Now we know that Captain's Mode games involve a lot of strategy even at the picking phase. When playing CM, you concentrate on choosing a balanced team that will out perform the enemy's team, and also assign lanes to the correct heroes for the job. But some people forget that this is also half-true in normal public AP, SD or any other mode really.

I am sure that a lot of games you lose are because of team match-up and lane choices. Because unless the enemy is extremely bad, if you have the wrong hero for the wrong job you are faced with being annihilated before you've even started.
To illustrate, let me give you an example. Let's say you see the enemy picking up a Drow Ranger, Warlock, Silencer, Witch Doctor and a Dragon Knight.
Quickly analysing the line-up can significantly increase your chances of winning.

The first thing we see is a Drow. We all hate and love this hero for her amazing damage and slow. Although fairly nerfed, she is still a significant hero and needs to be co…
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Being in the 50th percentile of the great Dota 2 player base, accented as "Normal", doesn't mean that you need to play like an average player. In fact, one of the reasons you continue playing Dota 2 (enjoyment hopefully being the most important reason), is to improve yourself. What better way than to watch the pros do it.

There is various ways to do this. Going on Twitch.tv will give you various streams that you can watch which features all the major tournament games between pro Dota teams. All games of the large Dota 2 tournament hosted by Valve, The International, is free to watch inside the client itself. Not only is this a lot of fun, its a great way to learn tactics that you otherwise wouldn't normally encounter in public games.

But just because you only play soloques doesn't mean that you have to play like a solo quer. That extra TP support, that random call for a smoke gank. It can all help you and your team improve and win, even if it might not always synchronize well with o…
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