With Caleague Season 2 beginning shortly, veteran players have begun to reminisce of older strategies. Compared to the former IGS league play, DotA strategies have evolved in numerous ways, but a general evolution of strategy is definite.

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Era of Mass AoE

Pre Version 6.0
IGS League

Sentinel



Scourge



IGS league had no set standard for modes, thus there was not a lot of progression strategy wise. We see the old DotA dogma of “allrandom is real skill” taking place, thus many matches were strategies on the fly. If allpick games were played, teams focus on heavy Area of Effect ultimates. With powerhouse ultimates like Faceless Void’s Time Stop and Mangataur’s Reverse Polarity, Scourge had powerful AoE and could stand against Crystal Maiden’s Freezing Field and Treant’s Overgrowth. The main strategy was to devastate the opposing team with one team battle and push.

Cause of Change: Version 6.00

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Era of the Silencer

Pre Caleague

Sentinel


Scourge



Post 6.00 revamped many heroes and quickly forced new strategies from all teams. Caleague plans to pick up DotA and will use -leaguemode as the mode for competitive play. Revamped Faceless Void, Stealth Assassin and Silencer balanced overpowered stuns and AoE’s. The introduction of the Engima and Axe begin to quickly come into play. This era begins with experimental strategies. Sentinel strategies start to focus on SA’s Smoke Screen to initiate or Engima’s Black Hole followed by secondary AoE’s. Silencer’s Global Silence and Last Word begin to dominate over Magnataur’s blink ultimate. Scourge strategies try to counter with Faceless Void’s long ranged Time Walk followed by Chronosphere. Secondary AoE such as Sandking would blink into the Chrono and damage everything inside followed by ranged agility damage such as Razor or Clinkz to clean up. Hand of Midas and Maelstrom gain ground quickly and draw many teams to focus on longer games in order to gain item dominance. Aegis Rapier Razor becomes overly common to win games. No restrictions on Aegis usually draws game to continual Aegis creation after the three charges have been used.

Cause of Change: Necronomicons