The lastday of TI9 will come soon and only three teams. Which one will come on topdepends to a degree on how each team manages to solve the metagame puzzle theyare in right now.

1. Ti9 Pick Rate
2. Ti9 Hero Picks

TI9 Finals: Knowledge, Trust, and the Most Beautiful Dota in the World. Used the fact that they had last pick brilliantly: they moved Gyro to the mid lane and drafted Specre, who is a hard counter to Tinker. Moreover, Liquid lacked the tools to heavily pressure the Spectre early on in their lineup as Void and Tinker are not very aggressive.

In thehistory of TI, it was often the case that the very best teams had a couple ofpicks that were, seemingly, impossible to deal with, which gave them a hugedraft advantage.

Based on current and past TI9 betting odds and results, we predict the following outcomes: Region to likely be Champion at TI 2019: Europe. Teams to likely reach Grand Final: Virtus.Pro, Liquid, Vici Gaming. Top team in Region: Team Secret (EU), Vici Gaming (CN), Virtus.Pro (CIS), Fnatic (SEA) Region of. Alliance vs rng - ti9 elimination match! - the international 2019 dota 2.

• TI3 Alliancehad Admiral Bulldog’s Nature’s Prophet and Lone Druid.
• TI7 Liquidhad GH’s Keeper of the Light, Io, and Earth Shaker.
• TI8 OG hadAna’s hard carries.

This TI, OGintroduced carry Io, which broke the meta. Now, you have to ban their Io,Enchantress, and Magnus, which leaves other top picks like Alchemist in thepool. Figuring out this puzzle might be the $15 million dollar question.

Because of this,bellow we’ll give you a short overview of the 5 heroes that we believe will defineTI9 finals day.

Thecheckmate picks. The heroes who will win you the game if the enemy team doesn’tcounter them, and in some of these cases it seems like those heroes don’t havean obvious counter:

Meepo is ina way Liquid’s cheese pick in this TI (similar to Matu’s Broodmother in thepast). This means that if you’re running a team vulnerable to Meepo, you betterban him – a last pick Meepo could give Liquid a guaranteed win, which is verydemoralizing when the stakes are so high.

To makethings even more interesting, Liquid gave carry Io his first loss in thistournament by playing W33’s signature hero. In a way, it makes sense – Io lacksthe damage to threaten Meepo early-on and Meepo has a much faster timing thanIo, allowing him to take over the map and finish the game before Io is ready. Liquidshowed this trump card versus Secret, so this presents an interesting draftdynamic.

If Liquid’s opponent decides to pick carry Io,is it worth it to waste a first-phase ban on Meepo? Would Liquid draft Meeporight away, or would they be afraid of other counters? Liquid has one loss onMeepo versus MidOne’s core Earthshaker, so if the team is confident in their Meepocounters, they might decide to leave it in.

OG’sbiggest innovation this TI is without a doubt carry Io. They have no losses onthe hero- the strat has a few extremely strong timings that make it (almost)impossible to deal with.

OG were theonly ones playing it, but recently Secret showcased that other teams can copyit successfully as well, which means that on finals day the other two teamsmight also use it as a surprise element in their draft.

The strat,however, is not impossible to beat. As we mentioned above, carry Io wasrecently defeated by W33’s Meepo. Another interesting fact is that OG has neverplayed carry Io against Alch. It’s quite possible that Alch is also a strongcounter to a carry Io strat, because he also has a much faster timing than Io and whenhe is pushing the base on minute 20-30, Io might not have what it takes tochallenge him yet.

This means that if OG has a more than one heroto think about if they want to grab a first-pick Io.

If you can simplifydrafting in Dota as much as possible, you can say that there are two most importantqualities each lineup should have:

1. Stronglanes
2. Strongteam-fight potential

Void prettymuch takes care of (2) on his own, which makes it easy to build a strategy aroundVoid – you have initiation taken care of, so your pos. 3 and 4 (who are usuallythe team-fight control heroes) are freed up for more unconventional picks.

