bOne7 on MLG, Midas Gaming and more!

This instalment brings something slightly out of the ordinary - a dedicated interview with one of Dota 2's most talked about players: Pittner "bOne7" Armand. On the eve of MLG's commencement, bOne7, who unfortunately was unable to attend, discusses several ideas about current metagame and item choices.

GIH: Hi bOne7. It is a huge loss to your team that you were unable to go to MLG with them. Can you share any information on why your Visa was denied? Many members of the community have expressed concern on reddit that you might be denied again for even bigger events like, say, TI4. Do you think this is a one-time occurrence?
bOne7: I think this was a one-time occurrence...The way I prepared for my Visa interview and everything was just too poor. I basically had only vague information going into it and didn't request much help from someone who could actually help me get a Visa...Next time should be pretty easy considering I talked with a lot of people about it and I found some help from someone who helped Romanians get into the US for Esports events being in my situation :D

GIH: Great. Good to hear it's not likely to happen again! Now, onto some questions about Dota. 

Do you think the recent 'Midas Gaming' craze is dying down? Was it just a trend that will pass or is it here to stay?

bOne7: Midas is pretty weird item for me at least. Usually heroes who don't have much space to farm and don't benefit from cheap items that much would use a Midas I guess. I usually just tell my team, well this hero is pretty much useless atm, just get a Midas on it whatever :D

GIH: Hahaha - agreed. At the moment it seems a bit counter-intuitive which heroes buy it. This reminds me...you were behind a rise in popularity of Midas on Darkseer even before the 6.79 patch. Was this for reasons you discussed above?

bOne7: Yeah, I felt pretty useless with that hero until I hit higher levels so I'd just go Midas.

GIH: Okay. But, at that time, even though you started a trend of buying it on Darkseer, it didn't catch on with many other heroes and was mostly limited to carry heroes + Invoker + Darkseer. What prompted the rise in its popularity? Was it mostly to do with the 6.79 gameplay update or do you think this was a long time coming?

bOne7: Hmm...I don't even see Midas on heroes that you wouldn't usually build a Midas on beforehand. CMs have Midases but they weren't picked that often previously. Some teams in the East get Midases...I don't know, seems to be just a trend, seeing Burning build a Midas on Spectre didn't make me think "oh this is good here". Oh, I also saw a Fnatic ET get a Midas...how terrible :D. Don't know what to say, I play a lot of games and still didn't figure out Midas properly...Guess it's just a poorly understood trend.

GIH: Well it's interesting to me if even you, who are one of the biggest innovators in the pro scene, don't have a proper grip on what it's all about. It suggests the entire scene still needs to work it out a bit maybe. Personally, I feel that people are buying it on any hero where they realize they can afford it and don't urgently need another item because of the mid and long-term payoff it gives in exp and gold. Do you think this is a generally fair assessment?

bOne7: Sure, if you have no idea what you want, might as well get a Midas and hope for the best :D

GIH: Alright, cool. Enough about Midas then. Lets talk about some other items that you like.

I've noticed you've recently started going for Orchid quite often on Clockwerk and even bought it once on Juggernaut.

According to datDota, you have won every competitive game in which you bought Orchid on Clockwerk [9/9] as well as the one Juggernaut game. Your overall win rate with Orchid is 76% [16/21]. The remaining games are mostly Nature's Prophet ones where you are 6-4 with Orchid - all of which happened before the 6.79 patch. In fact, your win rate with Orchid after the patch is 100% [5/5] - 4 with Clock and 1 with Juggernaut. 

Is this one of your default preferred items at the moment or is it a situational preference? 
If it's situational, which situations are you buying it for? Did the 6.79 patch make Orchid a better choice in any ways?

bOne7: I never thought about it, Orchid is an OK item. The only thing I do with Orchid which seems to be not that common is get it on Clockwerk since an Orchid + Blademail against someone who doesn't have a BKB just destroys. It's a fairly rare when I get Orchids as well, usually it happens when we have considerable leads and the opponents heroes are severely crippled by 1 extra silence. I think we should see some Orchid Vipers tho, that things legit.



GIH: Interesting. I hadn't thought about Orchid on Viper before. Instead of something like Mek or after it?

bOne7: probably after Mek, it's pretty questionable tho since Aghs is so good. Usually slows with Orchid destroy so...

GIH: Right, that makes good sense. Lets talk about something more general now.

How would you describe the current metagame in pro Dota2? It appears to not have stabilized yet? What sort of metagame do you think we can expect in the near future? After the 6.79 patch, people were arguing about whether we will now have a gank-orientated meta or a push-orientated meta. Do we truly have either of these yet? Is it a combination of both?

bOne7: I don't really undestand these macro things that well. I mean ganging was always popular for the right teams. I think opening the offlane to more heroes means that instead of a relaxed laning phase we have this volatile laning where everything can happen, and any hero can find some kind of farm and xp gain. I guess the transition in the midgame is affected by this and maybe we have a little more action between teams who are not afraid to make a mistake but uhm...I don't know really.

Also since laning is so weird, lane rotations or gangs are profitable so I guess we have a bit more chaos there. This patch I think will take several more months until more and more things get figured out. I personally think some heroes should have a better chance now that still didn't get picked that often. Usually these heroes have a tougher times doing things on their own so they are not picked, but with the right plan in mind for the game, they should really do some work. I'd rather not talk in detail about them because I want to thoroughly test them before we go to G-League...

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Part two of this interview will be posted on Monday, after MLG ends. Amongst other things, it contains bOne7's predictions regarding hero picks at MLG which, for obvious reasons, could not be included here.