TI6 Main Stage Days 4&5

Unfortunately I missed a day in my blogging on TI6 😦 This is not extra long to catch up for the day either, but at least I’m covering everything!

Meta

1. Mirana

As I wrote about in my day 3 blog, Mirana has made a comeback after a slight downturn in popularity at the beginning of the main event. So far, the tournament meta has mirrored the group stage almost perfectly, and Mirana is back to being on top for both. With only 5-8 games left, and EG playing at least two of those, I think Mirana will not be dislodged from her standing at the top of the P/B charts. Therefore, lookout for a heavy nerf after TI.

2. Wings do not wings things

This is the first meta point I’ve made which is on a specific team. In at least one game per series they have played, Wings have played in a less wings style. Sure there was a Pudge+Techies game, but Wings are showing that they can also play a different less wacky style of Dota. It reminds me somewhat of fusion between the TI4 meta and the current one, in that while both are fast paced metas, this one favours scaling while TI4 favoured heavy push. Wings are fast paced, but they do not scale as heavy as other teams in this meta, nor do they push as fast as teams of TI4.

Standings

We now know our top 3! Congratulations to Wings, EG and DC for finishing on the podium. Tomorrow we will find out who takes home the Aegis. I favour Wings, but my four of my favourites have been knocked out a day after I declared them, so I will hesitate to say any team should beat any other team.

Fnatic have had a truly impressive finish with a strong lower bracket run. Mushi once again finishes fourth at TI, like he did with DK at TI4, one down from his best performance of 3rd on Orange at TI3.

MVP Pheonix and EHOME, both of whom started out their Main event with strong showings in the upper bracket have been knocked into 5-6th place.

TI6 Main Event Day 3

We have passed the ‘half-way’ point now at TI, we know who the top and bottom 8 are. The surprise so far has been Newbee’s bottom 8 finish. It was perhaps understandable given that they lost to Team Liquid, but a bottom 8 finish for such a strong team is disappointing for both them and their fans. Look out for what happens to them in the reshuffle that will come.

Fun

EHOME vs EG Game 1 (Match ID: 2562582896)

Meta

1. Elder Titan

Congratulations to Wings and MVP Pheonix for playing the second game in which ET was neither picked nor banned. In every other game today ET was either picked or banned. Also congratulations to ET for replacing Drow as my overly talked about hero.

2. Mirana

Now that Sumail has played a few games, Mirana has climbed right back up the P/B rate charts. While I do not think that EG alone brought the hero back to the very front, it puzzles me that a hero which was shown to be extremely good during the group stage faded (if so ever slightly) at the start of the main event in the first place.

Standings

Of the bottom 8 teams, Secret and Newbee will be a little surprising to some, while OG and Newbee will be to many.

Evil Geniuses has secured Top 3 guaranteed at this tournament, bringing a remarkable turnaround in form for the defending champions after a disastrous Manila Major and a series of lukewarm pre-TI tournaments.

Fnatic has salvaged the tournament. After a disastrous group stage, they were given a favourable bracket and have managed to crawl into the top 8.

TI6 Main Event Day 2

Today we saw the biggest upset of the tournament with favourites OG being knocked out by SEA Open Qualifier winners TNC. Although that was the main story of the day, all other series were meaningful to the progression of the tournament.

Fun

For the most meaningful game of today, watch the OG vs TNC G2 (Match ID: 2560377671)

Meta

1. Shadow Demon

As today progressed, Shadow Demon fell down the priority list a bit. For the first series of the day, EHOME vs Alliance, SD Mirana was the opener for EHOME in both games. By the second series, EG vs Newbee, SD was third picked in both games. For the final series, SD was, in no particular order, a second pick, a first ban, a third ban and ignored.

2. Elder Titan

Congratulations to EHOME vs Alliance Game 1 (Match ID: 2559987699) for being the first game of the main event to completely ignore ET. Both teams picking around Alliance’s second pick Drow, the ET level dependency and strong lategame were probably factors which led to ET being ignored. Don’t expect this to happen very often in the rest of the event. In all other series today, ET was first phase picked or banned.

Standings

First off, I have to say that I have been completely wrong about TNC. I predicted they would be a threat only if they made it to the upper bracket, but they have placed in the top 8 already starting from the lower bracket. I also thought that OG would easily beat them, but we can all see that I was obviously wrong there.

