Banning in All Pick: A Higher Standard Of Ranked Play
The decline of Spectre’s pick rate since patch 6.87
Every LAN tournament seems to bring with it its own meta, as professional teams clash and push each other to the highest levels of Dota. In pubs, however, the meta often lags behind, without the benefit of coordinated play and strategy. Pub players trend after professional players, adopting the newest, successful strategies, like fast fashion outlets.
The natural conclusion of the pub meta is that it tends to get stale, reaching the expiration date of the patch before the professional scene does. The grind for ranked MMR leans towards stable, tried and true builds, and not towards creativity and invention that we see throughout LAN tournaments. We see OD, Invoker (55.04% pick rate in the 5K bracket), and Spectre in our ranked games because not only have they’ve proven themselves to be strong heroes, there’s also no incentive to pick anything else. Hero spamming for +25 MMR at a time is also a tried and true strategy for climbing ranked ladder.
The consequence is a stale meta at the highest MMR bracket due to capitalizing on the few, strongest heroes, imbalanced or not. With patch 6.87, in response to longtime requests from the community, Valve has introduced a new ban phase in All Pick mode in ranked matchmaking. In short, before the pick phase, every player has 15 seconds to vote on a hero to get banned. A hero can only be voted on once, and at the end of the ban phase, half of the voted heroes are banned for the game. This process isn’t close to Captain’s Mode, but it’s close enough to offer a mechanic for the community to balance itself. At most, five heroes will be banned before any picking, close to the four heroes banned in the first phase of Captain’s Mode.
The ban phase sets a higher standard for the most played mode in ranked matchmaking. When Valve temporarily removed All Pick, the community welcomed the respite from game after game of the same, meta heroes. Captains Mode and Random Draft added a new, competitive layer to the game by funneling players to pick heroes that out of their comfort zones and out of the meta. The ban phase in All Pick is a tone simpler than the strategizing in the pick/ban phases of CM. It pushes players to think a little outside of the box, outside the usual, cookie cutter heroes of the meta.
This is a different standard now for what it means to be a high, ranked MMR player, who are often boxed in with the pejoratives of hero spammer or abuser. The ban phase rewards players who are a tad more flexible, perhaps not just by picking the next, strong hero down the line, but picking the one that works best in the new, limited pool of heroes. Versatility becomes more valuable than specialization. For the very highest of brackets, the ban phase now also handicaps popular players, streamers, and professionals, who may be infamous for their proficiency with certain heroes. Much like how captains may target bans specifically for an opposing player, the democratic ban may have the same effect on a popular streamer.
The ban phase in All Pick is just a nudge to try something new. Since Dota is so complex, having a meta is a useful mental shortcut to figuring out what is good and what is bad. It’s an easier path to have some certainty you can rely on when picking a hero, but an unfortunate consequence here is complacency. Climbing MMR can be more of a grind than it is enjoyable, and the comfort of picking the same heroes makes the experience more palatable. Again, only half the heroes voted will get banned, so strong heroes will still be seen even if they’re consistently banned—just not as frequent as before.
What might happen instead is that the ranked community will be pushed into finding alternatives to established heroes or uncovering new strategies with underrated ones. New strategies and picks can bubble up through pubs and extend to the professional scene. The recent tournaments in the waning days of 6.86—ESL One Manila, Starladder i-League Invitational, Dotapit—showed that the patch still had room for creativity, even as the community clamored for the next patch. Now, across thousands of pub, ranked games, the ban phase can be that spark that invigorates the meta over and over, extending the shelf life of the next patch.
a number
New bug with winter wyvern use first skill with aganim. Agan sells and first ability will remain)
first yeah
no more slark for bsj
banned slark 8 games a row........Oh sweet, sweet MMR. It's a good day to be a support. Screw that hero.
Slark when picked by a hero spammer will give you such a tough time :(
Hehe. People think spec got nerfed = no bans. She's so fucking stronk now. I have an approximately 80% winrate as her in 6.87. Thank you Volvo. Bless the high lord icefrog.
looks like a 60 to me ;)
80% in 2k bracket 4Head
I haven't played ranked in a looong time and I also stopped playing dota altogether a few weeks ago.
