Bristleback + Shadow Priest : Free Farm FTW?

BB remains an imba hero to be picked but for a different reason than how it was first discovered by the Malaysian competitive scene around 6.43.

Odin’s Autosurf team was the first team to fully utilize this imbaness and developed a Sven+BB backdoor strat and won their first tourney along the way. In that version, it is definitely OK to hold the game as late as you want to and the BB will definitely owns as long as it gets farmed.

In the latest versions, there is a trend of Malaysian teams picking BB but suffered losses too resulting in BB not being banned and picked at all. However, claims by SK.Loda , widely considered one of the best player in the world that in the latest competition version, get a BB and a win is not far away. This is in sharp contrast with our present situation here in Malaysia, why?

Taking a look at some recent replays by top Western teams revealed that the key point is the shift in play style. The top teams of the West understands Icefrog’s wish to shorten the game after receiving tons of feedback from the community. Naturally, all the balances since then have incentives for teams to finish the game faster. Our favorite imba hero BB received some nerfs along the way too giving an impression of it being less useful than before.

However, a closer look at some recent bans and picks of top online teams shows that it can be played differently. Rather than allowing it to farm all game, the teams decided to use it as an early to mid game powerhouse hero. Pairing it with Shadow Priest in a lane really is a pain to go up against. BB’s spray and SP’s early heal+damage makes that lane virtually a perfect lane to farm for BB no matter the opposition. The real pain comes when SP hits level 6. Its Ankh ultimate which basically guarantees BB 0 gold penalty on every death makes BB and even unstoppable hero at the farming department. Evasive moves that will slow down farming that should be avoided by the BB will be ignored with Ankh on it.

As the game goes on, a BB with a decent farming skill should be able to have a Hood and Radiance within 30 mins of the game. With an Ankh on it, it can basically lead a push and tank all spells while the BB’s teammates will come in and clear all oppositions without any spells resulting in a skirmish win. The BB might die in this combat but the team will win the engagement and with ankh the BB really have nothing to lose but all to gain as quick revival enable him to farm the next lane and speed up the pushing process.

The current Malaysian Dota trend tends to forget about BB and sometimes almost never picks it. Why international dota does deem BB to be imba but for us Malaysian it’s just filler? I personally think BB is still a very very good hero if used correctly in a appropriate draft plan. Not to mention the lane BB is in almost never loses as it is such a good lane control hero.

To put it bluntly, drafters like Loda , Maelk and Jolie will not ban / draft with no reason. There is of course an important reason for the so called “top western teams” to keep on banning SP and BB in their matches lately. Hopefully we can see more of BB picks or bans for tourneys to come and perhaps some surprises with this draft =).

Latest news : MYM beat Xcn with this strat. Replay can be found here :
http://www.mymym.com/en/demos/16219.html

Apparently Xcn lead in kills 50-25 but still loses to an overfarmed BB. This is a must see replay to truely understand the wickedness of this strat.

Underminer