Прогноз на матч: Azure Ray - Heroic | Dota 2

Welcome to EGamersWorld.

The DreamLeague Season 23 playoffs are heating up. Today we're talking about the lower bracket of the tournament, where teams are trying to stay afloat.

Among the contenders for the next round are Azure Ray and Heroic. The match between Heroic and Azure Ray promises to be The International interesting at least because of the new patch and probably new strategies from the teams.

We are trying to find out who will be stronger in the AR - Heroic match and will continue their way to the play-offs of the championship, and who will have to leave the championship without having started it.

Let's go.

Heroic's form

Let's open our analysis of Heroic vs Azure Ray with a look at Heroic's form. In this match they play the number one with odds to win at around 1.6.

Heroic is a new name to the Dota 2 competitive scene. Though the team is well known outside of Valve's professional MOBA scene, the club has been slow to sign a roster in that discipline. In 2023, that changed.

Heroic came to Dota 2 signing South American mix D2 Hustlers, while changing it up a bit. Heroic's final, debut roster looked like this:

• Heroic roster: K1, 4nalog, Davai Lama, Scofield, KJ.

Each player is pretty well known at his position and it seems like such a team should work. At least on the local scene, within their region, Heroic look pretty good, though not perfect.

During the 2024 competitive season, the club finished Top 8 at DreamLeague Season 22: South America Open Qualifier #1, Top 2 at BB Dacha Dubai 2024: NA and SA Closed Qualifier, and then won DL Season 22: South America Open Qualifier #2 and DL Season 22: South America Closed Qualifier, beating BOOM 2-0 in the grand finals.

The last tournament before DL Season 22 was the South American qualifiers for ESL Birmingham 2024. There Heroic again defeated BOOM in the grand finals, thus securing a slot for the first major LAN tournament of the year.

After the first match day Heroic are on the 4th line of the group stage table with 1-1 in matches and 2-2 in maps. They outplayed G2.IG and Ledge or Vp. The second day passed with a similar score: 1 win and 1 loss. On the third game day we played a draw with BB Team and lost to GG. However, they failed to move further into the top 14.

Then Heroic made it to DL Season 23 and played Elite League at TOP-16, and then it was TOP-8 at ESL One Birmingham 2024.

Heroic qualified for the DreamLeague Season 23 play-offs after a re-match with Team Liquid, where they beat the European Dota 2 giants 2-1.

Heroic's most popular heroes

Natures Prophet and Rubick appeared most often in spades. Both characters were taken 4 times each and have 100% wins.

Vengeful Spirit, Beastmaster and Tusk have appeared a similar number of times. They have won 3 matches out of 4 appearances each.

Azure Ray's form

We continue the breakdown of the Azure Ray - Heroic match with an analysis of the Chinese team's form. In this match they will play as an outsider with odds to win around 2.3.

Azure Ray looked like a team playing solely for results, i.e. to get to the Major at the Long Run last season. We've seen a similar story with super teams getting together, some results in the first few months and being forgotten at the end.

I'm not sure that Azure Ray will follow the same scenario, but there are concerns about it. For now, though, we'll see.

Azure Ray made it to Bali Major 2023 by playing their home league. They played at the top-4, which is not a decent indicator for a team with such names.

At Bali Major 2023 Azure Ray were one step away from elimination from the tournament. The Somnus team managed to beat Bleed on tiebreaks for the top-6 of Group B.

They didn't make it far in the play-offs, but top-8 is already an indicator. Especially if we take into account the "freshness" of the team as a unit.

Due to poor performance due to lack of practice, Azure Ray could not guarantee themselves a direct entry to The International 2023. The slot had to be earned during the qualifiers and Azure Ray managed it: in the final of the qualifiers they beat Xtreme Gaming with a score of 3-1.

At the main tournament of the year the famous Chinese got into Group B, where they faced top teams like Liquid and the same BB. They managed to secure the third place, after which they easily defeated Entity 2-0 in the knockout matches for seeding in the play-offs.

Azure Ray started the playoffs with a victory over the main tournament opener - the Nouns team. After beating the Americans Azure Ray met perhaps their main rival at this tournament - their compatriots from LGD Gaming. And that match they lost without a chance, with the score 0-2. Then Azure Ray beat BB Team, but in the match for the top 3 Ledge and Gaimin Gladiators.

At the end of The International 2023, Azure Ray finished in the top 4. At the Long Season 2024 they rebuilt the roster, strengthening it considerably.

• Azure Ray roster: Lou, Ori, Faith_bian, fy, 天命.

Azure Ray's first major appearance was ESL Kuala Lumpur 2023. There they played well in the group stage, finishing top 1 in Group A. They played to a score of 8-2 on mapmaps.

The success in the group stage led the team to the championship in the first major tournament for the club. Azure Ray were crowned champions of Kuala Lumpur 2023, beating GG in the grand final.

AR are looking good in 2024. Won the qualifiers for BB Dacha and DL Season 2022, but will miss ESL Birmingham after losing in the final of the qualifiers. Also finished top 4 at BB Dacha.

They have a poor performance at DreamLeague Season 22. Then Azure Ray took TOP-12. Later there were attempts to qualify for PGL Wallachia Season 1 and DL Season 23 and both, technically, were successful. However, at PGL Wallachia Season 1 Azure Ray played in such a way that it was painful to watch, and as a result they made it to the top 16.

On DL Season 23, the Chinese played better than on PGL Wallachia Season 23 and made it to the play-offs of the tournament, though not without problems.

The most popular Azure Ray heroes

Storm Spirit remains the most popular hero of Azure Ray. The character has appeared 9 times and has a win rate of around 66%.

Next are Pugna (8 matches, 62% win rate), Pangolier (7 matches, 71% win rate), Batrider (7 matches, 71% win rate), Techies (7 matches, 57% win rate).

There is also Keeper of the Light (6 games, 66% win rate), Silincer (6 matches, 50% win rate), Medusa (6 matches, 50% win rate).

History of head-to-head meetings Azure Ray - Heroic

Before this match AR - Heroic the teams score 1-1.

Predicted result of the match Azure Ray - Heroic

As far as I'm concerned, this will be quite an interesting match with perhaps not quite the expected outcome. Although AR is a clear outsider, the Chinese are not as easy as it may seem and they will definitely have enough for one card.

Bottom line: +1.5 on AR.