Ideal Anti-Meta Lineups?

Whenever there's a meta, there's an Anti-Meta... or at least there ought to be one! So, I want to know what line ups are best suited for dealing with the rampant ricing that is today's meta. Would it include good roaming heroes? Early game aggression? Constant harassing? Or should we just go sit in a corner and violently sob over the fact that the deathball strategy has been nerfed into oblivion? I mean, shouldn't the threat of a 5-man push really be the thing to keep ricing in check? Then again, I wouldn't bother bringing this up if I didn't want you guys to imbue me with your wisdom of doto.

I like Beastmaster against most of the popular heroes. Roar goes through Troll's BKB, Hawk scouts all those scummy Axes who wait in the trees for the perfect blink-call, and his aura is fantastic for pushing down towers if you need to rat.

ok i found one...

so your basically talking about

Troll Warlord

Storm Spirit

Juggernaut

Axe


yes?

you ready?

are you?

Legion Commander

mind blown


heres why.

locks down storm for 5.5 seconds and takes away all of his mobility plus storm is very squishy so kills are easy.
her q destroys a lot of them in the laning stage since they are all melee or close to it.
build blademail and a stat item like skadi and join it with a burst hero like lina or lion and you can wreck them instantly.
great passive at all stages.
free purge.
snowballs harder then they do. (only hero i know of that snowballs earlier and harder then them.

this game i was stacking with mates so its not high or very high but its a good indicator.
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1361275592

300+ duel damage.
they started to build linkens to counter me.
by late game i could 1v1 medusa with a rapier.

not even kidding.


they took rax and she was the only one left everyone was dead and she had used her ulti. i bought back blinked on top of her and we just beat each others faces in ... and i won ....

against a rapier medusa...

legion snowball too stronk.

I think there is an issue with that though Snuggles. Well two reasons.

You say that Legion Commander is great against Storm Spirit, which whilst arguably true, he's kinda bad against the others. Troll Warlord will win a man-fight with you (He also builds pure tank essentially, which means he can survive duel, pop Satanic, get his HP back, and turn the fight around), as well Juggernaught. Axe won't, but Axe really does your job better anyway.

Storm Spirit is also about as natural a Linken's Sphere builder as you get as well. And if he's the one getting the jump on you, you are kinda effed. And I mean, Storm Spirit has a larger effective initiation range than you.

She's an offlaner (I'd say not a very good one), which means she's liable to getting harrassed out, and if she doesn't snowball hard (Which is more than possible), she drops off hard given she's item intensive as items go, and is outclassed by quite a few other heroes as a form of single target lockdown.

you see thats what i thought as well but im talking about actual gameplay.

not solo queing cause :

a: meta heroes in solo queue win easily.
b: counters like this require you to be in a proper communicative team/stack
c: who the **** plays selflessly in solo que 5 CORE TEAM FTW NO SUPPORT NOOB CYKA

im talking about being in a decent stack.

if we look at online times then i feel she actually does quite decently.

in that game i had midas brown boots and blink by 14 minutes. orchid on storm would be around the same time period if i rushed blink i could have had it at 8 minutes. usually you will have level 6 at around 5-7 minutes in safelane. linkens on storm would be around 20 minutes if rushed after orchid or if rushed after boots then around 14 mins.

as you can see i was with a lina mid... quick 6 on her means burst damage. now the problem is but all they need is to stop your duel and if they survive that they can come back hard.

axe can be controlled in lane with press and overwhelming.
troll is only scary if he gets bkb. before that and after that he can be kited and controlled.
bkb is where he gets scary.

with lina i had guaranteed full hp duel wins on anyone.

i should have amended what i said a bit. so this is the good way to deal with meta heroes.

"legion commander safelane paired with burst damage is good against current meta heroes."

Winter Wyvern or Oracle. When these 2 will get introduced in the next balance patch (and they will after some tweaks), goodbye whirly/mobility meta.

A lot of heroes that are "anti-meta" are currently in Meta because of that very reason (stick with me here...).

Want a good counter to Sniper? Get Spirit Breaker or Clockwerk. Both are only currently popular picks because of the meta. Does that make them Meta? Sniper himself only seemed to come into it when Troll Warlord, Axe and Juggernaut started being picked a lot as he builds Eye of Skadi and kites for days. Obviously Sniper is very strong still and the others are still here so it just made a new meta. Also, i think people realised the power of his reworked Shrapnel and that helped a lot.

If we want a lineup to counter the most popular lineup at the minute, which is i'd say:
Safe Troll Warlord and Lion
Jungle Chen
Mid Sniper
Offlane Axe

Obviously we have Shadow Fiend, Storm Spirit, Enigma, Queen of Pain and Lina who are very in meta at the moment as well. But i think these are the most common pick/bans.


Maybe go with strong laners, punish the jungler. Against a Troll/Sniper you are kinda forced into push as lategame they are very scary. (im going to try to pick heroes who are not seen often here, so no semi-popular pickups like Bristleback)

Safe Viper and Shadow Demon
Mid Beast Master
Offlane Sven and Omniknight

I think that would do, maybe, OK. But Axe would be a problem. Luna in stead of Sven is possible.

Phantom Lancer actually owns most of the meta heroes.

PL makes Juggernaut and Sniper unplayable. He can dispel Troll Warlord's blind with hiw W so he can manfight Troll easily. And he can chase Storm Spirit around on a 4 second cooldown (and burn his mana)
Only hero he can have a problem with would be Axe but even then he does pretty decently against him since he can Doppelganger to dodge Axe call.

In a single target right-click meta of SnY/Skadi abusers...illusion heroes own.

But yes Winter Wyvern is one of the best supports against right-clickers.

Razor would be good against the steroid induced right clickers of this meta.

I really like support Silencer. Untill BKBs are out you win every teamfight because you silence them and disarm their main rightclicker. After BKBs are out the game gets harder, but having the silence on enemy supports still hinders their fighting capabilities.