The DotA scene has been about the same for quite a while now. It consisted of straight warding, gank attempts, and farming. Pretty much every league is Extended League mode, -XL, which means that the teams switch off removing three heroes each, in a 1-1-1-1-1-1 format, and then pick heroes in a 1-2-2-2-2-1 format. Sadly, we see the same picks and removes every game. Sand King, Beastmaster, Sven, Lina, Queen of Pain are examples of heroes picked or removed in almost all games. In essence, DotA is getting more and more boring to watch for viewers.

I brought it upon myself see what the top teams think of the current game. Most of the professionals seemed to think alike.

Although many heroes are repeated, it's been understood that they are simply the best which makes it difficult for teams to reject them. Jacob "Maelk" Toft-Anderson of MYM agrees, "Alot of the heroes that are picked over and over again is often because of their overall adaptability and that all of their skills are useful. Sandking has an AoE-stun, so does Nerubian Assassin and Lina where as QoP is a ranged blink hero with massive AoE."

"It's really all about synergy. Some heroes might be terrible individually, but end up being the main extremely important to a team if the synergy is right. An example would be thd/dp (AoE nukes). These heroes are not top picks individually, but when picked with void or any AoE stun, they can be devastating. It's that type of thinking, with solid lane control and solo's that will get team noticed by the fans because of new interesting lineups that will still work well (the old xDT for example)", added Mohamed "Mo" Nasar from xLo.

There are a few new heroes popping up in some of the games; however, for the most part, the heroes are the same. Nerubian Assassin, Centaur and Pudge, for example, are newer heroes in the Competitive scene. Denmark and Russia led the way to these finds.

A major problem with trying out new strategies is the time and experimentation. Normally a strategy needs a few trials, in this case scrims for it to be perfected. Ben "MYM|Merlini" Wu commented, "It's fairly refreshing to see new heroes and lineups besides the conventional QoP/SK/Warlock etc. that we've seen so often. New lineups and strats (as long as they are well thought-out and executed) prove to be effective because it takes time for teams to find appropriate counters."

There are, however, teams that do like to be more creative. Teams such as the old tPD (and sometimes MYM) pull something extreme.

Some teams dare to be different and expand their strategies, but for the most part they fall back on conventional heroes to ensure a win. Maelk stated, "Our main objective is to win, and if cookie cutter heroes allows us to do that in an easier and more comfortable way, we are probably going to stick to them. We have been known to try the unusual though, and we might come up with something again, who knows :)."

Some teams believe that fresh strategies and showmanship is a better thing than just doing the same thing over and over. "To me, DotA at the moment is at its prime. With so much competition, it's very risky to think of creative strategies. It's simple math; some heroes just have a better winning percentage than others, and most clans just aren't willing to take that risk. What can I say though, TPD is all about making innovative strategies and bringing entertainment to the fans," said Eugene "Dijon" Kim, the new captain of Pandemic DotA.

Another reason for playing the cookie cutter strats could be the fact that there are less scrims between teams. When asking Aaron "Spit-wad" Stern about how many times a day FD scrims, he stated "We try to scrim every night, but things don't always work out. Honestly, we probably get 6-8 scrims per week. I think the game would have a much better chance of evolving to the next stage if more teams scheduled scrims with each other to avoid waiting around for two hours to find a scrim."

Chris "xLo|V" Rivera added, "Our search from scrims differs from day to day, we usually just look for scrims when we are all online, not usually planned. We probably play in 3/4 of the scrims that we try to find, there is always one game that isn't too productive to our team play. I believe scrims do help you in developing strategy, seeing new things, working on new lanes, new counters, etc."

A few reasons that need to be changed in the Competitive scene could be the fact that less heroes are scene, or possibly not enough tournaments resembling MYM, or it may be the fact that not to many teams stay together for a long time!

Chris went on, "I think that there needs to be more sponsored international tournaments like MYM with Amateur and Pro (payouts only for Pro division) divisions so that teams don't lose in the first round of the qualifying stage and get discouraged. There are many new heroes that are entering the competitive scene that have not been used in previous tournaments, Twin Head Dragon/Tiny/Pudge/Morphling/etc."