Dota 2: Mars Makes His First Appearance at ESL One Birmingham
| Tags: Dota 2
| Author Zlosterr
Mars, one of Dota 2's newest heroes, has finally made his appearance in professional play this week at ESL One Birmingham.
Dota 2's most recent large patch, Patch 7.22, introduced various gameplay changes in addition to a plethora of other gameplay tweeks. Apart from that, Valve added Mars and Io yet again in Captain's Mode, which means that they are currently available in the on-going ESL One Birmingham tournament.
First blood
The Chinese squad Vici Gaming was the first team to give Mars a try during their opening games. Despite the newness of the champion, Vici played him fairly well despite dropping the second game of the series against Liquid, resulting in a game draw. Zhou ”Yang” Haiyang rushed a quick Soul Ring, followed by Phase Boots, Vlad’s and a Blink Dagger in just about 15 minutes. This gave Team Liquid little to no chance as they had no way to deal with Mars being genuinely annoying in the offlanes.
Vici weren't the only team that tried their luck with Mars in international competition. Forward Gaming also brought out the God of War, but they lacked the success that Vici saw against Liquid, loosing to TNC. Sneakying attempted nearly the same build as Yang. What made Forward's Mars lose this one wasn't the build, however – Sneakying's timing simply wasn't as good as his counterpart on Vici. Due to the mistimings, Mars fell more and more behind over the course of the game, and, at the end of the day, resulted in the first loss for Mars in the pro scene.
As we've said before, Mars is a hero that needs to have a decently fast start in order to be effective. As viewers saw in the Vici vs Team Liquid game, the hero is almost unstoppable once he's got that early lead. On the other hand, like Forward Gaming experienced first hand, once the Roman god of war is smothered, recovering is an incredibly difficult task indeed.
Mars has a solid 50% win-rate
As of today, Mars has a 50% win rating in professional play, but since the hero has only been played in two games, it’s a little bit too early to tell whether these numbers will stay around the same. Fans and analysts alike will have to wait and see if Mars continues to make appearances at ESL One Birmingham. If he does, the scene will surely get a better understanding of where Mars really belongs in the professional hero tier list.
Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube for the latest esports news.
Image VIA: Valve
Zlosterr has been a fan of esports for many years and mainly focuses on Dota 2. He has more than five years of experience writing Dota 2 content for numerous platforms. Besides being a passionate fan of the game, he's also played for various amateur teams.