TI 2023 Playoff preview: Which Dota 2 heroes will define the metagame?

The International (TI) 2023, this year's Dota 2 world championship tournament, is set to begin the Road to The International Playoff phase on the weekend of 21 to 22 October. The 16 remaining teams will be fighting to be among the Top 8 squads making it to The International Main Event from 27 to 29 October.

With the stakes getting higher, the competition is sure to get more exciting and will make for some must-watch Dota. But just how will things play out?

Let's take a look at the metagame that was developed through the recently-concluded Road to The International Group Stage phase.

From the most-picked, contested, and most successful heroes, let's break down what the TI 2023 metagame is looking like heading into the Playoffs.

Vengeful Spirit, Muerta, Bristleback, Earth Spirit are the most-picked heroes so far

Vengeful Spirit, Muerta, Bristleback, and Earth Spirit have been the four most-picked heroes of TI 2023 through the Road to The International Group Stage, having appeared in at least 30 games each according to Dota 2 stats site DOTABUFF.

Vengeful Spirit leads the pack after getting picked in 33 games with a modest 40% win rate. Muerta and Bristleback each appeared in 32 games and have largely been successful, with Muerta having a 59% win rate while Bristleback won exactly half the games he was in.

Meanwhile, Earth Spirit was picked in 30 games and had a ho-hum 43% win rate.

What the above four heroes have in common, and what makes them such enticing picks for teams, is their versatility. In the high-stakes games of TI, heroes you can confidently pick in the first phase and switch around between roles as needed are valuable commodities.

Of course, this doesn't mean that those heroes are overpowered. Otherwise, they would be among the list of most banned heroes instead of the most picked.

For example, Bristleback is often played on the offlane but often takes on more of a carry role, and is even sometimes being picked as his team's carry outright. What makes Bristleback so powerful right now is his new Aghanim's Scepter upgrade, which gives his Bristleback ability an active component that lets him quickly unleash multiple waves of Quill Sprays.

When combined with items like Bloodstone, Bristleback can both tank and dish out tons of damage, as demonstrated by LGD Gaming offlaner Li "niu" Kongbo in his team's 2-0 sweep over three-time Major champions Gaimin Gladiators in the first phase of the Group Stage.

Of course, Bristleback is heavily countered by Break mechanics, whether it's from hero abilities like Phantom Assassin's Fan of Knives or items like Silver Edge. Dota's balanced porcupine man is powerful indeed, but there are ways to play around him, so teams are willing to let him through drafts. The same can be said for the other heroes we've listed above.

We expect Vengeful Spirit, Muerta, Bristleback, and Earth Spirit to remain popular picks in the Playoffs, especially in the first few matches. With that said, we can also see the likes of Muerta falling in priority as the metagame continues to developer and draft priorities shift.

A couple of other heroes we can see moving up to that top tier in the Playoffs are Spirit Breaker, Phoenix, and Dark Willow, among others.

Dazzle, Treant Protector, and Pangolier are the most-banned heroes

While teams are often happy to let the four heroes we listed above through drafts, they never want to see the dastardly trio of Dazzle, Treant Protector, and Pangolier.

Dazzle is TI 2023's most-banned hero by far, being banned in a whopping 87 games. Meanwhie, Treant Protector and Pangolier are a significant step down, with Treant Protector being banned in 65 games while Pangolier didn't get through in 62 games.

The three are also the most-contested heroes of the tournament as a result, with Treant Protector being picked or banned in 89 games, Pangolier in 88, and Dazzle in 87.

It's not hard to see why Dazzle and Treant Protector often get hit by the ban hammer, as the two are arguably the most annoying supports to play against in the current metagame.

Dazzle offers slow with Poison Touch, burst healing and damage with Shadow Wave, a save with Shallow Grave, and cooldown reduction for himself and armor reduction for enemies with Bad Juju. Oh, and if he gets an Aghanim's Shard Poison Touch also Hexes all enemies hit.

Dazzle's kit is so strong that some teams like defending champions Tundra Esports have even flexed him to the midlane role for Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen. Most of the time, it's just not worth risking having a hero who does so much get through the draft.

Meanwhile, Treant Protector's strong laning presence with Nature's Grasp and Leech Seed, global protection and healing for allies and towers with Living Armor, and teamfight control with Overgrowth.

While Treant Protector isn't as flashy as Dazzle, his impact cannot be understated. Having an enemy hero be a strong laning partner for his carry is very important in the current metagame, but if he can also slow the action down to give his carry time and space to farm? Just ban it.

But while it's clear why Dazzle and Treant Protector are must-ban heroes, Pangolier is a trickier case.

While Dazzle and Treant Protector enjoy good win rates in the games they were picked in, 69% and 54% respectively, Pangolier has an abysmal 30% win rate when he does slip through the draft.

This is likely a carry-over from the metagame of previous patches, where Pangolier was one of the strongest heroes. But even after multiple well-deserved nerfs, the swashbuckling, mustachioed pangolin seems to still elicit fear from many teams.

