Tournament meta before and after The International 10

About 2 weeks before The International 10, Valve released the balance patch 7.30d, which changed several heroes and neutral items. This article will try to figure out whether the patch affected the meta before and after the tournament.

We summed up the number of picks and bans of each character to determine the most popular heroes. This way, we got a complete picture of how often they appeared in drafts.

Monkey King

The most popular hero of The International 10 was Monkey King. He appeared 188 times at the tournament, mostly in bans. Thus, he was drafted on 96.91% of the maps. This character was almost always sent to the ban or pick in the very first stage of the draft.

Before the tournament, Monkey King was also highly regarded by teams and was the meta leader. However, unlike The International 10, he was picked 25% of the time in the last phase and closed picks.

Tiny

The second most popular hero of The International 10 is Tiny. At the tournament, teams picked him 55 times and banned him 132 times. It turns out that he was used on 96.39% of the maps. Like Monkey King, Tiny was almost always picked in the first phase of drafts. During the tournament, teams showed the character's full potential, proving that he could be used in any position.

Before the tournament began, Tiny was at a high position in the meta but was not even in the top-10. The hero was hitting drafts on less than 50% of the maps if you take the whole picture. Most interestingly, before the tournament, patch 7.30d weakened Tiny.

IO

Third on the list of the most popular heroes at The International 10 is IO. Unlike the other two, he is almost always used in a support position. In total, IO was used in 90.21% of all drafts at the tournament. Teams always removed the hero after the first round.

Before The International 10, IO was in the middle of the list in terms of popularity. Teams rarely picked him and were more likely to ban him. It can be related to the need for coordinated interaction within a team, and not all teams on the pro scene have that quality.

Invoker

The fourth place in the most popular heroes at The International 10 top was shared by 2 heroes at once, and the first is Invoker. Unlike the previous three characters, he almost always appeared in the second or third stages of the draft. This is easily explained by the fact that not all teams want to play Invoker, and picking him at the beginning will lead to a counter pick.

Before the tournament, Invoker had high popularity in the meta and was even in the top-10. Interestingly, back then, the number of bans for this character was more than 3 times higher than the picks. At The International 10, these figures remained at about the same level.

Tidehunter

The second hero to share fourth place with Invoker on The International 10 is Tidehunter. He also hit the drafts 142 times. However, most of these were in picks.

Before the world championship, the hero ranked high on the overall table. He is a versatile hardlaner that wasn't weakened by patch 7.30d. Because of this, his pick-to-ban ratio before the tournament is almost identical to his performance during The International 10.

It is what the list of the most popular heroes of the past The International 10 looks like. As you can see, all heroes, except for IO, had high positions in the meta even before the tournament.