DONOTRANGERS

Welcome back to another edition of Trendwatch 2012! We've got another hot lineup of competitive hero tiers ready for rollout, with favourites such as Storm Spirit and Tinker on the ups, and likes of Anti-Mage and the "former-Pandaren" Brewmaster on their way down.

Before moving on to the list however, I just want to be clear up a few... misconceptions people have had of tier lists and what their place is inside the Dota 2 scene. First off: Do not, I repeat do not try to apply these rankings to public matchmaking - every hero has viability in a public game, and picking a hero just because they are often picked in competitive matches will not magically grant you a higher win rate. Mostly, it will just grant your teammates an opportunity to laugh at you for picking based off of competitive matches.
The other common complaint people have regard the publication of these tier lists is that they see them as representing the relative strength of heroes. This is not the case. The ESFI Competitive Hero Tier List is an up to date snapshot of competitive Dota 2 gameplay, and the picking and banning trends of it, with success of the heroes having just a little weight over the final positions. Sure, Dazzle and Omniknight are great heroes - however they do not see any regular play in competitive matches, so they rank very low in this tier list.
Another quick note about our recent Captain's Mode additions: Chaos Knight, PA, Gyro, Rubick, Luna and Wisp - we really haven't gotten a clear view of yet of how they'll fit into the Dota 2 pool, so an amount of speculation comes into play in assigning them positions. Check out their differential comments to read the basic reasoning behind their positions, based off the limited play we've seen from them so far.
The ESFI Dota 2 Competitive Hero Tier List is a current representation of the picks and drafting patterns of high-tier competitive and recent Dota 2 matches. Classic DotA matches do not affect the rankings, and as such, the list is largely based on European/North American Dota 2 play - for now. The list itself is divided into a 5 Tier system, ranking heroes based on their current usage and effectiveness alone, not potential usage or subjective strength of the heroes. Following each tier is not a complete differential report, but some substantial or interesting changes since previous months.