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The mid meta of PGL Arlington Major

PGL Arlington Major is one day away from ending and the meta of the tournament has been surprising. The... Radu M. | 13. August 2022

PGL Arlington Major is one day away from ending and the meta of the tournament has been surprising.

The participants picked a lot of heroes that we don’t get to see that often, and mostly ignored the ones that we’re familiar with.

Most picked

The most picked mid heroes of PGL Arlington Major have been Tiny, Puck, Death Prophet, Batrider, Pangolier, and Void Spirit. Teams heavily favored them but apart from Puck, all of the others felt a bit overrated.

Puck is a great hero at the moment and its win rate is 60%. It’s hard to deny that a Puck mid gives you everything you need in Dota 2: ganks, wave clear, team fight, survivability, etc. The item build of Puck makes it incredibly potent and the power spikes come so early that the opponent rarely has a chance to react.

The best hero against Puck seems to be Night Stalker. Other heroes, that possess a great silencing ability, are also good. But the fairy dragon could easily beat all of them if the player is good enough.

tiny

Valve Corporation

Most successful

The most successful mid heroes of PGL Arlington Major have been Storm Spirit, Dragon Knight, Puck, and Templar Assassin. In the case of Storm Spirit, the win rate is absolutely phenomenal: 82% in 17 matches.

The hero is now as strong as it was at The International 5, when Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan showed the world what he can do in the hands of a world-class position 2 player.

In the past, people used to play a lot of Shadow Fiend and Invoker, but we’ve barely seen these heroes at this tournament. As for Outworld Devourer, nobody picked him yet.

Most banned

On the list of highly banned heroes we have Puck, Tiny, Templar Assassin, Ember Spirit, Pangolier, and a few others. It’s quite surprising to see people banning Templar Assassin so much but the hero has proved to be perfect for the current meta.

TA’s farming speed gives teams the ability to take Roshan early and then snowball with the first Aegis. Another reason why TA gets banned so often is her lane survivability.

It’s very hard to kill her without a smoke gank and you often have no other choice if you want to delay the push and give your carry a bit more time to farm before the team fights begin.

As for the other highly banned mids, such as Puck and Tiny, it makes perfect sense why teams would want to do that. These are probably the best initiators in the current meta.

Header: PGL