Dota Pro Circuit Winter Tour meta recap: Western Europe

The 2021-2022 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season's Winter Tour is now over. Across two divisions in six regions and with 96 teams competing in total, competition in the circuit's regional leagues has thus far been intense.

With the leagues now over and everyone looking ahead to the Regional Finals, let’s take a look into the metagames of each region and see which heroes were the most picked, the most feared, and the most overrated.

For the second installment of this series, we're turning our attention towards Western Europe, where trailblazers like Team Liquid, Team Secret, OG, and Tundra Esports compete. You can also check out our other recap for Southeast Asia.

Note: All the data featured focuses on Division I games only. Also, some spoilers for the latest season of DOTA: Dragon's Blood.

Bane holds several records in the region

Western Europe has always been one of the strongest regions in the last few years, with the region even enjoying a streak of three-straight The International (TI) championships from TI7 to TI9. One of the reasons behind Western Europe's dominance is their mastery of highly impactful position 5 supports.

Enter Bane, arguably the strongest disabler in Dota 2. We’ve talked about how good this hero is at grinding MMR and he is equally good at grinding for DPC points. In the Winter Tour, Bane was picked 37 times with an incredible 73% win rate.

Queen of Pain and Snapfire are tied for second most picked heroes in the region, with both heroes coincidentally being picked in 27 games and winning 15 apiece. Queen of Pain has been growing in popularity in the tail end of this patch and emerged as one of the best mids in the game while Snapfire remains one of the most versatile picks out there.

Spirit Breaker and Weaver are the fourth and fifth-most picked heroes in the Division I of the Western European regional league. Both heroes significantly underperformed in their appearances, winning only eight games each. With both of these heroes thriving in chaotic situations, they're a bit of a mismatch to Western Europe's more measured style of Dota 2.

Io continues to be the most banned hero in the region

Io remains the most banned hero across all iterations of TI and that trend continues in Western Europe, where the hero was banned 49 times.

Io’s ability to sustain his carry, provide a global presence for his team, and the occasional foray into being played as a core all make him a headache to play against. Not only that, some of the best Io players in the world compete in Western Europe, making it a must-ban in most games.

But while Io is the most banned hero in the region, its few appearances haven’t inspired much confidence. The hero was played in 17 games and only managed to win five of them.

One reason for such a lackluster showing for Io is that teams are more willing to let it go unbanned against teams that aren't good with the hero, who are practically forced to picked Io to deny the other team despite not playing well with it.

The second most banned hero in the region, Beastmaster with 47 bans, had an equally poor performance and only won four out of his 12 games. Slightly better than Io but not by much.

Weaver comes in third place among the most banned heroes with 34 bans, a noticeable drop-off from second place. Invoker is only one game behind Weaver, with 33 bans.

The fifth most banned and the most successful hero in the group is Razor, who can completely shut down a melee hero’s laning stage. The new item build with Refresher Orb allows him to scale well into the late game, removing Razor’s long-time weakness. Razor was banned 32 times and won 13 out of his 20 games played.

Like in the anime, Mirana is the strongest hero in Western Europe

The most successful hero with at least five appearances in Western Europe is Mirana, who won all five games she played in. She was notably picked four times by Team Liquid, the best performing team in the region.

Outworld Devourer is the most successful hero with at least 10 appearances, winning nine out of his 10 games. The hero has long been seen as an absolute menace in pub games and that trend seems to continue in professional matches as well.

Bane would probably be the best hero to pick if you want to win in Western Europe. The hero is both the most picked as well as the region's most successful hero with at least 20 games played, winning 27 out of his 37 appearances.

The anime buff hasn’t worked for Luna so far

When it comes to overrated heroes, Hoodwink has performed the worst in the region. The hero has solid burst damage and control but requires a lot of setup from either trees or allies to hold down enemies. The hero’s Break ability also isn’t as highly valued as before with Silver Edge being such a strong item right now.

Hoodwink was played seven times and only won one of those games. Luna performed slightly better than Hoodwink, winning three out of 14 matches. Luna is still the worst-performing hero with at least 10 games played, however.

Perhaps abandoning Selemene like she did in the latest season of the anime wasn’t such a good idea in the end.

For heroes with at least 20 games played, Spirit Breaker is the most overrated of the group. In the 24 games the hero appeared in, he has only won eight of them. Spirit Breaker is a popular hero right now but he has a below 50% win rate in five regions. Only China manages to make the hero work with a 63% win rate.

Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.

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