Secondly, I wrote that LGD and DC should be evenly matched. Unfortunately, LGD could not show the same flashes of brilliance that they did yesterday and were handily dispatched.

On a final, more general note, MVP Pheonix is the only ‘establishment’ team to be performing excellently. The some of the best performers of TI so far have been EHOME (Wildcard qualifier), EG (Open Qualifier) and TNC (Open Qualifier). At this point in time, I have to say that it looks like EHOME could pull off another CDEC this year, although I think that they might win.

TI6 Main Event Day 1

This deep into the event and TI6 remains without a clear and dominant tournament meta. Today we saw VG.R, Secret, Escape and Na`Vi take out 12-16th place while MVP Pheonix upset OG to knock them into the lower bracket.

Fun

Digital Chaos vs Wings G2 (Match ID: 2558255566)

Pudge and Techies. Out of your pub games and into The International.

Meta

 

Elder Titan sits at 100% P/B rate for the 10 games so far of the main event. ET has really moved up in priority for many teams, although mainly reflected in ban rate.

Shadow Demon and Mirana are coincidentally both at the top of the pick rate appearing in 5/10 games. Unlike the last time when the two together were so high together (post TI2), this time it is not due to support play styles in the meta but SD’s strength and Mirana’s flexibilities.

Standings

TNC > VG.R was as expected, however LGD’s triumph over Secret was less expected. While both LGD and Secret seemed out of form, Secret showed at least a glimmer of hope in the group stage Team Liquid series unlike LGD. LGD however looks to be playing better now, though the team is mostly being carried by Maybe. Picking up the slack from their last minute roster changes and making up for Agressif’s now 6 month long slump, I think they are even matched in their next game against DC.

MVP Pheonix upset OG in the upper bracket. Truth be told, OG were not performing excellently in the first few days of groups, but they still finished at the top of their group whereas MVP only just managed to scrape into the upper bracket.OG should cruise into Round 4 of the Lower Bracket, but from there they might face a fight.

TI6 Group Stage Day 3

So I’m a day late on the writeup for the shortest day of the groups, really that’s pretty terrible of me, but despite the day showing very few surprises, let’s jump off into things.

Fun

Today we saw EHOME pull out another Warlock pick (Match ID: 2551444424), though unfortunately it was not another Corelock. Like before, they did it against a much weaker team, but this time, thanks to a Huskar, they actually won.

In terms of game recommendations, I would have to say Liquid vs Secret Game 1 (Match ID: 2551542809). If you hate old c9 / EE games, then this is not the game for you. Otherwise, take this as a very entertaining match, because it is.

Meta

1. Elder Titan

ET saw a moderately small surge up the P/B charts on the final Day of groups, as did fellow support hero Oracle. Just about everyone got in on some ET action, but the team picking it up the most seemed to be MVP Pheonix. As long as carries with high natural agility and thus armor, such as Morphling, continue to be relatively popular, I think ET will stay relatively high up on the P/B charts. Even factoring out ET’s use as a situational counter pick, the hero is currently 22 wins to 11 losses out of 33 games played and that alone see teams continuing to pick him up.

2. Cheese cheese cheese

After making it through three days of matches, most teams have sampled, or at least seen the full variety of exquisite cheeses available on offer. As half of them go straight into the Bo1 knockout matches in the lower bracket, there are a couple of things that I think that many will be desperate to avoid.

Drow ‘cheeses’

Just when you thought I didn’t write about Drow Ranger… Drow ‘cheeses’ have essentially become so normalised in the meta that they no longer even function as them. Gone are the days of the 4th pick Drow which would demolish you, and in are the days where the 1st pick Drow demolishes you. Nevertheless, Drow remains extremely annoying and is 3rd in ban rate for that reason

Huskar

Huskar accounts for the majority of Secret’s wins in the TI groups. Huskar still functions somewhat as a cheese. Rarely picked up before 4th or 5th pick, and having to be set up with an AA ban, Huskar essentially needs a certain kind of lineup in order to function. However once the draft has taken place, it often feels impossible to beat a Huskar through macroscopic out-executions or microscopic outplays. Nobody wants to be sent home by a Huskar, so I think this hero will see an even higher ban rate in the Bo1s.

