We did this back in the day when we happened to find 10 people to play at once. It's a lot of fun actually. We are not pros though, so we just picked really hard to play heros that we knew no one was comfortable with.
I'd bet the draft was something like, Chen, Meepo, Visage, enchantress, invoker
I still play with the same group of friends after 10 years of dotes. The v5’s were the most fun we ever had playing, as we tried all sorts of rulesets. Reverse captains mode was the best though, they underestimated my Visage and I absolutely destroyed them.
Had never played the hero before in my life though lmao. We’re not good players, but fun is fun!
You're gonna struggle with arbitrary conditions like "not all carries". I'm struggling to pick something specifically bad outside of doing something like "all saves", like Omni, OD, Dazzle, Shadow Demon, Oracle.
You can do something mildly daft like drafting almost zero control, like Spectre, Brood, Omni, Silencer and AA. Although with all that global map presence you might win that game by piggy-backing off of Brood's early power spike.
Alternatively you could just pick a draft that has no heroes that can show in lane and have no real escapes and barely any control like Snapfire, Zeus, Sniper, Sky, AA which is a lineup that is somewhat forced to 5 man far too early or just gets mercilessly picked off if they try to split the map. However, it does have a lot of damage so it might work if the enemy team fucks up.
I kinda think the game has a bit more value with a draft. So for example you let the other team get phoenix and then you pick a bunch of heroes that have no attack speed at all, like Tiny, Treant, Death Prophet, etc and you just lose to egg every fight.
the banishes definitely have some counter synergy, but the opposite is also true - false promise has incredible synergy with shadow grave, as does guardian angel
ngl I would be pretty okay having my team on these heroes (my stack plays Omni and dazzle core frequently anyway)
nope, with astral or disruption they will die instantly when they come out of the banishment
grave, however, keeps their hp at 1 after false promise ends.
Alternatively, if they DO have communication then you've crafted a team that can never die because they can all easily save themselves and each other.
Especially on someone like OD who does crazy damage but is a glass cannon - you could probably just let him go full DPS and rely on your 4 teammates to keep him alive.
I suppose you'd NEED the dazzle to be a core in order to do any kind of teamfight damage. Still, you could run into 5 people, banish two to make it a 3v5, then use some combo of dazzle shard and SD ult (probably with aghs so he has two) to massively weaken the 3 remaining players.
It would take a lot of communication, but I imagine it'd be:
* SD and OD banish one player each
* SD uses aghs ult on two of the remaining heroes
* Dazzle hexes the biggest threat(s) and OD bursts down the only non-disabled hero
* OD then kites and kills the two heroes that SD ulted
* By the time the first 2 heroes are un-banished, their team is either all dead or nearly dead
3-Bounty Hunter, 5-Pugna, 1-Clinkz, 2-Riki, 4-Mirana I think would be the worst I can think of with heros in relatively normal positions. No synergy in any lane. At best you’d be fighting to stay even and not get crushed in lanes. And then past laning assuming since we’re drafting it’s pro or high mmr game the other teams actually gonna ward and carry dust and stick together. Has no team fight synergy, no big ults and 3 cores that need a lot of farm just to even kinda be productive
Pugna and clinkz at least both have a load of tower push. I think you've got the right idea though - even with a bad draft, you can itemise and play unconventional cores and still have a good time. A draft like this where the heroes actively grief each other by existing is a whole different story.
I think with how expansive the game is (slower pace, more items, power spike with aghs on everyone etc), even when the draft lacks synergies, you can build around a lot of heroes to actually get a decent game. Plus, with the constant re-balancing and QoL updates to the game, no one hero is too shit that it can't do anything without others help. Ultimately though it comes down to what draft they are up against.
I mean a lineup of 5 Abba, 4 Clock, 3 Axe, 2 Meepo and 1 FV have almost no synergies in terms of spells, but against a burst heavy, fragile, no escape lineup (Zeus / Lina , Weaver ,etc) they would get caught every single time.
Of course the timing is important as well. In turbo though, most line ups works (to a certain extent)
Chen, io, ench, undying
Some pro just nutted all over their keyboard and will draft this with Beastmaster or some shit and win TI
Silencer - ye for sure he belongs in most bottom 5s i think lol
I think 5 supports would be worse than 5 carries. The carries have a way to win the game, if the support don't end before 25 min they get out scaled.
