Cover-Credits:
In the past couple of years, there have been some Dota 2 patches that have attempted to change the meta in terms of heroes, items, and more, but the pace of the games has essentially remained the same. As part of Janne “Gorgc” Stefanovski's recent Twitch livestream, Team Secret captain Clement “Puppey” Ivanov criticized the current meta, claiming that it was too slow. As Puppey pointed out, teams and players just need to farm, and with the current pace of play in Dota 2, such a strategy tends to succeed. While mentioning that Team Spirit also exploited the same playstyle, Puppey pointed out that he does not enjoy playing the game this way.
Puppey criticizes Dota 2’s recent patches, says teams just “farm”
On the ESL One Stockholm Major 2022 watch party on Gorgc's livestream with some of his former Team Secret teammates, Puppey was prompted to share his thoughts on the current meta as he watched the slow-paced game between TSM and Gaimin Gladiators.
Both TSM and Gladiators seemed to focus on farming and had a greedy approach to playing, following which Puppey mentioned that this approach has worked in recent patches. While it has worked, Puppey’s main issue with the game these days is how easy it has become to farm and play.
“It works a lot these patches though. That’s the problem. I don’t necessarily like how easy it is to like - how much you have to farm in this meta because you literally have to farm. It’s the only thing you do. It’s all you do these days. You literally stand on lanes and farm and play with farm and farm. What do you think Team Spirit did (likely at The International 10)? They just farmed a lot.”
Upon hearing these remarks, Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng asked if there would be a new patch following the ongoing Major, to which Puppey responded sarcastically, “Most likely, I don’t know. It took them two months to nerf Primal Beast so… how about four years till the next patch? What do you think?”
Gorgc chimed in with comments about the patch, saying "Na Na, Valve have given up on this game. They are not gonna patch it. You know, I unironically gave up thinking there’s a patch soon.”
After the release of patch 7.31 in February 2022, the games have picked up the pace, but players and teams can still play at a slower tempo by letting their cores farm on the sidelines.
Gorgc's livestream has made for an enlightening and interesting way to watch the ongoing Major. Many pros like Puppey, MidOne, Johan "pieliedie" Åström, and Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan have shared their thoughts about different aspects of the game and its competitive scene.