Final Standings

Most things went as expected (see Day 2 write up) today, with a couple of notable exceptions. The biggest one was that people seemed to notice that Liquid was severely underperforming after they lost 0-2 to both DC and to Secret. On Day 1 Liquid failed to post any 2-0 victories. On Day 2, they lost 0-2 to VG.R, a definite bottom 3 team in Group B. It was unlikely that Day 3 would be much better, but boy did it get worse. Had they won a single game, they could have gone to tiebreakers with MVP Pheonix for the final position in the upper bracket. Had they gone 4-0, they would have made it into the upper bracket regardless of MVP Pheonix’s performances. If Liquid have anything going for them, its that their experienced captain and stable roster offer them a higher than average chance of navigating the clutch lower bracket. I still think they can do well, but the odds have drastically slimmed.

In other news, Alliance avoided having to play TNC in a tiebreaker after their 2-0 victory over EG. I had hoped that TNC would make it into the Upper Bracket, but I do not hold high hopes for their prospects in the Lower Bracket.

TI6 Group Stage Day 2

I’m a bit late today on the recap of games. By the time I finish writing this, Day 3 will probably be starting in a couple of hours. Nevertheless, here we go on a recap of Day 2.

After today (Day 2), we can pretty much see the overall shape of the groups. More on that later, but first

Fun

I’m not actually sure what to write in this section anymore. All the games that I’ve personally watched have been super high quality but lack the clowny fun quality either in draft or in execution that I’m looking to mention here.

That being said, if there was anything I’d have to mention it would be Na`Vi v.s. Alliance (ID: 2548968400) for the cheese.

Meta

0. Drow Ranger

As I pretty much tweeter, I’m basically running a Drow Ranger watch at this point. Drow continued her strong performance in the Group stage, keeping in 3rd position on the P/B chart and climbing to 73% at the main event (including wildcard matches).

1. Naga Siren

I’m going to say it now, Naga Siren is my favourite hero, both to watch and to play. A blasphemous opinion for sure, but this TI group stage has been sad for me because of the number of Naga Siren bans. Naga is the 5th most picked hard carry after Drow, Jugg, Naix and Morph, and 7th if you also count Void and Slardar as hard carries. However, Naga sits as the hard carry with the second highest P/B rate of the tournament after Drow.

2. Ogre Magi

I talked about Ogre Magi after Wildcard day, when he sat happily near the top of the P/B charts. After Day 1 the Ogre(s?) fell somewhat down, but they have rebounded after Day 2. In a reversal to the point on Naga Siren, Ogre actually has the highest number of picks of any support at the event, at 35 games total. This is higher than Shadow Demo (25), ET (23), Dazzle (22) and Io (21). Although Io and Shadow Demon have higher P/B rates, it does make me happy to be see Ogre finally come back into vogue.

Standings

After a closer Day 1, with Day 2 completed, the rough standing of the Groups have more or less been determined.

After looking stronger in Day 1, Secret are pretty much guaranteed to finish up in the bottom half of Group B. Joining them there will almost certainly be Fnatic and VGR, with the final spot among the 4 low losers a toss-up but likely MVP Pheonix.

On the flipside, EHOME has secured their place in the upper bracket, being the only team in the whole tournament to do so by Day 2. I think EHOME best deserves to be compared to VG.R. Obviously VG.R’s visa troubles with Yang hurt their prospects for the tournament, but do not completely negate the validity of the comparison. VG.R and EHOME came to Seattle with relatively even pre TI performances. VG.R came in 2nd in the Chinese qualifier and so earned a direct spot while EHOME had to won on Wildcard day.

Prior to TI, both teams were Tier 1.5 teams within China. Able to compete in premier events, but consistently inferior to the LGD, Wings and Newbee. Both had solid supports, with fy and DDC on VG.R and LaNm and Fenrir on EHOME. Both also had two absolutely brilliant cores, Zyf and Yang for VG.R and old chicken and old eleven for EHOME. For both teams, the final core player left a lot to be desired. They were Nono on VG.R and iceiceice on EHOME. While EHOME have adapted to the idiosyncrasies of their carry player, putting him on comfort heroes such as Naga Siren and Timbersaw and adapting lanes and dynamic farm priority to suit, Nono has looked as lost and as helpless at this event as he did at Manila. It is likely that Yang’s unexpected absence has thrown the entire team of kilter, and having done so, they have failed to patch over the same weaknesses which were visible months ago.

