The difference in picks across the world

The International qualifiers have come and gone. We now know who will be in Seattle and who will not. However, I wanted to see how the regions viewed the game through the heroes they consider strong. I think this data still says a lot about playstyles even though it is a couple of weeks old and a small patch came out which changed a couple heroes that had strong performances in the qualifiers.

Key takeaways

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• Topping the picked or banned column in every region, Batrider is considered strong by everyone.
• The Americas are the only region where Ancient Apparition isn't in the top 10 picked. Despite being picked a lot by other regions, AA doesn't hit the board for win percentage in any region.
• Europe banning IO in 74% of games shows that teams are much more scared of that hero than any other region.
• Mirana was a huge pick for both the Americas and Europe but she barely hit the top 10 in China and is missing in Southeast Asia.
• The Americas love Shadow Fiend and for good reason, the hero had a 72% win percentage over 17 games in the qualifiers. Shadow Fiend didn't see much play in other regions.
• While Disruptor isn't all that common of a pick in the eastern regions, he did hit the top 10 win percentage in Southeast Asia.
• Shadow Demon saw a lot of play time in North America and Europe mostly because of Mirana's prominence. However, he was the 2nd most picked hero in Southeast Asia without Mirana being picked nearly as much.

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What do you think about the picks and bans? What does the data show you about how the regions see the game?

Really nice article. For me the most common pick across regions seemed to be Treant Protector - Living Armor anyone? Wasn't banned much either. Also interesting to see Lich with such a high win %.

The cross region thing must be to do with playstyle/meta, certain heroes fit better?

I don't know... but I didn't see that many Viper's last year...

There really were a lot of Viper games during the qualifiers.. Frankly, I'm happy to see the emergence of Viper in competitive, since he is one of my favorite characters.

Just goes to show... that I was right in picking Batrider as a fave!!! lol

I would have expected more heroes like invoker and meepo popping up in chinese qualifiers as they do seem to really like complicated heroes, asains be nimble, asians be quick

Weaver has a good winrate in these tournaments, hooray!

Also, can't believe Kotl got the highest winrate in 'murica, and Batrider completely wrecked Europe with his 91% winrate haha.

Great article and images there Alan, impressive!

He deserves it! He can go Safe Lane, Mid or even Aggressive Tri-Lane and dominate, he is pretty Tanky and can be effective even against Black King Bar builders and while there are quite a few Items that are generally great on him, i.e. Aghanim's Scepter, Mekansm, Black King Bar, etc., he can build pretty flexibly and be useful in most Lineups. <}3

Thanks Hades!

Every time I see Viper at the top of the Chinese win % I think about Merlini's saying about him, "Win lane, lose game"...guess that isn't necessarily true anymore.