The holidays are upon us and it is time for celebration, joy and some heavy experimentation. No one in your pubs is going to take Dota seriously for a while, so why should you? Today we are going to leave you with some crazy ideas about some of the least popular heroes in the current meta and how to make them work well enough to not end up on everyone’s naughty list.

Silencer cosplaying Leshrac

There is a reason this hero is incredibly unpopular in both pubs and the professional scene. While he is a definitive answer against heroes like Enigma, his laning stage and the lack of identity make him a questionable choice most of the time. Well, with our secret tech Silencer should no longer be a laughing stock of the support pool, at least we hope he won’t.

Ever since the Last Word rework, which made it an aura, I’ve been trying to find a combination of heroes to make it truly shine. Theoretically it is a very powerful ability, but it requires a setup from multiple heroes to make it work. Or so I thought, until I saw this:

Earth Spirit’s Magnetize applying separate instances of Silence on multiple targets which then propagate to all other targets who are Magnetized results in, potentially, up to six different instances of Silence on each target. Or 360 damage per second for 3.5 seconds from maxed out Last Word aura without the talent.

This is a very unrealistic scenario and most of the time you will catch a couple of targets in a single silence at most, but as long as multiple heroes are Magnetized, the damage will keep on coming, and that is without accounting for silences from Silencer himself. Under the right circumstances it should be trivial to win any fight pre-minute 20, or pre- Black King Bar to be more specific.

Once BKBs get short and once Silencer gets his level 20 talent this combination will get even nastier, with an almost unlimited damage potential that stays relevant even against the tankiest of targets.

Moreover, stealing Intelligence can really hurt some of the less Intelligent heroes and cut into a limited mana pool, while also reducing their Magic Resistance. We feel like when played well, this could lead to a massive Silencer boost and make his transition from a position four to an actual core quite easy and straightforward. Perhaps not the best strategy for the professional scene, but incredibly powerful in overdrawn pub games. As long as you can find a decent Earth Spirit player.

Carry Sand King

We’ve seen carry Earthshaker, carry Tiny and carry Magnus be popular and successful in ESL One Bangkok, why not carry Sand King? Universal hero with high flash-farming potential and an incredible amount of late-game damage should not be underestimated. There are much worse options, when your team needs a tempo core with a stun.

What should be noted is that Stinger attacks, regardless of source, will apply effects and will proc various items. That means that between potential Aghanim's Scepter procs, Aghanim's Shard procs, Stinger usage and your own right-clicks, you should be virtually unkillable with any source of Lifesteal. Moreover, you will keep on dealing mixed damage even while stunned, as long as you initiate well.

Skipping Blink Dagger and focusing on Attribute items is definitely the way to go. In certain matchups playing with a Mage Slayer is also recommended, as it can drastically improve your own survivability and the survivability of your team: keep in mind that you apply the Mage Slayer debuff through random Stingers while casting Epicenter, once you purchase your Aghanim’s.

Getting lifesteal items and critical strikes is definitely worth it as well, however the main selling point of this type of carry is the flexibility. He can adapt to any circumstances and be effective in any role, be it a tanky frontline, or a damage-dealing semi-glass cannon.

Strength Morphling

This isn’t new, but there are some professional players currently experimenting with Strength facet Morphling. The Flow facet is certainly intriguing, but so far we haven’t seen it being played all that much. That doesn’t mean it is unusable, though.

With an Octarine Core rush and when at almost full Agility, this Morphling can get a ~70% cooldown reduction when Morphing into another hero. Moreover, the stats on the hero you are Morphing into don’t matter, so even if you go full Agility, depending on the target you turn into, you will get the CDR benefits.

Some fun bits include a 24-seconds cooldown Tombstone from [hero-undying], with a ~2 second Decay. Or Underlord’s Firestorm that has a ~150% uptime, meaning you get to have multiples of those on the battlefield. Or even something as basic as Zeus Lightning Bolt every couple of seconds.

There is a lot of space for theorycrafting this type of Morphling and there are many roles he can fill: depending on the enemy lineup he can become an incredibly annoying crowd-control hero, or a full-on nuker with insane magic damage output. All of that without losing access to his own 1.5-second stun from Adaptive Strike that has a ~4 second cooldown.

Closing thoughts

Naturally, this post is a little bit on the silly side. We don’t think it is a good idea to play Ranked with any of these strategies, at least not without testing them in Unranked first. However, it is the beauty of Dota — despite being exceptionally competitive, there is a lot of room for creativity and fun.

So while we are waiting for the next Major patch and wrapping up our Crownfall playthrough, let’s have some silly fun — this is what Dota can be about. Share your own silly or janky strategies in the comment section below — we are in the mood for ruining some pubs.