The Chongqing Major regional qualifiers are approaching their conclusion. Because of this, we believe it’s the right moment to try to gain a good understanding of the newly developing 7.20 competitive meta – the successful strats will, after all, find their ways in our pubs.

The heroes who are highly contested and have a very high win rate despite the number of games they are played in. The heroes closest to being broken:

Phantom Assassin was already suspected to be a better hero than before after the patch because of the buffs she received, but she was overshadowed by the hype of some other carries like Luna and Slark. Luna, however, received a couple of quick nerfs that reduced her win rate. Slark is doing fine both in pubs and pro games, but he still has one fundamental weakness – his laning stage.

Ability Changes: PA doesn’t have this problem. She is a reliable laner and the new patch made it easier for her to snowball out of the lane. Her rotations are harder to spot thanks to the new Blur active, giving her a higher chance of success. Even if rotating is not an option, she is a bit more efficient at farming. Phantom Strike gives an AS increase even if you switch targets (useful when killing creeps faster) and the Blur active could be used to farm Ancients even early in the game.

Armor Changes: PA is one of the highest physical damage dealers in the game AND she loves to go for Desolator. In the new patch, low armor values (i.e. armor reduction) are a bit more impactful, which means that the armor formula change buffed her damage output with this build.

Item Builds: PA works great with the multiple Wraith Bands item build philosophy. The cost-efficient stats and damage help her to constantly keep fighting and getting ahead - she doesn’t rely on cooldowns to fight. The change to Treads and Phase Boots also benefit her – now she gets the bonus damage AND the stats from one pair of boots and doesn’t have to make a choice. 

Pubs: In pubs, she has a 54% win rate (7th highest), which is impressive for a hero who is getting picked in close to 40% of all pubs. You’ll encounter PA in almost half of your games. It’s a great idea to learn to play a hero that counters her (e.g. Axe) and a hero that boosts her potential (e.g. Magnus) to increase your chances to win.

Brewmaster: the new Drunken Brawler is an interesting ability especially in the way it alternates between an MS boost and slow. Nonetheless, the 80% crit chance is insane. With the help of the new Phase Boots and Clap, it’s easy for Brew to stick to an enemy support and the 5-sec duration is usually enough to secure a kill, making Brew an insanely strong laner.

In Pubs: the micro-intensive nature of the hero, however, discourage most pub players from playing him. As a result, he is picked in only 4% of games. That being said, if micro doesn’t scare you, this is probably your best chance to stomp pubs with Brew. He is harder to counter than PA, and with the Radiance build, he becomes a very self-sufficient hero that could easily win games.

Magnus didn’t receive any game breaking buffs himself, but he synergizes amazingly with some of the stronger cores in the current meta. The most obvious example is Magnus + PA (10 games, 9 wins, 90% WR). He literally makes the current strongest carry in the game even stronger.

He has synergy with other relevant heroes as well: he’s great with Void (58% WR), Slark (60% WR) & Spect (64% WR), all of which lack in the flash-farming department (just like PA) and can make great use of Empower.

In pubs: you are extremely likely to have PA, Slark, Jugg or Void in your team. Mag is without a doubt a difficult hero to master, but the current meta is a perfect opportunity to make the most out of the hero.

Not very contested heroes, but with very high win rates. Could show unrealized potential that you can abuse in pubs if you figure out the reason why they are doing well:

Puck was one of the heroes with the lowest win rates prior to the patch. In fact, he is still the hero with the 2nd lowest win rate in pubs (40.84% WR). Yet, he has close to 80% win rate in the matches he’s been picked in the major qualifiers.

To put this in perspective, the only hero with lower win rate in pubs is Io. Nonetheless, it’s a well-established fact that Io is one of the most valuable competitive picks – he has a very high skill ceiling that the majority of pub players can’t utilize. With this in mind, if you are a very good Io player you can certainly make use of him in pubs (especially if you play with friends). The same could be true for 7.20 Puck – with the new Leash mechanic, his ultimate becomes a strong counter to mobile heroes and TPing out of a Puck gank is no longer an option.

Pugna’s very high win rate is a big surprise in light of the fact that most other hardcore 5-man push heroes in the game are doing very badly in these qualifiers (Undying 32%, Luna 35%, Razor 28%, etc.) or aren’t getting picked at all. Pugna usually thrives in 5-man pushing metas, and so far the major qualifiers don’t seem to be going in this direction. So, the question remains what makes Pugna successful? It’s worth noting that Decrepify is a good counter to single-target carries (like PA), but this is unlikely to be a major reason for the win rate.

Spectre and Slark’s success in this tournament in combination with the fact that many lane-dominators are struggling (Undying 32%, Sky 35%, Lina 29%, Tiny 30%, Razor 28%) leads us to believe that there is much less emphasis on winning the lane compared to the previous patch. Because of this games tend to go late, and heroes that rely on winning the lane but don’t have sufficient late-game potential have trouble securing games. This is the perfect environment for Spectre to thrive because the laning stage is his biggest weakness, while the late game stage - his biggest strength.

Disclaimer: a big reason for Spectre's high win rate might be that VP are picking her often.

Below you’ll find highly contested heroes who haven’t shown convincing results and might fall-off in the near future:

Thanks for reading! I hope the article was useful. If you're interested in more content like this, check our other analytical articles about 7.20 and the esports scene in our blog.