Like Rubick/Lion/SD/IO/venge or something. THye coudln't kill anyone
I feel like you could adjust something similar, there are a number of games I've won where I'm just unkillable, build a heart + eternal and a lot of games are going to have very difficult times killing you
I've seen it once or twice , the only thing is that it just takes 1 bad fight for them to fall behind enough that they can't close out the game. A team of all supports is going to push slowly, and if the other team just builds life/eternal, they're gonna be very hard to kill. The game is much tankier than it was before
I mean some supports can really push well. It's a match up dependent strat for sure, and I do agree carries and semi carries being more durable does make it much harder nowadays. The most important part is still viable though, a lot of people can't handle the tempo break and fold when it happens. Or they go it's not "real dota" so they just let thr enemy team win so they can get a new match.
Unironically just get 5 meteor hammers and or helm of overlords.
Carries don't get magically strong at minute 25, if they're getting owned by stronger heroes all game, they just kinda stay weak and it would take bad itemization for the supports to not stomp consistently tbh
You give them no HP:
1. Rikki
2. Puck
3. Legion commander
4. Lina
5. Lion
This give am extremely low ehp pool while giving single target damage team to a teamfight mid
My mates and I do reverse drafts occasionally and there's 3 theories, all supports, all carries with terrible early games and all super squishy heroes
Generally all carries is the worst followed by squishy then supports. All supports is playable if you stick to the script and win in 25 mins
Maybe something like:
1- faceless void
2- pudge
3- lycan
4- riki
5- abaddon
Just no synergy at all, almost no lockdown outside of hook/dismember/chrono. Minimal damage inside chrono, a 3 that is super reliant on the lane going well with a 4 that will do almost nothing to win the lane. The only way this team wins is void getting super farmed and 1v9 the game.
Literally just pick a team of the hardest heroes in the game and see how badly you and your buddies can fck up trying to Micro with Visage, Brewmaster, Chen, Arc Warden, Lone Druid, Meepo, etc. Give the hardest heroes to play to Heralds and see how badly they fck up.
9 times out of 10, the enemy picks Earthshaker and Echo Slams your Entire Team into Oblivion, just Because of how many 3 Difficulty Heroes require some form of Micro, which is just an additional unit to proc Echo Slam.
Supports heroes absolutely fuck shit up early game, early game comes first, chronologically... So it's gotta be 5 carries with shit early game.
Medusa, Lone Druid, Meepo, Lifestealer, PL
All 5 of these heroes expect to be top 3 networth and are literal creeps if they're not top 3 networth, which mathematically at least 2 will be, which usually leads to their whole team being exploited and all 5 being poor af
Meepo is actually very weak jungler until level 4 which is an infinitely long time in a shit draft
Lone Druid bear having 0 armor lvl 1 now I assume would also be unreasonably bad jungler tbh compared to what people prob think
edit: If you want legit roles I guess I'd say
Oracle 5, Pudge 4, LD mid, Dusa safe, meepo off. If oracle or pudge pop off, they're probably getting solo kills. Meepo and Dusa can't really lane with shit supports and pudge/oracle pickers are often next-level bad laners, the players, not necessarily the heroes
I've always wanted to see an exhibition match between two pro teams where each team drafts for the other team.
We did this back in the day when we happened to find 10 people to play at once. It's a lot of fun actually. We are not pros though, so we just picked really hard to play heros that we knew no one was comfortable with. I'd bet the draft was something like, Chen, Meepo, Visage, enchantress, invoker
Visage is surprisingly easy to control the 2 guys, far far easier than the other guys with adds or invoker
Which is a terrible strategy above 5k since this is a completely balanced team, if a bit low on stuns.
Nowadays ench is a super easy hero to play. You can do just fine while literally never once using enchanted creeps.
I still play with the same group of friends after 10 years of dotes. The v5’s were the most fun we ever had playing, as we tried all sorts of rulesets. Reverse captains mode was the best though, they underestimated my Visage and I absolutely destroyed them. Had never played the hero before in my life though lmao. We’re not good players, but fun is fun!
https://youtu.be/6WVQxvRsWmc?si=ogpNkxKiW6ky3jky
Ooooo thank you so much!!!