Meanwhile in Group A, Escape will almost certainly finish at the bottom of the group. On the flipside, the top 3, EG, OG and Wings seem set, with everything else in flux. At this point, it seems like a coinflip whether TNC will enter the upper bracket or the lower bracket. TNC has really surprised me. At this point, I am more impressed by them than I ever have been by a Pinoy team in Dota 2. Provided they make it to the upper bracket, I think they will finish in the top half.

TI6 Group Stage Day 1

Welcome to the International! The first day of games were played today, so without further adue, let’s jump into it

Fun

I didn’t actually see any fun or innovative picks today. There were a ton of extremely fun to watch games and the like, but I don’t have any specifically to talk about right now.

Interesting

1. Drow Ranger part 2

Now that the groups proper have started, Drow Ranger has leapt back on the P/B rates chart. Now sitting at 67.3% P/B rate, it is most certainly not the case that Drow got figured out over the last week, rather that none of the teams in the wildcard played Drow much. Again reinforcing the idea that Drow is only scary when a team knows how to run it, LGD first banned Drow and Io in both their games against OG, while not using the same two bans in any of their games.

2. Mirana

The Priestess of the Moon is proving to be an extremely popular pick at TI. Core Mirana with the Aghs-Blink build kind of fell out of the meta after a couple of brutal games at Manila where it was shown that her damage was rather pitiful against the then in vogue strength core. In particular, she did almost nothing against Huskar cheeses.  Compared to then, players seem to be skipping Midas and upgrading their boots, rather than holding on till BoTs. In addition, they seem to be building utility earlier with items such as BKB, Diffusal and Ethereal Blade, rather than trying to build Dagon levels.

Standings

By and large, today’s games were rather close, with many split series. OG look less dominant than I would have expected them to be this early in the tournament. We shall see if they can bounce back to have a better rest of the group stage, but they are looking like a solid upper bracket team more than a dominant title seeker. Fnatic has had an awful start to the series. Losing 0-2 to both DC and EHOME has pretty much killed their hope of an easy run into the upper bracket. I highly doubt that they will be able to take series of Newbee, Secret or TL, and I think they will most probably split their Bo2s with VG.R and MVP. Wings too looks weaker than expected. Wings lost 0-2 to TNC and split their series against EG 1-1. Coming off their win at the Summit, looking this shaky in their first day of games does not bode well for their tournament prospects. If they can make it into the upper bracket, I still think they can do very well, but it’s far from certain that they will make it that far

TI6 Group Stage Day 0

TI6 has officially begun! All 16 teams playing at the main event have been decided after EHOME and Escape made it through the Wildcard tournament. Since it would be too mammoth an effort to cover every game of every single day, I think I will simply point out a couple of fun and interesting things about each day of games and note any trends in the meta.

Fun

Corelock by old chicken. (Match ID: 2544942608)

In the first game of the day, EHOME pulled out a Corelock strat against Execration. Drafting it along with a Sven and a Phoenix, it seems like EHOME wanted to snowball the game against a worse team and end it early into the mid game by superior teamfight. Alas it was not to be, and so this was the only Corelock, or Warlock for that matter, pick of the day.

In terms of whether we’ll see this again, I’m leaning towards no. EHOME never returned  to the strategy again during the day, so I’ll chalk this one up to a failed attempt to cheese a win out of a weaker team to avoid having to show too many strategies.

Meta

The wildcard mostly saw teams by and by stick to their comfort heroes, with no real new innovations or anything we hadn’t seen before. In my opinion, these were the most important trends.

1. Drow Ranger

Out of 12 games, Drow was picked once and banned 4 times for a P/B rate of 41.6%. This is certainly a drop from the 94.4% P/B rate she saw at Starladder. Either teams have figured something out about her in the last week that they hadn’t found in the last 2 months, or these teams don’t run Drow strats.

2. Comfort picks everywhere

It’s hard to get a read on how the meta of the tournament will play out when all these teams are reverting to their comfort picks. Today we saw iceiceice on Naga Siren, Era on Morphling and coL run SF, Ember and Tiny like they have for the past 3 months. It seems clear that these teams think that comfort is best.

3. Ogre Magi

We saw 9 pick and 1 ban of Ogre Magi. For a hero who has been ignored for as long as he has, I am glad to see him rising to near the top of P/B, if only for a day so far. I can only pray that Ogre will continue to be popular.

