feaver
The International is the largest and most spectacular Dota 2 tournament in the world. Teams that play at TI always try to use as many heroes as possible and expand their hero pool.
This is due to the fact that most teams want to prepare strategies with non-standard heroes that the opponent does not expect to see. Dota 2 has 121 heroes now, 112 of them came to us from the first part of our favorite game. However, there are also heroes that Valve released after they added all the heroes from the original old Dota: Monkey King, Dark Willow, Pangolier, Grimstroke, Mars, Void Spirit, Snapfire, Hoodwink and Dawnbreaker.
Let’s take a look at which heroes were left untouched after the teams played the group stage of The International. Teams forgot about the 9 heroes they didn’t use in the group stage, but they may show up in the Playoffs.
Broodmother
No player wants to play publics against this hero. Broodmother was used heavily on WePlay Animajor on the offlane, most often buying Guardian Greaves and Pipe of Insight. Teams forgot about her after she was nerfed for a while, but it can still show up at crucial moments.
Huskar
This hero didn’t show up in picks, but some teams banned him. For example, Team Secret banned Huskar in the game against Vici Gaming, and they did it at the last ban. Obviously, teams use Huskar in their strategies. He usually shows up on the last closing pick when the team has a good save for this Husk. It’s a great option for a quick game.
Lone Druid
This hero has undergone some changes as well, but don’t forget the Lone Druid players. There are many of them for whom LD is a signature hero. For example MATUMBAMAN of Team Secret used to play LD a lot of games. Maybe in the playoffs we will see something like that from him.
Meepo
Not everyone knows how to play Meepo, but we all know the teams that play Meepo. Absolutely, Abed from Evil Geniuses can use Meepo. Also Fnatic may have Meepo for some game because their mider ChYuan often played Meepo in WG.Unity.
Omniknight
Omni was one of our favorite offlane heroes back in the summer, but IceFrog decided to significantly weaken his second ability, Heavenly Grace. Omniknight is now forgotten, but fans of non-standard heroes can pick him up for the fifth position. OG can pick it because they played a lot with non-standard hero for pos 5 as: Legion Commander and Dragon Knight. They also played with a similar hero which save the teammates – Abaddon.
Outworld Destroyer
This hero is undeservedly forgotten, because he’s still a pretty strong opponent to most heroes in the mid lane. He can make up for his lack of mobility by buying items like Swift Blink or Force Staff to make up for it.
Spirit Breaker
If PSG.LGD’s coach xiao8 would to play for his team in the middle lane, he would definitely play Spirit Breaker like he did at the ESL One Fall and OGA Pit League 2021 Invitational. In fact, Spirit Breaker has a good chance of appearing in the Playoffs, as it’s still a looks good and solid on the 5th position. He can even be taken at offlane, making a build with Echo Sabre.
Techies
Techies is another one of the heroes that players love so much in public games that they are asking IceFrog to remove him from Dota. Techies has been used by PSG.LGD and Fnatic for this year. Who knows, maybe this controversial hero will show up in the playoffs and even win a game for some team.
Zeus
Zeus is a great choice for someone who wants a lot of magic that hits instantly with tremendous power. It’s a good option against Terrorblade and similar heroes with the main Agility characteristic. They have little health and lots of armor, which Zeus ignores. And these heroes don’t always want to collect a quick Black King Bar.