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He'll prefer it that way.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/tan-guan-hao-570b26a0\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/draconiques\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/tanguanhao\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What we learned from the first day of The International 9 group stage","description":"Learn what you can from TI to dominate your pubs.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/dota-2\/news\/what-we-learned-from-the-first-day-of-the-international-9-group-stage","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What we learned from the first day of The International 9 group stage","og_description":"Learn what you can from TI to dominate your pubs.","og_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/dota-2\/news\/what-we-learned-from-the-first-day-of-the-international-9-group-stage","og_site_name":"Dot 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Esports","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/05103313\/logo-dot_esports-mark-black.png","width":300,"height":300,"caption":"Dot Esports"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DOTesports\/","https:\/\/x.com\/DotEsports","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dotesports\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCckaIn-3KqLYfppkj4DeTAw"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/31334cae160cecf07cbcc05934e17292","name":"Dexter Tan Guan Hao","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/e187617157440de5b7ffedea9f830df8","url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/26104939\/Dexter-Tan.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/26104939\/Dexter-Tan.png","caption":"Dexter Tan Guan Hao"},"description":"An e-sports, fiction, and comics fanatic through and through, you can find him sipping a nice, hot cup of tea while playing Dota 2 with the few friends that he has. Or don't find him at all. He'll prefer it that way.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/tan-guan-hao-570b26a0\/","https:\/\/x.com\/draconiques"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/tanguanhao"}]}},"raw_content":"This article is brought to you by\u00a0StatBanana, the best Dota 2 strategy tool. As each edition of The International comes and goes, we learn something more about Dota 2. The International 9 is no exception and we\u2019ve already gained a lot of knowledge just from the first day of the group stage. Here are four things that we learned from day one of TI9. Alchemist, Enchantress, and Shadow Demon are the most contested Drafting is perhaps the most important phase of a professional Dota 2 game. It\u2019s where games can tilt irrevocably into one team\u2019s advantage or a squad's strategy can be completely ruined. Even if you aren't a professional player, it\u2019s always worth paying attention to the meta that develops at each TI because your pubs are going to be filled with the heroes seen on stage. Alchemist is a surprise atop the contested charts. Over 90 percent of the matches have Alchemist as a pick or ban, according to Dotabuff. Enchantress and Shadow Demon round out the top-three spots. Lane dominators like Ogre Magi, Mirana, and Kunkka have often been first phase picks or bans. All three heroes can be played in a variety of positions and provide insane utility.\u00a0 Kunkka is a powerful Broodmother counter. In Secret\u2019s first game against Alliance, they first picked Kunkka. Alliance are known for drafting the spider and let their guard down. Secret proceeded to pick Broodmother, which ran over the game. Related: Team Secret beat Alliance in a megacreep comeback to start The International 2019 Ogre Magi has found new life as an offlane bully, bonking anybody that dares to approach him. Coupled with recent, massive buffs to his ultimate Multicast, Ogre Magi packs both physical and magical damage in lane and transforms into a late-game monster due to his ability to Multicast Hand of Midas. Seriously, Ogre is the only hero that can earn 1,000 gold with one press of a button. Gyrocopter doesn\u2019t need Io Io and Gyro is a duo that dominated the last DPC tournament, the EPICENTER Major. Several teams, including Major champions Vici Gaming, used the power farming duo to great effect. But recent nerfs to Io\u2019s early-game presence and talents have severely hampered the potency of the couple. Apparently, the solution was to just not pick Io. Gyrocopter is the third most-picked hero (14 times) and enjoys a 79 percent win rate. Io languishes in the middle of the pack with only five picks and has a 40 percent win rate. Gyrocopter\u2019s massive magic damage output appears to be valued by teams. Some teams have also experimented with playing Gyrocopter as an active mid laner who can transition into a late-game powerhouse. Ring of Basilius is the premier starting item If you're a melee core, you buy a Stout Shield. If you're a ranged core, you apparently buy a Sage\u2019s Mask, walk to lane, and upgrade it to a Ring of Basilius. Basilius has fallen out of favor since Ring of Aquila was removed from the game. Even though Aquila was one of the most efficient stat items\u2014so much so that non-agility cores picked it up\u2014it was deemed worthy of deletion by IceFrog, the developer of Dota 2. So the Bracer, Null Talisman, and Wraith Band meta came and went. As they received nerf after nerf, the pros looked toward their old flame Ring of Basilius and said \"maybe this item isn\u2019t so bad after all.\" Basilius gives eight damage and an aura that provides armor plus mana regeneration. It\u2019s extremely valuable, especially when you have a lane partner, allowing both laners to constantly spam spells and trade hits. Every single ranged laner from Enchantress to Gyrocopter is starting with this item. As it turns out, reports of Ring of Basilius\u2019 death have been greatly exaggerated.\u00a0 Solar Crest is the king of utility If you tune into a stream, there's probably a Solar Crest somewhere, regardless of the team or the game state. It\u2019s also probably on the winning team. Solar Crest has gone through a few iterations since its introduction. The most recent one has made it busted. It increases armor and attack speed when cast on allies, making it the perfect high ground sieging item. When cast on enemies, it reduces armor and attack speed, meaning you can heavily lower an enemy core\u2019s effectiveness for something that costs zero mana. It\u2019s also a fantastic Rosh item since it reduces Roshan\u2019s armor and your tank will take less damage by virtue of the attack speed reduction.\u00a0 So when you're in a pub and you're looking at what new damage item to build next, you might want to consider buying a Solar Crest for your friend. He'll appreciate it, and when the enemy Ancient goes down, you might too.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/13130408\/26a972ca-3230-406d-9aa9-d31ab9b58e4b-channel_offline_image-1920x1080.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160670"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=160670"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=160670"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=160670"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=160670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

