The Riyadh Masters 2023 meta

Riyadh Masters was a Dota 2 event of great importance, comparable to that of The International. For nearly two weeks, the world’s best Dota teams fought for a total prize pool of $15 million and the winner was Team Spirit.

Nobody expected this result, just as nobody expected Snapfire to be the most contested hero of the tournament.

The Riyadh Masters meta

Riyadh Masters featured hundreds of great games. Over the course of the tournament, some heroes became extremely popular, even though most of them were not as successful as their popularity might lead you to believe.

But Snapfire certainly was successful, having a 53.33% win rate. With 90 picks and 108 bans, Snapfire occupied the center of almost every drafting phase.

Another popular hero was Timbersaw, whose win rate was just 40.3%. He got picked 62 times and was also banned 129 times, which is an indication of just how much teams feared him.

Truth be told, it’s not easy to play against a Timbersaw. You need heroes that can burst him in a matter of 3-5 seconds. Otherwise, his reactive armor will make it very difficult to get the job done. And his team might intervene to turn around the fight.

Undying’s popularity was not a big surprise because the hero has been popular since the start of Dota 2 patch 7.33. In particular, his upgraded Tomb Stone is incredibly useful in situations where an ally needs to be saved. And that upgrade is easy to obtain thanks to the Tormentors. By minute 20 or 30, Undying gets his Aghanim’s Shard.

Broodmother was only played in 37 games with a success rate of 43.24%. But that’s because she got banned in 140. For some reason, a lot of offlaners decided to play Brood in a very defensive manner, which turned out to be ineffective.

The aura-based meta that has developed since the start of patch 7.33 is not always working. Or, at the very least, it’s not that great if you pick an offlaner that’s supposed to do more than just provide auras and healing.

If you play Tidehunter, the hero naturally has a powerful ultimate and many useful spells. But Broodmother is a right-clicker. If you don’t right-click your enemies or don’t have the damage to kill them, the hero becomes useless very quickly and turns into a complete liability for the rest of the team.

Other popular heroes at Riyadh Masters were Rubick, Storm Spirit, Dark Seer, Enigma, and Bloodseeker.

Header: Saudi Esports Federation