I'm pretty sure one of the all star games like pre 2015 was reverse captains mode, ended up as 5 carries vs 5 supports
Who won ? Supports or carries
Carries iirc
Yes, more novelty draft exhibition games please
You're gonna struggle with arbitrary conditions like "not all carries". I'm struggling to pick something specifically bad outside of doing something like "all saves", like Omni, OD, Dazzle, Shadow Demon, Oracle. You can do something mildly daft like drafting almost zero control, like Spectre, Brood, Omni, Silencer and AA. Although with all that global map presence you might win that game by piggy-backing off of Brood's early power spike. Alternatively you could just pick a draft that has no heroes that can show in lane and have no real escapes and barely any control like Snapfire, Zeus, Sniper, Sky, AA which is a lineup that is somewhat forced to 5 man far too early or just gets mercilessly picked off if they try to split the map. However, it does have a lot of damage so it might work if the enemy team fucks up. I kinda think the game has a bit more value with a draft. So for example you let the other team get phoenix and then you pick a bunch of heroes that have no attack speed at all, like Tiny, Treant, Death Prophet, etc and you just lose to egg every fight.
I like this response. Very well thought out.
your all save draft has 3 solid cores in Omni od and dazzle and they do have insane burst so actually it's pretty decent imo
true but they will waste their saves without solid communication because its quite easy to overlap them accidentally.
the banishes definitely have some counter synergy, but the opposite is also true - false promise has incredible synergy with shadow grave, as does guardian angel ngl I would be pretty okay having my team on these heroes (my stack plays Omni and dazzle core frequently anyway)
banish probably works the same with false promise doesn't it?
nope, with astral or disruption they will die instantly when they come out of the banishment grave, however, keeps their hp at 1 after false promise ends.
Alternatively, if they DO have communication then you've crafted a team that can never die because they can all easily save themselves and each other. Especially on someone like OD who does crazy damage but is a glass cannon - you could probably just let him go full DPS and rely on your 4 teammates to keep him alive.
they have barely any teamfight though. There's not a lot of control in that draft.
I suppose you'd NEED the dazzle to be a core in order to do any kind of teamfight damage. Still, you could run into 5 people, banish two to make it a 3v5, then use some combo of dazzle shard and SD ult (probably with aghs so he has two) to massively weaken the 3 remaining players. It would take a lot of communication, but I imagine it'd be: * SD and OD banish one player each * SD uses aghs ult on two of the remaining heroes * Dazzle hexes the biggest threat(s) and OD bursts down the only non-disabled hero * OD then kites and kills the two heroes that SD ulted * By the time the first 2 heroes are un-banished, their team is either all dead or nearly dead
5 melee team with a Faceless Void and a Clockwerk.
3-Bounty Hunter, 5-Pugna, 1-Clinkz, 2-Riki, 4-Mirana I think would be the worst I can think of with heros in relatively normal positions. No synergy in any lane. At best you’d be fighting to stay even and not get crushed in lanes. And then past laning assuming since we’re drafting it’s pro or high mmr game the other teams actually gonna ward and carry dust and stick together. Has no team fight synergy, no big ults and 3 cores that need a lot of farm just to even kinda be productive
If it's a pro or high mmr, they'd just gem instead. More economical and safer, as long as the gem carrier isn't an idiot that dives in and dies first.
Pugna and clinkz at least both have a load of tower push. I think you've got the right idea though - even with a bad draft, you can itemise and play unconventional cores and still have a good time. A draft like this where the heroes actively grief each other by existing is a whole different story.
I love how you've managed to make Mirana's ulti kinda useless.
I think with how expansive the game is (slower pace, more items, power spike with aghs on everyone etc), even when the draft lacks synergies, you can build around a lot of heroes to actually get a decent game. Plus, with the constant re-balancing and QoL updates to the game, no one hero is too shit that it can't do anything without others help. Ultimately though it comes down to what draft they are up against. I mean a lineup of 5 Abba, 4 Clock, 3 Axe, 2 Meepo and 1 FV have almost no synergies in terms of spells, but against a burst heavy, fragile, no escape lineup (Zeus / Lina , Weaver ,etc) they would get caught every single time. Of course the timing is important as well. In turbo though, most line ups works (to a certain extent)
Chen, io, ench, undying, silencer. No lockdown, no scaling, no wave clear
Other spectrum lets go am, spectre, Riki, clinkz, pa Wonder who would win
Riki clinz support then picks offs with them and soectre 3 + ult on map and pa mid…. Would work in low mmr
They win lanes and have tower push though.