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Or don't find him at all. He'll prefer it that way.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/tan-guan-hao-570b26a0\/","https:\/\/x.com\/draconiques"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/tanguanhao"}]}},"raw_content":"This article is brought to you by\u00a0StatBanana, the best Dota 2 strategy tool. As each edition of The International comes and goes, we learn something more about Dota 2. The International 9 is no exception and we\u2019ve already gained a lot of knowledge just from the first day of the group stage. Here are four things that we learned from day one of TI9. Alchemist, Enchantress, and Shadow Demon are the most contested Drafting is perhaps the most important phase of a professional Dota 2 game. It\u2019s where games can tilt irrevocably into one team\u2019s advantage or a squad's strategy can be completely ruined. Even if you aren't a professional player, it\u2019s always worth paying attention to the meta that develops at each TI because your pubs are going to be filled with the heroes seen on stage. Alchemist is a surprise atop the contested charts. Over 90 percent of the matches have Alchemist as a pick or ban, according to Dotabuff. Enchantress and Shadow Demon round out the top-three spots. Lane dominators like Ogre Magi, Mirana, and Kunkka have often been first phase picks or bans. All three heroes can be played in a variety of positions and provide insane utility.\u00a0 Kunkka is a powerful Broodmother counter. In Secret\u2019s first game against Alliance, they first picked Kunkka. Alliance are known for drafting the spider and let their guard down. Secret proceeded to pick Broodmother, which ran over the game. Related: Team Secret beat Alliance in a megacreep comeback to start The International 2019 Ogre Magi has found new life as an offlane bully, bonking anybody that dares to approach him. Coupled with recent, massive buffs to his ultimate Multicast, Ogre Magi packs both physical and magical damage in lane and transforms into a late-game monster due to his ability to Multicast Hand of Midas. Seriously, Ogre is the only hero that can earn 1,000 gold with one press of a button. Gyrocopter doesn\u2019t need Io Io and Gyro is a duo that dominated the last DPC tournament, the EPICENTER Major. Several teams, including Major champions Vici Gaming, used the power farming duo to great effect. But recent nerfs to Io\u2019s early-game presence and talents have severely hampered the potency of the couple. Apparently, the solution was to just not pick Io. Gyrocopter is the third most-picked hero (14 times) and enjoys a 79 percent win rate. Io languishes in the middle of the pack with only five picks and has a 40 percent win rate. Gyrocopter\u2019s massive magic damage output appears to be valued by teams. Some teams have also experimented with playing Gyrocopter as an active mid laner who can transition into a late-game powerhouse. Ring of Basilius is the premier starting item If you're a melee core, you buy a Stout Shield. If you're a ranged core, you apparently buy a Sage\u2019s Mask, walk to lane, and upgrade it to a Ring of Basilius. Basilius has fallen out of favor since Ring of Aquila was removed from the game. Even though Aquila was one of the most efficient stat items\u2014so much so that non-agility cores picked it up\u2014it was deemed worthy of deletion by IceFrog, the developer of Dota 2. So the Bracer, Null Talisman, and Wraith Band meta came and went. As they received nerf after nerf, the pros looked toward their old flame Ring of Basilius and said \"maybe this item isn\u2019t so bad after all.\" Basilius gives eight damage and an aura that provides armor plus mana regeneration. It\u2019s extremely valuable, especially when you have a lane partner, allowing both laners to constantly spam spells and trade hits. Every single ranged laner from Enchantress to Gyrocopter is starting with this item. As it turns out, reports of Ring of Basilius\u2019 death have been greatly exaggerated.\u00a0 Solar Crest is the king of utility If you tune into a stream, there's probably a Solar Crest somewhere, regardless of the team or the game state. It\u2019s also probably on the winning team. Solar Crest has gone through a few iterations since its introduction. The most recent one has made it busted. It increases armor and attack speed when cast on allies, making it the perfect high ground sieging item. When cast on enemies, it reduces armor and attack speed, meaning you can heavily lower an enemy core\u2019s effectiveness for something that costs zero mana. It\u2019s also a fantastic Rosh item since it reduces Roshan\u2019s armor and your tank will take less damage by virtue of the attack speed reduction.\u00a0 So when you're in a pub and you're looking at what new damage item to build next, you might want to consider buying a Solar Crest for your friend. 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Rokurou

As each edition of The International comes and goes, we learn something more about Dota 2<\/em>. The International 9 is no exception and we\u2019ve already gained a lot of knowledge just from the first day of the group stage. <\/p>

Here are four things that we learned from day one of TI9.<\/p>