The 7.20 Drow cheese strat: what we can learn from OG's win against NiP

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In game 2 of the Bucharest Minor Qualifier series, OG employed a very simple but also extremely creative and efficient strategy that allowed them to secure an effortless 22 minute victory against PPD’s Ninjas in Pyjamas:

They farmed Ancients with Drow.

To get everyone up to speed, let’s quickly review the changes that Drow received for 7.20:

Precision Aura no longer provides bonus damage based on your AGI. Instead, it provides attack speed based on 20/40/60/80% of your AGI. This is a big nerf for Drow in the laning stage: she can no longer passively win the lanes of her ranged allies. Bonus damage is vital for last-hitting, while attack speed is not. Nonetheless, the DPS increase of the aura is still VERY significant, which means that Drow is still an amazing hero for 5-man push strategies – something that OG abused in this game.

Marksmanship no longer provides AGI, but it has a 20/30/40% chance to instantly kill creeps (including Ancients), as well as to ignore the armor and deal 120 bonus damage to enemy heroes.

The simple fact that Marksmanship works on Ancients gives Drow arguably the best farming tool on lvl6 out of all Dota heroes. She has a 20% chance to instantly kill even a 2k HP Ancient Black Dragon. In order to use the full potential of this mechanic, OG made sure to stack the two Ancient Camps as much as possible.

By the end of the game, Topson had farmed 147 neutral creeps, 60 of which Ancients, which resulted in 742 GPM and 770 XPM. For comparison, Pajkatt on Luna (2^nd highest jungle farmer) had farmed 83 neutrals, 14 of which Ancients. Ace on Jugg (3^rd highest) had farmed 48 neutrals, 8 Ancients.

From being the 5^th hero on the net worth graph before lvl6, Topson’s farm skyrocketed and he quickly accumulated a huge resource lead for his team.

Item Build:

In order to maximize his farming speed, Topson also made an interesting item build choice: After buying a couple of Wraith Bands and Treads to secure his early-game, he invested in Blink Dagger right away.

Dagger isn’t a new concept on high-range carries like Sniper or Drow - with such heroes you need perfect positioning to prevent your enemies from reaching you and to maximize your impact in fights in this way. In 7.20, however, Blink Dagger is also Drow Ranger’s best farming item.

She is a slow hero. In order to maximize her farming speed, she needs only two things – mobility and attack speed (the damage she deals doesn’t matter, she is farming primarily with the insta-kill proc). Topson already has decent attack speed from the stats of the Wraith Bands and Treads, so in order to solve his mobility problem, he gets Dagger right away.

Lineup:

OG’s whole lineup was built to make use of Drow’s item lead and to transition into a very potent 5-man push. Luna and NP fully benefit from the Precision Aura, which increases the team’s DPS output significantly. Luna also provides her own new attribute bonus aura, making OG’s 5-man death-ball even stronger. Finally, the support Brewmaster provides team-fight control, and Oracle - a defensive mechanism to save the core who the enemy team decides to focus.

Two convincing team-fight wins on the 15^th (around the Rosh pit) and 18^th minute decided the outcome of the game.

Implications for the meta:

It seems like the jungle high grounds and the camps on them (especially the Ancients) are becoming more and more relevant to the metagame. Heroes who can farm the jungle efficiently like Magnus (Empower), Medusa, Battlefury carries like AM & Jugg, and now Drow are starting to become more and more relevant. Jungle camps give a bit more gold this patch, but more importantly – the high-grounds are a safer space to farm compared to the previous jungle layout. (we talk a bit about this in our Medusa vs PA articles).

Because of this, aggressive lineups who can pressure and take control of these areas are equally valuable because they can counter this playstyle. PA with her new personal Smoke to enter the high ground safely and high kill potential to kill the enemy farmer is a perfect example (and a great counter to Drow, sadly banned in this game).

A pub-stomp strategy for parties:

The simplicity of this Drow strategy is a bit worrying. You just need to stack and farm Ancients and you will likely out-farm the enemy team. This will be much easier to do with friends (one of you can play a support and stack the Ancients from early on, others can play ranged 5-man heroes). Nonetheless, if you communicate with your allies it’s doable in solo queue as well.

It certainly seems like mid Drow is a very relevant hero for climbing MMR right now. With this in mind, if you are playing against Drow you need to make sure to take control of her Ancient camps from as early as possible. Drow without items is a very gankable hero.

All of this being said, if this strat becomes too successful, it’s certainly likely that IceFrog will prevent Marksmanship from instantly killing Ancients in the next patch.

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