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7.22f Immortal Meta Trends

Just while everybody thought 7.22e is going to be the TI patch, Valve released another minor gameplay update labeled as 7.22f. The update didn’t introduce a lot of significant changes and most of the trends are carryovers from the previous update. However there are still some interesting things waiting for them to be found.

This report is based on data collected during the first week of patch 7.22f (27th of July - 3rd of August). Data includes not only ranked matches, but stats of all matches with average rank equal to Immortal. Excluded matches are the ones that have abandons, ended in less than 10 minutes or had an insignificantly low score.

The full and regularly-updated version of the report is available at Spectral.gg. You can find detailed data about Hero-vs-Hero performance, draft stages priorities, pairs and trios, positions stats and dire/radiant winrates, Meta Graph and region-specific data here.

FAQ

Summary

I’m leaving these median hero stats because it’s good to understand the average values and comparing heroes is much easier using these numbers. It also leads to some interesting insights.

It’s not surprising to see values to remain almost the same as in 7.22e report. However median picks and bans values are a bit larger than before which may be related to players (especially TI attendees) trying out new things before TI takes off.

Game Modes

Regions

Heroes

The highest ranked heroes list didn’t change too much after the update. Enchantress, Faceless Void and Naga Siren continue to dominate in pubs and most picked list remained almost the same with only Ember Spirit going down from the second to the fifth place.

But it’s not a Dota patch if there are no surprises and that’s where smart heroes ranking gets really useful. Spirit Breaker and, surprisingly, Slark got out of the top 10 ranked heroes list (while Slark still being the most picked hero and Spirit Breaker still being relatively popular). Crystal Maiden and Bane disappeared as well, but it’s interesting to see who got their places instead.

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First of all, there’s Chen (1324 matches and 56.12% winrate). The hero isn’t really surprising to see being both popular and successful before The International since the hero was already pretty contested during all TIs and now he acts like a replacement for Io most of the time. Another interesting hero to note is Treant Protector (3500 matches, 53.34%) who is similar to Spirit Breaker in many ways, but gets a bit different niche being better at applying lane pressure. It’s also not surprising to see the rise of Sand King again: the hero is very versatile in what he can do, he’s hard to pressure and he is safe to pick at the tournament. But there’s another one hero who traditionally gets buffed before TI and is most likely to be picked here – Alchemist.

Every time the hero gets new buffs after being significantly nerfed, players find a new playstyle: Battle Fury Alchemist, Radiance “Naga” Alchemist, Aggressive Solar Crest Alchemist, Stunlock Alchemist with Unstable Concoction talents… This time is no exception and the new playstyle got “invented” right before TI patch. This time, after getting two early Bracers and Phase Boots, it’s pretty common to get Radiance into Assault Cuirass and Eye of Skadi. It’s not a problem for Alchemist to get these items relatively early and all of them make it very hard to fight against not only the hero, but his team as well. Alchemist of the 7.22f is a mix of both “safely farming for my team” and “aggressively stomping opponent with advantage” playstyles that were popular in previous patches.

Hero positions

There were no significant positions changes after the update. This time Juggernaut was replaced as a go-to carry by Slark, Faceless Void finally got into the top-5 carry list. Middle lane cores didn’t change at all, aside from Ember Spirit’s declining popularity. Pudge is still rising and is still picked as core on any lane.

One interesting and new trend is support Invoker (or “Shota Invoker”). This playstyle started with a test by the player 2B who is famous for playing core heroes as supports. However, this time it turned out to be not a niche thing, but an interesting trend that quickly started spreading on Immortal rank. Right now it’s not rare to see position 5 or 4 support Invoker and even players like SoNNeikO and YapzOr are playing the hero. What’s interesting is the hero also has a higher winrate as support – 51.92% in 780 matches against 50.24% in 4015 of Midlane Core Invoker.

Core Safelane

Core Midlane

Core Offlane

Support

Legends of 7.22e

Concluding the 7.22f patch first week review, I’d like to close the book on 7.22e with some interesting global records noticed.

Complete report for the patch 7.22d is available at Spectral.gg as well.