 

Antepenultimate standings: The Summit

BeyondtheSummit’s The Summit 5 wrapped up about a week ago, providing the second last snapshot into the standings of many teams going to TI6. Every team no doubt will be furiously scrimming and refining their strategies before arrive in Seattle, but with only a little bit of time before TI starts, let’s look how the teams stand after their performances in LA.

Tl;dr Version:

Wings: Good but inconsistent . 5-6 as the mean of 1st and 10-12th.
OG: Podium. Still likely to take 1st but not certain.
Liquid: Capable of taking 1st, but weak to OG. Podium finish likely.
DC: 7-8th on a good day. Lower half probably.
Na`Vi: 5-6th probably.
Fnatic: 3rd possible, 4th probable, below 5-6th not likely.

Wings Gaming

First up are the winners, Wings Gaming. I have to begin with a reassessment of Wings. Earlier, I wrote that Wings were unlikely to take out the top spot in Seattle and that they were more likely to prevent another Chinese team from placing well. After this performance, I now believe that Wings is inconsistent more than bad against certain teams. Prior to placing last at the Manila Major, Wings won ESL One Manila 3:0 against Team Liquid. This time, immediately before TI, Wings has taken The Summit 5 3:1 against OG. Am I claiming that Wings with therefore place last at TI6? Most certainly not, if anything they have demonstrated that they are capable of sweeping any tournament. However, despite all the fun and wacky games they play, it would be hard for me to go into TI6 supporting them, on account of their inconsistency. Therefore, I’d like to say my prediction for Wings is 5-6th as the mean of 1st and 10-12th.

OG

OG still look dominant, but no longer look invincible. Luckily, it still looks like they have Team Liquid’s number, but it is now apparent that they are, in fact beatable in series. After following up their Manila Major victory with another at ESL One Frankfurt, OG looked to be mirroring Alliance’s pre TI3 build up with tournament after tournament victory seemingly demonstrating a mastery over the patch unmatched by any other team. However their defeat to Wings I think shows that there is still no definite lock for 1st at TI6. In the end, I think they will most probably finish on the podium, but 1st is not guaranteed.

Team Liquid

Over the past year, Liquid has been nothing if not consistent, and this consistency was on full display at the Summit. Much has been made of the Liquid-OG rivalry, but if it wasn’t already clear before this tournament, OG has a decisive leg up over Liquid. As a rough guestimate, OG is about 5-1 in series over Liquid (If anyone has an actual count please let me know). This is not to say that Liquid is not a top tier team, or that they are not good enough to win. Placing 2nd at two Majors, First at another LAN (Epicenter, against OG!) and maintaining the same form for basically half a year is damn impressive. I am confident that Liquid is capable of winning in Seattle, but I have doubts about whether they are capable of winning against OG in Seattle. Overall, I think

Digital Chaos

Ahh DC. Following on from Bulba, Aui and 1437’s days of Sunsfanning their way into tournaments, the new 20% American American team is currently NA’s most internationally proven team. Overall, DC had a disappointing tournament. Being knocked out 0:2 by OG can be forgiven by itself, but also losing 0:2 to Fnatic bodes poorly for DC’s prospects at TI. Judging solely by their performance here, I think that DC will scrape 7-8th at TI if they’re lucky and more probably finish in the lower half.

Natus Vincere

Na`Vi is an odd one to call. On the surface they performed exactly as expected. They lost to Wings (the victors), beat AF as expected, won a close series with Fnatic and then were knocked out by OG. Where Na`Vi fans should take heart is in that close victory against Fnatic and the 2:1 loss to Wings. They demonstrate that Na`Vi is still competitive against the teams better than them (Wings) and that they are capable of taking clutch/close wins (Fnatic) in addition to stomps. Both of these are qualities which should allow Na`Vi to place quite well in Seattle. Personally, I’m calling 5-6th, but I would not be surprised with a podium finish.

Fnatic

Fnatic long ago established themselves as the best team in SEA, and I definitely think that a podium finish is possible, if slightly unlikely. Fans of Mushi  and Ohaiyo will no doubt hope that the Malaysians will be able to pull off a repeat TI3 Orange performance, and their 2:0 victory against DC definitely looks promising for their prospects in Seattle. Fnatic exited the tournament after two close 1:2 losses in series to Na`Vi and OG, demonstrating that they stand toe to toe with some of the big contenders. However, I still think it is unlikely that Fnatic will prevail in a Bo5 against many of the stronger teams going to Seattle, and so I think it would be unlikely for Fnatic to take home the Aegis. In all, I’m calling 4th as most probable, and I don’t think they will finist below 5-6th.