It's easy to see why, Pangolier is still a lane dominator with huge reach with Swashbuckle and tons of teamfight control with Rolling Thunder. Even if his numbers are nerfed, that's still an annoying hero to deal with. But when he does slip through drafts is when the nerfs start to show, hence his very low win rate.

In the Playoffs, we expect Dazzle and Treant Protector to remain must-ban heroes while Pangolier will start slipping out of team's ban lists. We foresee the likes of Invoker and Kunka to start getting more ban priority due to them being annoying mid heroes who can also be flexed into other roles.

Primal Beast, Chaos Knight, and Spirit Breaker among most successful heroes

Of course, what defines any metagame is which heroes are winning the most. Throughout the Group Stage, three of the most successful heroes with at least 20 picks were Primal Beast, Chaos Knight, and Spirit Breaker.

Primal Beast has a 66% win rate in 21 games, Chaos Knight has 65% in 26 games, while Spirit Breaker has 57% in 28 games. Those three heroes define the current TI metagame where tanky, hard-hitting Strength heroes are king. In addition, all three are fairly versatile.

Primal Beast is often flexed between the mid and offlane, Spirit Breaker is picked as either the offlaner or a position 4 support, while Chaos Knight can be a team's primary hard carry or a secondary one alongside another carry on the mid or offlane.

Aside from his long-range stun with Onslaught and burst damage with Trample, what makes Primal Beast such a strong hero is the fact that he can isolate a target with Pulverize even through debuff immunity. He can also buy an Aghanim's Scepter to add a Break mechanic to Uproar to counter heroes like Bristleback or Phantom Assassin.

Meanwhile, Chaos Knight is a lane dominator that can become unstoppable with enough farm. The fact that he can quickly farm both the jungle and the lane with Phantasm lets him get to his powerful timings much faster.

By far the best Chaos Knight performance of the tournament so far came at the hands of Nouns Esports' Héctor "K1" Rodríguez in game two of their massive upset over Tundra, where he outshined his team's mid Ogre Magi pick, lapped his counterpart by 10,000 gold in terms of net worth, then finished with 12 kills and five assists on two deaths.

Meanwhile, Spirit Breaker has been a do-it-all hero in the right hands.

With the right laning partner, Spirit Breaker can push the opposing carry out of the lane. He can then farm very fast with the new Hand of Midas-into-Octarine Core build. And, of course, charge from across the map to bash the skull of whatever unlucky hero he sets his eyes on. Oh, he also gets tons of Status Resistance with Bulldoze, so good luck locking him down.

Aside from the above three archetypal Strength heroes, four other heroes who play very different roles have also seen a lot of success.

In 28 games apiece, Phoenix has a 57% win rate while Dark Willow has a 53% win rate. Meanwhile, Skywrath Mage and Ancient Apparition both have a 63% win rate in 19 games.

While Primal Beast, Chaos Knight, and Spirit Breaker are get-in-your-face heroes, the above four prefer to stay in the backlines of teamfights and provide either crowd control or tons of magic damage.

Phoenix and Ancient Apparition are noteworthy in that they both counter the Strength heroes that dominate the metagame. The damage of Phoenix's Sun Ray scales with its target's Max HP while Ancient Apparition prevents them from regenerating health and outright kills them once they get low enough with Ice Blast.

On the other hand, Skywrath Mage and Dark Willow are valued for their high magic damage output and crowd control abilties.

While Skywrath Mage doesn't have a built-in stun, he does have a powerful Silence with Ancient Seal and naturally builds up a Rod of Atos. Meanwhile, Dark Willow has amazing zone control with Bramble Maze, Cursed Crown, and Terrorize on top of high magic damage with Shadow Realm and Bedlam.

With how successful all the heroes we listed in this section have been, you can expect teams to start picking them more in the Playoffs.

With that said, we do think that the likes of Spirit Breaker and Primal Beast may end getting banned more often than they're picked due to just how many things they bring to the table.

The Road to The International Playoffs will take place from 20 to 22 October in the Seattle Convention Center's Summit. It will feature the 16 teams that made it out of the Group Stage fighting to be among the eight teams making it to The International proper.

Here are the tentative matchups for the Road to The International Playoffs:

Upper bracket quarterfinals:

• Team Spirit vs Virtus.pro

• Team Liquid vs Talon Esports

• LGD Gaming vs 9Pandas

• Nouns Esports vs Azure Ray

Lower bracket round 1:

• Shopify Rebellion vs TSM

• Evil Geniuses vs Gaimin Gladiators

• Vivo Keyd Stars vs BetBoom Team

• Tundra Esports vs Entity

On 20 October, the eight upper bracket teams will face off in four best-of-three matches. The four winning teams will advance to the upper bracket of The International itself while losing teams will have to continue fighting in the lower bracket of the Playoffs.

The lower bracket of the Playoffs will be played from 21 to 22 October, featuring 12 teams pitted in eight best-of-three matches. Eight teams will be eliminated in this stage while four teams will advance to the lower bracket of The International proper.

The Top 8 teams in the Road to The International Playoffs will then advance to The International Main Event, which will be hosted in the Climate Pledge Arena from 27 to 29 October.

For everything you need to know about TI 2023, check here.

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