but I rarely see Pudges in my games!” - and they could be right. Pudge is a hero much more common in lower MMR games and is picked less and less the higher the MMR. Up until 4k MMR, Pudge is still picked in roughly 20-25% of the games, but in the 5K bracket, your chances of meating Pudge go down to a mere 11.80% - this month anyway. This is a trend for a lot of “pub” heroes, heroes that aren’t perceived to be part of the meta right now. Heroes, that do well on their own, that require little coordination and if anything, would require your opponent to be coordinated in order to deal with it.
Pub heroes fall off the higher the skill bracket, because more experienced and skilled players know how to deal with them. Counter-picking is a more common strategy in higher brackets, making it more and more difficult to execute certain heroes like Pudge.
There’s also your 
Legion Commander, who has a similar drop off as Pudge (from 23% in below 2k MMR to 9.80% in 5k+MMR), but then there are also your 
Axe and 
Drow Ranger, both of which only boast a 13% and 12% pickrate respectively to begin with, but it drops down to 4% and 2% in 5k games.
As you can see, a lot of out of meta carries and cores fall off in popularity, the higher the MMR. It's not necessarily because they are bad or because a counter-pick of theirs is favorable. But the higher the MMR, the more the picks resemble those of the meta, something you'd see in professional games. Of course there are cases where it’s the other way around and carries become more popular the higher the MMR. 
Windranger has been the most popular hero as of late, but she is especially popular in the higher brackets, boasting a 39% pickrate just this month in 5k MMR games. She is the flavour of the meta after all and works well as a mid hero that still serves the purpose of being a pub hero - you can acquire solo kills and aren’t as reliant on your teammates. Plus, some flashy Shackles and Powershots have always been part of her attraction.
Shadow Fiend does not enjoy a lot of popularity in lower brackets. Presumably because he has no innate escape ability and relies on flashfarming - a technique that is unlikely to be familiar with beginners and lower ranked players. He shares a seat in the same boat with other flashfarmers such as 
Alchemist and 
Anti-Mage, all three of which sit at about a 15% pickrate in <2kMMR games.
While Anti-Mage keeps his pickrate, Alchemist and Shadow Fiend gain in popularity by bracket, with SF enjoying a 41% pickrate in 5k MMR games this month. It’s not really surprising, considering he is an iconic hero to display skill with, a hero that excels at flashfarming and staying ahead, while still transitioning well into the late game.
What about supports? There are only a few supports that have their highest pickrate in the lower ranked games. As skill improves, so does your awareness for proper drafting, thus it’s to no surprise that supports are picked more often in higher ranked games - as much as it doesn’t always feel like it.
Support pickrates are still quite low, especially considering that some of the top picked supports, 
Earthshaker and 
Lina, can be played in roles other than the support. In fact, checking the pickrates by lanes, you’ll see that in 1 out of 10 cases, Earthshaker is played in the offlane in 5k MMR games, while Lina has a 7% pickrate for the midlane in the 4k bracket.
Kills, Deaths and Gold
One of the more interesting things to see in different brackets, are how these heroes are utilized, executed and if they are successful or not. Coming back to the classic description of pub heroes, we have 
Ursa, 
Riki and 
Huskar - these three lead the charge in terms of avg. kills in lower tier games, 10-13 kills per game. It is obviously the nature of these heroes to acquire a lot of kills, but you always run into the danger of feeding just that much more Gold by giving away streaks. The “yolo” approach that a hero like Huskar almost embodies, backfires a lot if you look at the Deaths and the Gold fed. Across all brackets, he dies an average of 8-10 times per game, being the top Gold feeder of almost 7,000 Gold across multiple brackets, while still maintaining a top 3 position in 4k and 5k games. Ursa and Riki are not as bad in terms of feeding kills and Gold, but certainly are up there in the top 20.
This seems to be a trend amongst many carries that are prone to grab early leads and streaks. 
Bloodseeker, Axe, 
Spirit Breaker and Alchemist are all guilty of feeding away a lot of Gold.
Who feeds the least you’re asking? Why of course, 
Techies. His suicidal tendencies do not result in any Gold gained for the enemy. Obviously, supports with defensive capabilities are also less likely to feed, such as 
Dazzle, 
Omniknight and 
Abaddon. If you can’t heal yourself, be elusive, be tanky and if you’re not looking to fight, you can’t die, right? At least that applies to 
Medusa, Anti-Mage and 
Naga Siren, carries that, across multiple brackets, feed the least because of their ultimates or their split-pushing nature.
Short facts
Every hero has a higher winrate on Radiant. Details.
