The International 2018 champion is making his presence felt
Topson Image via moonducktv | Arc Warden Image via Valve
Before the 2018-2019 Dota Pro Circuit started, OG, the champions of The International 2018, announced that they will be taking a long vacation. They purposely had to miss the first wave of Minor and Major tournaments to avoid burnout and spend some time on other things they love that is not Dota. Their decision was understandable. Especially since the schedule between the roster lock and the start of the open qualifiers for the DreamLeague Season 10 was significantly shorter compared to the past seasons.
The first Minor tournament of the season had passed, and we’re more than halfway through the first Major. OG really did avoid the tournaments, but apparently, they do not need to join a tournament to have their presence felt and prove how influential they are to the current landscape of competitive Dota 2.
After winning their best-of-three series against Forward Gaming, Evil Geniuses’ Arteezy was interviewed by the panel regarding his Arc Warden performance that crowned him as the series’ most valuable player. BSJ commended the Canadian carry’s itemization on the hero, but pieliedie was dubious if the credit should really go to Arteezy.
“I would say I stole it from Topson, but then I reinvented it because I think he stopped doing it, or at least I stopped watching his pubs,” Arteezy answered, rather light-heartedly, after being asked by Sheever if he invented the Arc Warden build that has a level one Necronomicon for a core item.
Arteezy broke the professional gold per minute record of PSG.LGD’s Ame on Arc Warden after that series. He closed the 47-minute do-or-die game against their co-North American squad with a 997 GPM, on top of a 10/4/17 KDA record and 622 last hits. He also notched the fifth highest XPM as Arc Warden at 763.
On patch 7.19, Arteezy has never lost a match as Arc Warden in five games—a flawless 100% win rate, the highest compared to other professional Dota 2 players with more than five games as the hero. Ultimately, Arteezy was the first player at The Kuala Lumpur Major to prove the viability of Arc Warden in the current meta.
So how did exactly Topson saved The Kuala Lumpur Major?
Laying out a huge patch after every Dota 2 world championship has already become a tradition. It practically marks a new year for competitive Dota, aside of course, from the drama-filled roster shuffle. This time, however, no huge patch was revealed. What we got instead was a series of nerfs and rebalance patches for The International 2018 heroes.
Only a few survived the purging. From patches 7.19b to 7.19d, Drow Ranger, Clinkz, Spectre, and Phantom Lancer were all nerfed to oblivion. As a result, teams at The Kuala Lumpur Major were forced to play with a very limited pool of hard carries—Terrorblade and Morphling to be exact.
If not for Topson’s patented Arc Warden build, I don’t think we’ll be enjoying the first Major tournament of the 2018-2019 Dota Pro Circuit as much. Sure, the pros get bored sometimes and try out some meta-shaping strategies, but most of the time, what we’ll just see is the swarm of Terrorblade’s illusions taking down all the towers. It just feels nice to see a fresh approach to the Necronomicon, which is now a better tool for farming and pushing than the Helm of Dominator.
“Arc Warden is perfect because you can do everything twice; double Force Staff, of course, you have double Midas too. It’s just a really fun hero,” Arteezy stated. There’s zero risks in playing Arc Warden—a perfect hero for players who, just like Arteezy, are hungry for blood. Like he said, just charge in with your clone, break a smoke, and gather intel. It’s enjoyable to have him on the game, but sucks to be against him.
I enjoy watching Arc Warden as much as Arteezy enjoys playing the hero. The hero sure is broken, but can you really blame us? After being stuck on 7.19 for an awfully long time now, doesn’t it just feel good to have an imbalanced hero adding life to competitive Dota 2?