TI6 Qualifiers: Terrorblade

Following on from version 6.87, arguably the most balanced patch since Dota was ported to the Source engine, Icefrog followed up with version 6.88. Notably, very little actually changed. There was the odd love tap here and there for some the heroes who proved popular at the Manila Major, but very little in the way of hero reworks or major balance changes. Consequently, the meta of the following tournaments, most notably ESL One Frankfurt and the TI Qualifiers can better be regarded as an evolution of the 6.87 meta, with various different hero picks but fewer major changes in play style, at least compared to previous balance patches. While there have been numerous shifts and trends in terms of picks, the one I’d like to write about today is the spike in Terrorblade picks.

From the hell of hells I come.

If you’ve been watching Dota for a while, you may remember the porting of Terrorblade, its borderline broken jungling speed in pubs and subsequent (ab)use in professional games by players such as EternaLEnVy, eventually leading to its gutting and fall out of the meta.

In 6.87, Terrorblade received a small but significant buff to the hero’s starting armour, bringing it up to 10 at level 1. Again in 6.87c, Terrorblade received another round of small but significant buffs, removing Metamorphosis’ Base attack time penalty and decreasing the amount of damage taken by illusions from Conjure Image; a small backtrack on the nerf to the spell in 6.82c. Despite this, Terrorblade received little play at Manila, with 3 picks and 3 bans for a total P/B rate of 5.9%.

In 6.88, Terrorblade received yet another round of buffs, seemingly smaller and less consequential than the last. Conjure Image’s mana cost was reduced by 10 and the illusion duration increased by 2 seconds, and yet in this patch, Terrorblade has emerged at the forefront of the meta. At ESL One Frankfurt, the first major tournament of 6.88, Terrorblade leapt to a P/B rate of 46.9% (18.8% Pick, 28.1% Ban) , still well behind other P/B leaders like Io (87.5%) and Pheonix (84.4%), but far more prominent than at Manila.

This brings us to the TI6 Main qualifiers, in which Terrorblade exploded in popularity. Across all four regions, Terrorblade boasted the 3rd highest P/B rate, at 76.8% (26.3% Pick, 50.5% Ban). Compared to ESL One Frankfurt, the rate rise is mostly accounted for by the increase in Ban rate, although the Pick rate increased substantially too.

Figure 1: Terrorblade Pick/Ban incidences at ESL One Frankfurt (17-19 June 2016) and in the TI6 Main Qualifiers (25-29 June 2016).

P/B rate was consistent across all four regions, lowest (a tie) in North America and China at 75%, and highest (barely) in Southeast Asia (79%). It seems somewhat fitting that Southeast Asia, a region known for its superstar illusion carry players such as Meracle (Naga Siren) and LaKelz (Anti-Mage) also boasts the highest P/B rate for this illusion carry. Also of note is Europe’s high Pick rate and low Ban rate, for reasons explained later.

Figure 2: Terrorblade Pick/Ban by Region in the TI6 Main Qualifiers (25-29 June 2016).

Winrates however, were far from standardised across regions. Continuing our narrative about carry players from SEA, Terrorblade had the highest win rate in the Southeast Asian qualifier.By contrast, Terrorblade had the lowest win rate in Europe, which goes some way towards explaining why Europe also displayed the least concern about leaving the hero unbanned and letting it be picked away. In both Europe and China, banning Terrorblade appeared to be a losing strategy, although even if we supposed teams were equally skilled in all areas of the game, this is still not a statistically improbable result.

Figure 3: Terrorblade win rates and win rates of banning by Region in the TI6 Main Qualifiers (25-29 June 2016).

On a final note, and somewhat inexplicable to me, Terrorblade’s frequency of appearance on Dire seems far higher than perhaps one might expect. While again, it is not strictly statistically improbable for such a result to occur (likelihood >5%), it still appears somewhat odd. Terrorblade does output massive physical damage, thus one might assume that picking the hero on Dire further leverages the natural advantage around Roshan. However, the damage is heavily illusion based and thus ineffective against Roshan. Professional teams and players, of course, would have greater insight into this than I would, and I hope that this is discussed on some panel in the lead up to TI.