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Maruchan Ramen analyzes the recent dominance of Virtus.Pro DotA and breaks down their playstyle.

Virtus.Pro has been on a run of dominance unlike any other team in the history of Competitive DotA. They have won three consecutive Meet Your Makers tournaments, which are considered the biggest tournaments in DotA today. There will always be a debate about who the best player is—even though vigoss has been making a convincing case lately, but the debate over the best team ever is all but over.

But how, exactly, has Virtus.Pro been so successful?

There are some obvious reasons: their collection of talent is unmatched by any team. Each player has a perfect idea of his role in the team: Jolie is the strategist, Admiration and vigoss the omniscient hero killers, ARS-ART the assassin, NS and Sahka the perfect supporting complementary pieces.

But beyond just skill, Virtus.Pro has developed a very recognizable playstyle with distinct characteristics—a winning formula, if you will.

The usual league match can be broken into three different phases: the early game phase (which involves bans/picks and the initial laning), farm/gank phase (where teams move around to kill as many opposing heroes as possible while gaining gold to set up their own late game), and the end game phase. Virtus.Pro approaches each of these phases in a unique and effective way.


[center]The early game phase[/center]




A common misconception is that lineups and picks are the most important part of strategy. Certainly they do matter, but for most teams—and VP especially—the general playstyle and dictating the flow of the game is more important than the exact heroes.

This is not to say, of course, that Virtus.Pro can pick any heroes it wants or win even while getting badly outpicked. Rather, they have a reliable picking strategy: they choose heroes that play to their strengths and enhance the effectiveness of their playstyle. For example, it’s been previously observed that VP often picks heroes (Twin Headed Dragon, Pudge, Priestess) that have nontargeted disables that can keep a hero still for a long period of time.

From then on, VP nearly always wins the laning phase. This occurs partly because their players are so supremely talented, but because they have a strong commitment to lanes with high killing power (Sven/Lina, Pudge/THD, Sven/SK, etc) and ward the runes much earlier than most teams to maintain rune control. Another strength of Virtus.Pro is their arrangement of lanes: they often put a dual lane or Shadow Fiend, strong ganking heroes, in middle lane to permit easy access to either side of the map—giving their main gank heroes the opportunity for early ganks.


[center]The farm/gank and lategame phases[/center]


Midgame is the phase where Virtus.Pro truly shines. The key is simple: map control. VP consistently gains a level and farming advantage over the opposing team with map control.

Everyone has a vague idea of what map control is; yet, few can define it precisely. A critical component of map control, however, is the actual space on the minimap that one team “controls.” Virtus.Pro consistently establishes early ownership of two-thirds to three-fourths of the map (kind of like Risk, but in DotA) using the outer towers. Ever since MYM Pride 6, VP always, always defends their outer towers as much as possible any time they are under attack and takes down the opposing team’s outer towers early.

But what does this do? Wouldn’t destroying the outer towers make it easier for the other team to farm?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. When VP takes all the outer towers of a team while keeping their own, they create a “pushed” situation—a situation in which the creeps, and thus the vision, are always stacked towards one side of the map.

This has a dual effect: it establishes VP as the aggressor and allows them more angles from which to gank. While it may seem like being pushed back makes it easier for a team to farm and come back, a look at the minimap will quickly confirm: the space between the first two towers has a limited number of angles from which to gank, but the space between the base tower and the first tower is gankable from many more angles. Because VP’s playstyle relies on frequent and aggressive ganks, this situation is perfect for them. In DotA, the aggressor is at an advantage the majority of the time because they have the advantage of surprise and the first attack.

Furthermore, once VP forces this pushed situation upon the other team, they have a multitude of benefits: they have essentially free access to ward the entire map, can take the runes whenever possible, do Roshan at any convenient time, and—perhaps most importantly of all—farm the neuts of both sides. Part of the reason why Virtus.Pro always is able to have multiple heroes farm very well through midgame is their map control; it allows them access to both neuts.

The late game is more an extension through the midgame than anything else: because Virtus.Pro controls the map all through midgame, the other team’s heroes are generally underfarmed and underleveled from all of VP’s ganks and VP’s heroes are farmed from having access to more farming locations.



[center]Conclusion: How do you counter the strategy?[/center]



There are two main ways to counter Virtus.Pro’s map control strategy: offensively and defensively.

The offensive method is to destroy VP’s outer towers early in the game and become the aggressor, outganking and outfarming VP through midgame—essentially using VP’s own strategy against them. However, this approach is usually unviable because it depends on having an early game advantage, something very, very few teams are able to achieve against VP.

The alternative is to exploit an inherent weakness in VP’s strategy. Although the pushed situation allows Virtus.Pro to gank more effectively, it also in a way puts them at a disadvantage because they’re forced to gank and farm aggressively. When Virtus.Pro forces a skirmish (which they do with unusual frequency), having additional reinforcements come to the point of conflict can turn the skirmish, usually through TP scrolls. However, even better are heroes that can help in a skirmish instantly: namely the Spectre/Zeus combination that rB and MYM defeated VP with. The teams that have had the greatest success against VP have successfully defended against skirmishes whether using TP scrolls or global attacks.

VP, however, has adapted to these counters—first by banning Zeus in every game and also by scaling back on their aggressive ganks slightly and emphasizing the farming aspect of their map control more after their loss to MYM.

Perhaps, then, a true counter to their playstyle has yet to be found. In any case, the performance of Virtus.Pro-and other teams attempting to defeat the juggernaut-in MYM Pride 8 will be compelling to watch indeed.