Equally importantly,Void’s Chrono is so strong that if you have it on your side, your opponentshave to draft direct counters. If you manage to take the strongest ones out ofthe game (Shadow Demon, etc.) by picking and banning them, you could leave youropponent without an answer for your strat.

Void is by far the most successful pos. 1 heroon the main stage. He’s been played in 10 games and has an 80% win rate and allthree finalist teams have used him in the main event. This makes it very likely that hewill decide the outcome of some games tomorrow.

One of his two losses came from Alliance, whowere forced to use him in the offlane, so carry Void has won 8 out of 9 gameson the main stage. Voids other loss, interestingly, came when OG was playinghim.

Ench is astrange hero in the sense that she doesn’t really fit the offlane meta rightnow. The most successful offlaners are heroes who can build the team utilityitems and who can control and initiate team-fights. Ench doesn’t like doingeither – she plays much more like an active semi-carry. She’s so strong at whatshe does, however, that she is the third most contested hero on the main stage(2^nd in the whole tournament) and has a very high win rate. Moreimportantly, OG has 6 wins out of 6 games with her, and uniquely they can playher both as an offlaner or as a support.

Liquid and LGD don’t pick Enchantress as often,so she is very likely to be permanently banned versus OG in the grand finals.

Alchemisthas been the meta-defining hero this TI. He is the most-contested hero, and inthe games he gets picked he maintains a very high win rate.

Recently, hegave OG two wins in a row versus LGD, and Secret lost their tournament lives toan Alchemist played by Liquid’s W33.

In a way,he has been the pick that some teams have been experimenting to let through andcounter, but the recent attempts have been unsuccessful.

Dota is agame of resources. When you are playing against the fastest-farming hero in thegame, you are by definition playing at a disadvantage and it’s up to you totake the initiative and try to stop him, which is much easier said than doneversus some of the best teams and players in the world.

The counter to Alch hasn’t been obvious (thereare different ideas, but none have been successful consistently), so if any ofthe three teams try to counter him, they better do it in the start of theseries when their tournament lives aren’t on the line.

Theseare some of the very best heroes in this tournament for these three teams andthey will most likely be highly contested and highly impactful on finals day.Nonetheless, they don’t seem to be “check-mate” heroes, so they didn’t manageto squeeze their way on the list above.

Chen: Has won 4 out of 5 games on the main stagebecause of his amazing early-mid game presence. Both OG and Liquid arecomfortable playing him, but LGD hasn’t played him yet, which might give thewestern teams an advantage in the draft.

Rubick: When huge team-fight abilities are in the meta,Rubick will always also have a presence. Onthe main stage, he has 75% win rate out of 16 games. He simply allows youto make use of your opponents’ most-impactful spells, which gives you a bigadvantage in team fights and could win you games without a significant resourceinvestment.

Tidehunter: the most-successful team-fight control offlaneron the main stage, Tide has more than 60% win rate with 16 picks. He simplydoes the job of a utility offlaner amazingly well – gives good team-fight controland initiation, and has no problem building all the team utility items. BothLGD and Liquid play him often and have 100% win rate with him.

Magnus: Mag is another offlaner who can bring a lot ofteam-fight control to the table with RP. Empower, however, is his moststrategically impactful spell and boosts the farming speed of any pos. 1 hero agreat deal. That said, he has below 50% win rate on the main stage, so it couldbe argued that he is the best top-pick to risk leaving for your opponents.

Earth Shaker: ES has a very bad win rate on the main stage(30%), but he is still one of OG’s most picked heroes this TI and they are doingfine with him with 6 wins out of 7 games.

Dark Seer: Dark Seer was ignored during most of this TI(after many, many nerfs over the patches). Nonetheless, OG and Liquid used himsuccessfully in combination with Alchemist. Mind Control is considered by manyto be the best Dark Seer in the world, so DS might actually make a comeback onthe last day of TI.