Both sides obviously have their advantages and disadvantages, and if you look at TI5, CDEC actually used the Dire side in order to keep their run to the grand finals. In pub games however, it seems as if the Radiant has gotten a bigger advantage, slowly but steadily. So what changed? Most likely the change to the Roshan pit gives Radiant a bigger edge. The current location makes it easier for Radiant to contest a potential Aegis grab. It may still be on the Dire side, but certain Ward spots, the one above the pit for example, make it a lot easier for the Radiant to play around their enemies, whereas these Ward spots are less important for the Dire side.
On average, supports in the 3-4k MMR bracket purchase more Observer Wards than in other brackets. Sentries are usually purchased more often the higher the MMR. Details
The fact that vision is important is known on every level of skill. A lack of vision can make or break the game. At the same time though, denying your enemy vision is just as important. Wards can also be used to block camps, something lower skilled players not always invest into or even think about. Thus, 5k MMR players, on average, buy almost twice as many Sentries as players with below 2k MMR. Now as for why 5K players buy less Observers than 3-4kMMR players - one could make the case that players, as they progress in skill, become more aware of the map and their surroundings. Vision is key, that's for sure, but it's also a question of when to have that vision and how important that is. Passing up on 2 minutes of vision and instead saving for Boots of Speed on a support, can be more helpful in the early game. That said, it boils down to support players becoming more greedy the higher the MMR, as they are more aware of what they can do with certain items.
Nature's Prophet has the highest average GPM and XPM in the 3-4kMMR bracket. Details [Plus exclusive]
Junglers in general have higher GPM and XPM in lower brackets, most likely because they are rarely contested. The same applies to offlaners. The higher the MMR, the less likely you'll get away with farming in the jungle for more than 10 minutes. Even that seems very generous.
Undying is the most successful hero in South-East Asia's 5K bracket. Details [Plus exclusive]
Undying is a hero that thrives on chaos. Enemies need to coordinate in the laning stage to keep an offlane Undying out and in teamfights, you want to focus the Tombstone so that it doesn't unfold it's true potential. If no coordination exists, the hero can be a true terror in pubs. It's to no surprise that the hero has a winrate of over 53% in general across all brackets. In South-East Asian pubs, egos can prevent people from playing in a coordinated fashion, giving Undying the necessary space and opportunity to unfold his true strength. Thus, other pub heroes are comparatively more successful in SEA as well, such as 
Slark, Spirit Breaker or even Alchemist.
Earth Spirit is picked in 15% of all 5k MMR games in China. That is 2% higher than the global average. His winrate in China is also 1% higher. Details [Plus exclusive]
Earth Spirit is a very difficult hero to master for many. He's thus rarely picked, despite having a very high winrate in general (57% in 5k MMR, the highest out of any hero). His low pickrate also makes it really difficult to play against him, once a capable player does pick him up. His popularity and success in China is likely a result of China having very high skilled pubs. A lot of professional players have stated to have had the toughest time in pub games when playing in China. It's likely that more players are capable to use Earth Spirit to his fullest potential there.
Only one hero has his highest average Assist Gold in the 5k MMR bracket: 
Kunkka. Most heroes have their highest average in below 2k MMR matches. Details
When playing Kunkka, a lot of inexperienced players tend to play too much around their spells, meaning they stay back and try to hit Torrent and Ghost Ship perfectly. !Attacker, a famous pub player, has established a playstyle and itembuild with Kunkka, that forces the player to be much more involved in the action. The Blink Dagger on Kunkka has made the hero much more potent in a lot of ways, making it easier to be involved in kills and be in the necessary AoE to receive Assistgold.
lolz dat nieee
Currently the Enchanted Mango only has a 36.43% win rate. Together, we as a community, have the ability to fix this problem and end this horrific tragedy. Please help. It is our duty as gamers to give this item the respect it is due.
@Excalibur! Don't forget that the win/loss rate of items only takes into account ending items, so if you have a mango in the late-game its because you have been shut down hard, its not a win-rate based on getting the mango at all.
Currently the Enchanted Mango only has a 36.43% win rate. Together, we as a community, have the ability to fix this problem and end this horrific tragedy. Please help. It is our duty as gamers to give this item the respect it is due.
some players almost losing their ancient buy many mangoes , yes mangoes !
does that ward blocking camp respawn even work anymore?
True story, SEA pub players have very bad team coordination..
Good Earth Spirit players are terrifying.
I envy them, he's really fun.
Ya me too
kek. . . .
It seems riki is a garbage cleaner.Finally i got a proper garbagometer to prove my garbage hero theory
Good job, very useful and interesting informations!
#shoutout to philippines
Shots fired at SEA pub players
its true, i played in sea pub as well for 2 years. im currently living in the UK and theres like a fking huge difference between team play and coordination. pinoys and russtards still the same tho just putang ina mo to ckya.
Its simple people SEA players are FULL OF AFK FARMERS and Plays #TESTOSTERONE dota which is i dnt an af bout others just my items and frags cnt even buy wards