Top hero picks and bans from Tour 2 DPC

The 2nd season of Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) for 2021-2022 has concluded. The Spring Tour (Tour 2) DPC was the first official DPC that saw Patch 7.31 come to life. Despite a ton of hype prior to the patch drop, 7.31 did not bring a lot of flashy changes. However, there were a couple of fundamental shifts in the game. Jungle creeps are stronger, Shards are better, and... heroes stay almost completely the same. But these core changes saw some heroes win over others. Let’s take a look at the most popular picks and bans throughout the Tour 2 DPC.

Note that these stats are from all of the Tour 2 DPC matches from the following regions:

Stats by Spectral Stats.

If you've watched even a couple of DPC matches, it is almost guaranteed that you've seen either one of these heroes contested. Scrap that. You've probably seen all three of them!

The whole of Tour 2 saw 681 matches played and Death Prophet was contested in 642 games! This hero is incredibly strong and one of its most annoying abilities is the Spirit Siphon which allows the hero to be insanely tanky. With Aghanim's Shard, this ability deals a powerful 'fear' effect. This hero is also flexible and is suitable for multiple roles. So the Death Prophet standing tall at #1 isn't quite surprising.

Medusa and Tiny are the two carry heroes that are constantly spammed across regions. Both these heroes have a great farming mechanic and they also received ample buff from the patch update.

As seen in the popular segment, those heroes had way more bans than picks; of course, due to the very nature that they're overpowered. So the heroes that actually escaped the ban barricades are a group of different faces.

Sand King is the most picked hero of Tour 2 DPC. It is conventionally a reliable offlane hero with great crowd control but you can occasionally find him in the midlane. Tiny sits close behind, and Mars is the third on the list. Mars actually received a slight nerf in Patch 7.31 but this hero is generally great in tournaments.

In this list, IO looks like the odd one out. However, in tournaments, it is typical for this hero to either be picked or banned throughout. This shouldn't come as a surprise; this hero even holds the record for most banned hero throughout ALL The Internationals. What makes this hero so formidable is its global ability, Relocate, and its ability of feeding its tethered ally insane buffs.

The current meta doesn't seem to have a drastic difference before and after the patch drop. It's safe to say that a majority of the community was underwhelmed by the change. Currently, even pro players are requesting a patch update to remove a lot of the broken or bland features in-game. Hero picks are growing stale and throughout all regions, all the favorite picks and bans are similar. However, in Tour 2 we do see more Pangolier contested in the China region and Keeper of the Light in the WEU region.

You can find the full hero draft stats for Spring Tour (Tour 2) DPC 21/22 on Spectral Stats.

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