Ember: The second active mid-laner (the first one beingTiny) who has been very successful in this tournament. He has been a bit lesscontested than Kunkka, but he has a much better win rate than him on the mainstage so far. Needless to say, all three teams can play him (Ana won TI8 withhim), so he will most likely be highly contested.

Invoker: Pos. 4 Invoker gained and lost steam during thegroups, and pos. 2 Invoker is still seeing play every once in a while, but he isnot a highly-contested mid-laner. That said, Invoker is still one of OG’s bestheroes – they can play him both on Topson or Jerax successfully, and sincethere is not enough space to include him in the bans, we are likely to see OGmake use of him at least in some of the games. It’s worth mentioning that he isvery synergistic with Void, who is one of the two top pos. 1 heroes.

Itseems that the pool of game-winning pos. 1 heroes is shrinking. Gyro has an averagewin rate, but the other popular pos. 1 heroes (Life Stealer, Sven, Wraith King,and Slark) are all hovering around 30% win rate which is very discouraging. Thiswill make the pos. 1 very interesting on the last day. If Void and Alch aregetting first-phase banned, it is quite possible that some other pos. 1 heroeswill unexpectedly become high-priority in the last two series of the tournament.In this meta, active semi-carries are popular on pos. 2, and utility heroes onpos. 3, which means the pos. 1 candidates are more likely to be true hardcarries.

Naga Siren: Naga is the hero that OG bans the most out ofthe tournament, which clearly shows that they consider it game-breaking. Nagahasn’t made an appearance on the main stage (60% win rate in groups), whichmight allow her to slip through the bans and see some play. There seems to be adeficit of game-winning pos. 1 heroes right now, so she could become a pivotalpick (or at least ban) on the last day.

Anti-Mage: Another counterable, but game-winning pos. 1hero. This makes it likely that the teams will try to use him as the last pickin a draft when the opponent doesn’t have obvious counters. Since he is one ofMiracle’s signature heroes, Liquid are the ones most likely to utilize him (theyhave two AM games in TI9, 50% WR).

Spectre: Miracle has Anti-Mage, and Ana has Spectre.Again, a greedy pos. 1 who can win games if left unattended. Like Liquid, OG hasused Spectre twice, with 50% win rate.

Carefullylooking at the draft would be the key this day. Betting on the team thatmanages to get their hands on one of the game-breaking heroes might be a goodstrategy. Another one might be to bet against teams that build strategies aroundthe under-performing but popular pos. 1 heroes (Lifestealer, Wraith King, Sven,Slark).

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Most tournaments evolve a meta which is defined during group stages. Teams come out with their best strategies to gain any advantage they can and then other teams study what works well and copy those picks.

The meta of TI9 was defined by OG who dominated games with carry Io, Alchemist, Enchantress, Magnus and other heroes who became first phase bans for most teams.

To understand why some heroes were picked and others ignored, it's important to understand the meta.

The most contested (combined picks and bans) heroes in the group stages were:

• Alchemist (126)
• Enchantress (123)
• Shadow Demon (117)
• Mirana (107)
• Ogre Magi (101)

During the main event the most contested heroes were:

• Alchemist (47)
• Enchantress (44)
• Elder Titan (44)
• Tiny (38)
• Leshrac (37)

Other notable heroes were Shadow Demon, Chen, and Lifestealer.

What is similar about these heroes? Many of them have abilities which can influence team fights in significant ways by mitigating and amplifying damage.

Ti9 Pick Rate

• Alchemist has a large area of effect spell which has massive armor reduction.
• Elder Titan has a spell which removes armor and magic resistance.
• Enchantress has a spell which basically makes her immune to physical attacks and has a magic resistance talent.
• Chen can control neutral creeps to stack magic resistance.
• Mirana can make her whole team go invisible which is great for initiating or escaping fights.

