The hero meta of The International 11 main stage

The playoffs of The International 11 will resume on October 29 and will end on October 30. Just four more teams are left in the tournament and so far, the hero meta has been captivating to watch. It seems that the competitors only care about one thing: what the other side will pick and how best to counter it.

We’ve seen a huge shift away from the heroes that were played in the Last Chance Qualifier and even during the group stage. Right now, everyone bans Primal Beast, Enigma, Broodmother, Morphling, Marci, Undying, and Lifestealer.

At the same time, teams seem to love Crystal Maiden, Leshrac, Pangolier, Lifestealer, Snapfire, Lich, Mars, and Tiny. Two other highly picked heroes have been Shadow Fiend and Ember Spirit, but their win rate is abysmal: 10% and 20% respectively, in 10 matches!

For some reason, most of the teams who have tried their luck with these heroes have failed. Part of the reason has to do with what happened in the group stage. Everyone was picking Shadow Fiend, so a lot of teams just started to bring into the meta heroes that were very strong against him.

After a while, the meta had shifted completely but some teams still believed in SF. This resulted in many needless defeats.

Highly contested heroes

Who would have thought a few months ago that the most contested heroes in the playoffs of The International 2022 would be Primal Beast, Marci, Enigma, Tiny, Leshrac, Crystal Maiden, Lifestealer, Broodmother, Pangolier, and Morphling?

Some of these heroes were indeed quite strong, but others were seen as just an occasional pick. But after top players like Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen started to popularize Primal Beast and a few other unpopular heroes, everyone started to prioritize them.

Primal Beast, especially on the Radiant side, is now an S-tier pick. But he gets banned in almost 90% of the games by one of the two teams. He’s usually a first-phase ban and very few teams will take the risk of having to play against him.

Highly successful heroes

Among the heroes that have been picked at least several times, the most successful were Brewmaster (4 W – 0 L), Spirit Breaker (4 W – 0 L), Drow Ranger (4 W – 1 L), Mirana (7 W – 2 L), Leshrac (76% WR), Naga Siren (3 W – 1 L), Blood Seeker (3 W – 1 L), Dawnbreaker (3 W – 1 L), Lina (3 W – 1 L), Storm Spirit (3 W – 1 L), and Visage (71% WR).

By far the most played highly successful hero of the TI11 main stage has been Leshrac.

Header: Valve Corporation