After I started climbing MMR, I always played with 0.96-0.98 versatility. You can give me almost any hero and I will perfrom well on my rank. But "good" was never good enough for ranked. Hero spammers tend to stomp the games. People are afraid to think outside of the box and they just roll with the standard builds and lanes. Ranked games are just SO boring. It's like playing the same 5-10 matches over and over.
This ban phase thing might get me back into playing ranked after 3 months of not clicking that Ranked button.
yeah me to
DB admins, pls add Ban ratio to hero stats
@God bless Tiesto This man got some point! Give him a beer!
Nice intro. Well written
In my 2k games I'm lucky if 4 Heros get nominated for ban. Is it 10 or 15 seconds to ban? Anyway it's not long enough for these noobs to realize what is even going on. The feature would be great if it gets more than just an invoker ban out of the ban phase.
@NAG_CHAM'pa Thats because its taking the peruvians potato PC to connect to their next screen. Go Caps by the way
Yeah as someone in the trench I've never seen more than 4 heroes nominated to get banned in a game unfortunately.
Unfortunately, a lot of people who are dumb enough to only learn on hero are also dumb enough to ban heroes that the other team doesn't use. The ban phase is great. You look at the other team's profiles prior to the game starting, and if there is a spammer you ban. Unfortunately, some idiot on your team will vote legion commander, no matter what, and your ban won't go through.
Why Valve doesn't get me the right to flame, blame and curse everyone that does stupid things on game and keep moving me to low priority? Doesn't I get the right to point stupidness when I see it? Why is Valve censoring us, and impeding us to have a voice to speak? For all the good players in the world: #Banshittyplayers Please let's us erase this game from stupidity. #anewcampaign #dotaforsmartpeopleonly #nobabyboysplayingdota2 Is this game 18 plus? It should! Or maybe 21 plus! And IQ test to be assigned to play, as soon as possible. Thank you.
15 seconds is too short. 30 seconds is just nice
ска ужас играю чисто на некре и его банят через игру, что за бред я играю на алпике ( алпик это выбор того кем умеешь) я умею некром и не могу его что за жо па, убрать этот бан , тупая жаба и гейб портят мод ап. алл пик ( свободный выбор с банами он не свободный
horror play purely on nekro and his ban from the game, what kind of nonsense I play Allpick ( Allpick- is the choice of whom you know) I know necro and can't get it that- a s s, to remove this ban , you stupid toad and Gabe spoil the mod up. all pick ( free choice with bans it is not free)
Terrible change, revert it.
This is great - you can make tactical bans if you're hero spamming a hero that isn't a meta hero (e.g. ban AA when planning on a necro pick), or you can just ban whatever meta hero you find most obnoxious.
I'd love a ban rate on heros as well from Dotabuff if that's at all possible - I imagine a number of heros pick % is being influenced by this.
Good change!
that bastard Oorslavich
he lied
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/94347300
such a trash word from 2k player
plus its normal skill too
wtf ur mmr didnt even reach 3500 mmr dude , its normal bracket
didnt read
ADD Bloodseeker to captains mode VOLVO !!!
Oorslavich
dont shame yourself please :)
ty badman you stupid spammer
this system sucks, it needs a few changes
this change sucks alot ,why the fuck there is no sd or ar mode for ranked matches when we got this new banning system for allpick ranked ? this is so suck ,its very good u can ban invoker ,fuk that hero.but why now all can ban slark ,no more ez rampages ???,come on ,also this new items winter lence or what ever ,240 cost item give u bonus movent speed and that other mini item what goes to deso ,give u armor break down,anyway this game is going on wrong side,this is now too much support powered!!!also when they took dmg off from abyssal blade and added there vanguard what is most shitty item on game ,they trying to get off all carry power on this game ,hello admins ,make carrys stronk! fuck all supps ty u .
if this is something really good change .why we dont have ar and sd ranked matches ?
if u fear heros to ban them
why arent y ready to go pro and make sd and ar ranked ?