The story of how I warped the Dota Underlords meta

[Corncob TV]

Good evening, folks, tonight I have a story to share with you; the tale of how I changed the way Dota Underlords is played. Am I misremembering things and giving myself WAY too much credit? Probably, but here's the story as I remember it anyways.

I started playing DU when it first came out because a streamer I liked played it and I've always been pretty into strategy games. I got VERY into it, watched all kinds of DU streamers and YT tutorials, played several hours a day, but was never quite good enough to reach Lord. Think I peaked at Big Boss II. Don't get me wrong, I tried REALLY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard to get to Lord, I just wasn't good enough. I stopped playing shortly after duo's was first introduced to the game. When I left the meta was to power level to 10 and then get your units, which I didn't much enjoy.

A while back, don't even remember how many months now, I decided to give it a go again. I hadn't played in forever, so I was low ranked when I first came back. Which was good, because I had no idea what people were doing these days and didn't really care enough to look it up. I just hopped in and started power leveling like was standard when I left, but it wasn't standard anymore, it was the exact opposite. Now everyone stayed low level and 3 starred their 1 (maybe a 2) cost units. This seemed even less fun to me than power leveling did. My first couple games back I would do good for a while, and then start losing around when I got to level 8, as this is when other players would start to hit their 3 stars.

'Well alright, then' I thought, 'if I start losing at 8, I'll just stay at 7 and start 3 starring my 3 cost units, that'll beat their 1 cost 3 stars'. So I got stoned, sat down, and started looking at units. 4 healers seemed like it would be funny to win with, so I made the lineup of Dazzle, Enchantress, Venomancer, Queen of Pain, Omniknight, Slark, Treant Protector. The idea was simple enough, I just play through the early game with whatever strong units I can find and collect what I actually want along the way while power leveling, then when I got to 7 I would make sure all my 1 and 2 cost units were 2 starred and my 3 cost were 3 starred, then I would start to level again. I immediately began winning games with this strategy and started climbing up out of the depths of the bottom ranks. After every play session I would get super stoned and write up new combinations of 7 units I could try out next time. Only 1 other strategy I came up with ended up having any success, which quickly became my favorite after I made it.

If you've played against me you already know what it is because I still spam it. Dazzle, Venomancer, Meepo, Spirit Breaker, Alchemist, Lycan, Shadow Shaman. While I climbed the ranks I would switch back and forth between these 2 strategies and play whichever one I found units for first. Then around when I got to Boss, the heals strat stopped working. This is when the spam started, and I kept climbing. I started playing in Lord lobbies and, for the most part, was still just dominating everyone. There would be games when people would hit their 3 stars really quick and I would just lose too quick to 3 star anything, but this only happened once every 3 or 4 games. Then I finally hit Lord, and the wins kept coming.

Then one day I had a particularly lucky game. I don't remember exactly what happened, just that I had a bunch of 1 cost units 2 starred (that had nothing to do with my intended strategy), and had found all my units when I hit level 7 on round 12. So as soon as I hit level 7 I sold the 'off strategy' units I had 2 starred and threw in the full squad. The next round I played someone I hadn't played since I was level 4 and I had none of the same units left since then. As soon as the player saw my board, they used the "huh" sound in game.

Within a week of that match I started seeing people power level to 10 again, and having success. I got scared that I had shifted the meta back to the one that had caused me to leave the game. But it never happened. I started to see a balanced meta. Some people staying low level and 3 starring their cheap units, some people power leveling to 7 and 3 starring 3 cost units, some people power leveling to 10, and all of them finding success. I don't win all my games anymore, but I win enough to keep coming back.

I like it here now.

[私は弱者を破壊する]

...

[Lollipop]

The meta is only balanced because the shop is shared between every players. A detail that you haven't mentionned in your entire story is that there is a limited amount of each hero so if someone else is going for the same as you are, you are less likely to find them.

If you realise someone is copying you and it's too late to change your lineup choices, then it's better to level up.

So some games you'd rather stay low level to get stars and some others it's better to level up than to waste gold on stubborn spins.

Anyway, cool story. Maybe you were stoned when you wrote it though lol

[BIG D' williamson from mBHS]

You kind of stumbled into the last strong meta when the game was still receiving support. Which is Brute/Poisoner as a base then you sprinkle in other units. There are multiple variations of this and you've discovered a few of them, though they are sub-optimal variants.

Old comps are kind of like forbidden knowledge at this point. They disappear and then come back around. I always find it funny because the game hasn't been touched in about 4 years so people keep rediscovering things that were solved 4 years ago as players return, come, go, etc.