These damage amplification and mitigation spells are sorely missing from Clockwerk and Ursa’s toolkit. They need to buy items such as Crimson Guard or Pipe of Insight and Ursa needs to buy items like Drums of Endurance, Blink Dagger, and Black King Bar before he can become effective in team fights. By the time they get these items other heroes will be out farming them.

Many of the most popular heroes at TI9 were heroes that can play multiple positions. This is very helpful during the draft because when you make a pick, you are forced into a certain play style. When you pick a hero that can play multiple positions, you force your enemies to take multiple roles into consideration and you can switch up your own play style later in the draft.

This is part of the reason Tiny, Enchantress, Ogre Magi, and Mirana were picked so often, they can play multiple positions and multiple roles.

An example of this would be game 3 of the upper bracket match of Evil Geniuses against OG. For OG’s last pick they chose Sand King for offlane and then Evil Geniuses countered this with Anti Mage. OG reacted masterfully to this and shifted JerAx, the position 4, to play Sand King, and then N0tail played Rubick as the position 5, all to allow OG.Ceb to play position 3 Enchantress. This switch up worked well and OG ended up winning the game.

Also in the same game Sumail played Mirana as mid, a hero that is usually played as support.

With Clockwerk, Ursa, and Keeper of the Light, you know which position they're going to be playing and what kind of game they want to play.

Keeper of the Light (kotl) is a hero that went through multiple changes to rework how this hero is meant to be played. Most notably Kotl’s ultimate ability changed from Spirit Form to Will-o-Wisp. Will-o-Wisp is an ultimate ability that causes enemies to be focused onto the Will-o-Wisp multiple times, incapacitating them. This spell was very powerful especially combined with refresher orb which allowed multiple instances of Will-o-Wisp to overlap, causing a very long area of effect stun.

The refresher orb effect was removed because it was too strong and ever since then Kotl has been ignored in professional games.

Kotl is also easily countered by popular carry heroes in the current meta such as Alchemist who has a high rate of attack speed and can get a Black King Bar 15 minutes into the game to kill the Will-o-Wisp before it can be effective in team fights. Lifestealer and Juggernaut are also heroes who can turn magic immune and kill the Will-o-Wisp so teams may have been hesitant to pick Kotl since popular heroes can counter his abilities easily.

Clockwerk’s playstyle did not fit too well in the TI9 meta compared to other heroes.

As a position 4 he needs to get up and close to the enemy to apply pressure. Other heroes like Elder Titan can instantly summon a spirit from a long distance and stomp, Earth Spirit can roll in from a far distance, and Mirana can shoot arrows from a very far distance.

As a position 3 he doesn’t have the same level of tankiness and ability to frontline like other popular offlane heroes. At TI9 offlane heroes were expected to build auras and sustain items which Clockwerk can’t do because he is the one who wants to initiate or counter initiate. He also lacks area of effect abilities to help him farm fast which many popular offlane heroes had like Tidehunter who can farm fast with his Anchor Smash ability.

Even though Ursa is a strong counter to the most contested hero at TI9 - Alchemist, teams may have decided that another hero is a better pick such as Lifestealer. Lifestealer has an ability that makes him magic immune, something that Ursa does not have. Ursa has his ultimate: Enrage which dispels debuffs on him but he can be kited easily.

Ursa is a strange hero to not be picked though because he’s a natural counter to not only Alchemist but Enchantress and Tidehunter as well. Enchantress has the ability to make enemies attack her slowly but Ursa can increase his attack speed greatly which makes him a counter. Tidehunter is tanky against most heroes due to his Kraken Shell ability but Ursa’s Fury Swipes ability cannot be dispelled by Kraken Shell.

He’s also one of the best heroes at killing Roshan who is always important in every high level game.

Ti9 Hero Picks

Perhaps because he does not offer much to his team unlike Sven who has a damage absorption spell and speed movement buff or Juggernaut who has a healing ward or Lifestealer with a built in magic immune ability. Ursa also lacks reliable tower damage which is a big problem for ending the game.