Chen, io, ench, undying Some pro just nutted all over their keyboard and will draft this with Beastmaster or some shit and win TI Silencer - ye for sure he belongs in most bottom 5s i think lol
Night Stalker + Phoenix is a good starting (it turns day when phoenix ults), but i think the sinergy between the heroes is still pretty ok.
I think 5 supports would be worse than 5 carries. The carries have a way to win the game, if the support don't end before 25 min they get out scaled. Like Rubick/Lion/SD/IO/venge or something. THye coudln't kill anyone
Venge IO could take towers, and with meteor hammers and skillfully play they could win out vs 5 carries. Interesting to think about.
I feel like you could adjust something similar, there are a number of games I've won where I'm just unkillable, build a heart + eternal and a lot of games are going to have very difficult times killing you
I feel like youve never been death balled by all support team before. Its memey but push early and win early was a strat for a long time.
I've seen it once or twice , the only thing is that it just takes 1 bad fight for them to fall behind enough that they can't close out the game. A team of all supports is going to push slowly, and if the other team just builds life/eternal, they're gonna be very hard to kill. The game is much tankier than it was before
I mean some supports can really push well. It's a match up dependent strat for sure, and I do agree carries and semi carries being more durable does make it much harder nowadays. The most important part is still viable though, a lot of people can't handle the tempo break and fold when it happens. Or they go it's not "real dota" so they just let thr enemy team win so they can get a new match.
Unironically just get 5 meteor hammers and or helm of overlords. Carries don't get magically strong at minute 25, if they're getting owned by stronger heroes all game, they just kinda stay weak and it would take bad itemization for the supports to not stomp consistently tbh
Highly depends on the heroes, meteor hammers are big investments, you'd basically be needing to be able to fight an item behind
You give them no HP: 1. Rikki 2. Puck 3. Legion commander 4. Lina 5. Lion This give am extremely low ehp pool while giving single target damage team to a teamfight mid
No Anti Mage?
Rikki is squishier
What about Slark or Clinkz?
Mars monkey king sucks
Spectre carry, Void mid, AM offlane, clockwerk 4 and tide 5
My mates and I do reverse drafts occasionally and there's 3 theories, all supports, all carries with terrible early games and all super squishy heroes Generally all carries is the worst followed by squishy then supports. All supports is playable if you stick to the script and win in 25 mins
There used to be a tournament called 2atoD, where the enemy was drafting your teams heroes. I imagine those games had pretty terrible drafts.
Maybe something like: 1- faceless void 2- pudge 3- lycan 4- riki 5- abaddon Just no synergy at all, almost no lockdown outside of hook/dismember/chrono. Minimal damage inside chrono, a 3 that is super reliant on the lane going well with a 4 that will do almost nothing to win the lane. The only way this team wins is void getting super farmed and 1v9 the game.
Literally just pick a team of the hardest heroes in the game and see how badly you and your buddies can fck up trying to Micro with Visage, Brewmaster, Chen, Arc Warden, Lone Druid, Meepo, etc. Give the hardest heroes to play to Heralds and see how badly they fck up. 9 times out of 10, the enemy picks Earthshaker and Echo Slams your Entire Team into Oblivion, just Because of how many 3 Difficulty Heroes require some form of Micro, which is just an additional unit to proc Echo Slam.
Supports heroes absolutely fuck shit up early game, early game comes first, chronologically... So it's gotta be 5 carries with shit early game. Medusa, Lone Druid, Meepo, Lifestealer, PL All 5 of these heroes expect to be top 3 networth and are literal creeps if they're not top 3 networth, which mathematically at least 2 will be, which usually leads to their whole team being exploited and all 5 being poor af Meepo is actually very weak jungler until level 4 which is an infinitely long time in a shit draft Lone Druid bear having 0 armor lvl 1 now I assume would also be unreasonably bad jungler tbh compared to what people prob think edit: If you want legit roles I guess I'd say Oracle 5, Pudge 4, LD mid, Dusa safe, meepo off. If oracle or pudge pop off, they're probably getting solo kills. Meepo and Dusa can't really lane with shit supports and pudge/oracle pickers are often next-level bad laners, the players, not necessarily the heroes