AD2L S48 Explorer Week 7 Match Predictions
Laning is a part of Dota that we all learn, and pretty much all the same way: thrown in the fucking deep end on support and have to try and figure out what the FUCK we are meant to be doing while being pinged and flamed by our friends and foes alike. So maybe we take a step back and talk about laning phase for a minute in a rare example of me talking about DOTO instead of RANDOM BULLSHIT, GO!
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So not to get too esoteric here, but let’s start from first principles. The goal of the game of Dota 2, unless you are a Techies player, is to bring the enemy Ancient down to zero HP before yours suffers the same fate. In order to accomplish this, at a minimum you must take down 2 lane towers and 3 high ground towers to even have the opportunity. Often, to be able to take these objectives, one team must kill members of the other, using the death time to take objectives. Umpteen factors come together to determine the outcomes of these fights, but a large one is simply Net Worth. If I have more items than you, it is significantly easier to beat you in a fight.
So what does this have to do with laning?? Well kind of a lot! If one team “wins” lane, that means they came out with more gold and experience, likely making early game fights easier. Winning early game fights can snowball you, allowing your team to take over more map space, being able to farm even more, and ultimately building the lead even further. While a team can certainly come back from a poor laning phase, the game plan of a team who is ahead is just way simpler and easier.
Ok backstory over, now wtf am I supposed to do in lane?? The easiest way to think about laning is in terms of pure gold. Everything that you do is either gaining or losing gold, with the ultimate goal of the lane being to maximize gold for your team and minimizing that for the enemy.
The obvious starting place is Creep Score, or CS. Every last you get on a lane creep is plus gold and exp for you and your side. Similarly, every deny is gold the enemy doesn’t get. But here we hit our first wrinkle: over focusing on denies. Especially in the midlane, we see players go for denies over last hits, which just doesn’t math. Last hits pretty much surpass everything when it comes to laning, which we will come back to later. Lane positioning makes it easier or harder to last hit, which can be controlled by pulling, dragging, or dealing extra damage to either side of the wave.
After CS, we come to harass. This is largely the purview of supports, as cores should be focused on CS-ing whenever possible. But here again we can take the qualitative away and strip down to a purely quantitative analysis. When you damage the enemy in lane, they need to regen. This either costs them in terms of regen items (tangoes, salves), mana (healing spells), or time (walking to base or just standing around). You do not need to kill in lane to have your harass be effective! Supports all have unique ways to play lane, but really it comes down to the same structure: Use right clicks and spells to reduce enemy health, taking favourable trades when possible, and spend your own regen to be able to continue this unabated in lane. If the enemy has to spend money on regen, they are not buying useful and permanent items. If they are not buying items, their ability to make plays in the early midgame is stymied, and you see an obvious return on your lane investment.
It is ok to die! Especially on support (in sidelanes please, do not feed mid), you can effectively use your HP as a resource, to the point where you are 0 mana 0 HP, but so are the opponents. You die, sure, but you respawn at full everything and can bully the low resource clowns. If your death results in core free-farm? Or you die killing the enemy core? Hell yeah that’s worth it. As always, its all about the net balance of lane. If you spend 90g on Tangoes, use them to force the opponent to buy regen to trade with you. If you die and give 200 gold, but it grants your carry 2 waves of free farm, then Fuck Yeah Seaking!
It’s easy to get lost in the laning sauce, especially with the quarter billion or so 2v2 lane states there can be. But if you think of it in simplified terms, focus on pure CS above all, then a lot of the mystique falls to the wayside. The worst thing you can do in lane is nothing; even if things are going pear shaped there’s something you could do. There’s always more to learn in Dota, the most complicated and difficult game ever, but I hope that this is a little fun thought exercise for those of us who are still on that journey through the tutorial. God Speed!
Feisty Farmers Farming 🧑🌾🌽(5–7) vs Josh A. Explorer S48 🌴🐫🛶(3–9)
Farmers are on a hot streak, turning around a 1–5 start to 4–2 in the second half of the season. However, JAE is a team they have tied week after week and one they really want to take down to prove they are a top contender in Explorer. I know there’s a little bit of Salt between these two stacks so I’m hoping for some flavorful games, especially now that Oogie is re-comfirmed playing tonight. This will be a fun series to watch, but I’m predicting that the Farmers break their streak and 2–0 Hartrun’s Heroes!
The Petting Zoo Rejects 🐐🚫🏆(9–3) vs Stanley’s Friends Squad 🐖🫰🐗(7–5)
Any re-match enjoyers? The Equine Envoys have been looking a little lost in recent weeks, dropping from 7–1 and 7–5 out of seemingly nowhere. Having the best carry on paper needs to translate into some fucking wins, if for no other reason than team confidence. A clean 2–0 puts them back in first place in the rankings, whereas another 0–2 drops them to a tied 2nd place. PzR is playing their best dota right now, but SFS has the highest ceiling of any team by far. I think they bounce back with a 2–0 tonight, restoring their honor like Zuko, in no small part to having Uncle Iroh helping them with draft.
I also will be casting this series so be on the lookout for my stream deets tonight!!
Thanks for reading, and as always, feel free to reach out with any comments, complaints, or incorrect assertions that I have made a mistake! All love!!
