Riyadh Masters 2024 was the biggest Dota 2 tournament of the current season and might remain until the end. We don’t know yet how big The International 13 is going to be, but there’s a high chance that it won’t be bigger, at least in terms of its prize pool.
Another thing to note here is that TI13 is just six weeks away, which likely means that the meta will not change that much until then. Sure, IceFrog might release one more small patch, 7.36d, but that’s it. The current version of the game will be kept and played almost as it is today.
This makes the hero meta of Riyadh Masters 2024 particularly relevant. What we saw during those two and a half weeks will likely happen again. With more preparation, perhaps a different team will be the winner. But given just how dominant Gaimin Gladiators were, there’s a good chance that they will finally win the Aegis of Champions.
Last year, Team Spirit won Riyadh Masters and then went on to win The International as well. We could easily see a repeat of that story but with Gaimin Gladiators as the protagonist.
Riyadh Masters 2024 Meta
Valve
This Dota 2 event focused heavily on support heroes and offlaners. The most picked hero was Hoodwink. The most contested was Monkey King. Tiny, Shadow Fiend, Weaver, Dark Seer, Beastmaster, Snapfire, Pangolier, Phoenix, Enigma, Ember Spirit, Sven, and Brewmaster are also on the list.
Most of these heroes could not get picked that often because they were banned. The most extreme case was Monkey King, who was picked 28 times and got banned 174. His win rate was just 50%, but teams were so scared of him that they simply didn’t want to play against him.
Among the heroes that were highly contested, Ember Spirit had the highest win rate: 67,4%. In the right hands, and not necessarily someone like Quinn or Nisha, this hero proved to be deadly.
Some of the heroes were picked and banned very frequently but had a relatively low win rate. Examples include: Pangolier (45% wr), Rubick (38% wr) Elder Titan (47% wr), Shadow Fiend (47,7% wr), Brewmaster (43,2% wr), and Chaos Knight (46,3% wr).
Naga Siren was picked just nine times but had a win rate of 77,8%. Leshrac was picked seven times and had a win rate of 71,4%. Doom was picked 39 times and had a win rate of 66,7%. Two other heroes with dozens of picks and win rates above 65% were Invoker and Puck.
It’s quite clear that there are lots of other heroes that have the potential to be strong and highly effective. However, the teams are so conditioned by the current meta that they generally ignore them completely.
Header: ESL, Esports World Cup Foundation
