The Surprising Story of the Face of Dota

Juggernaut is often seen as The Beginner's carry an easy hero with a simple game plan that has always remained the same but is that true or are there secrets lost in his past today we're going to dive into DOTA history and deconstruct one of the game's most iconic Heroes and explore his strategies and his performance at the most important DOTA events the International Tournament series so how good was your narrow the juggernaut Juggernaut was a melee agility hero that was implemented into Dota 2 on the 30th of September 2011. shortly after the international one concluded his attributes were fairly low and not particularly noteworthy his first ability was blade Fury blade Fury had Juggernaut spin rapidly for 5 seconds during that period he became magic immune silenced endowed significant magic damage to enemies around himself this ability was very dangerous starting at 80 damage per second and scanning up to 140. in total that amounted to 400 damage at lower 1 which could easily be argued to be the highest in the game during blade Fury Juggernaut could attack but his attacks wouldn't deal damage this meant that his attacks during blade Fury could still apply secondary effects like for example scored darsha or eye of Scotty men specifically attacking magic immune targets including buildings juggernauts attacks would deal their full damage instead blade Fury was incredibly powerful during the early stages of a game as it could be used to quickly overwhelm opponents however it carried significant risk as juggernon had to get close to enemies to deal damage and while still vulnerable to attacks juggernaut's second ability was healing Ward This spells summoned the healing Ward next to Juggernaut that provided a regenerational aura to all Allied units in a 500 radius as far as healing effects go this was one of the strongest in the game as it healed based on the percentage of the Allies maximum health for up to 25 seconds starting at level 3 of the ability it was able to easily recover any nearby allies to full HP however the healing void could be destroyed in a singular attack due to its significant restorative powers it was always a high priority Target and would often be taken out quickly to keep it alive Juggernaut could move the healing water around at 300 movement speed good Juggernaut players kept it far out of the way and would use the healing War to dip in and out of the fight to restore Health to his teammates and their units this was aided by a unique property of healing board most auras and DOTA have a linger duration which means that the aura still applies for additional time even after its targets have left the radius usually this linger duration is 0.5 seconds but for healing Ward it was 2.5 seconds giving it significant healing power even if an ally entered its radius only for a brief moment at maximum level this amounted to 12.5 percent of a unit's maximum health through the linger alone which still applied even if the wood was destroyed immediately healing Ward was an excellent and unique ability blade dance was juggernaut's third ability this was a simple passive that provided Juggernaut a chance to deal a 200 Critical Strike the chance scaled a bit weirdly starting out at 15 going up to 25 at level 3 and then jumping to 35 at level 4. unfortunately this meant that to get a decent benefit from this ability Juggernaut had to level it up all the way finally his ultimate was omnislash this spell had Juggernaut leaped to his Target to attack with a set number of slashing attacks it also applied a mini stun to its initial Target which could be used to interrupt channels now bear with me things are about to get a little weird this ability has some strange nuances these slashes weren't strictly speaking attacks and instead dealt a set number of physical damage at specific interwars for the ease of understanding we are going to refer to those as slashes during omnislash Juggernaut would perform a set number of slashes on his Target although with each slash he had a chance of jumping to a nearby possible Target and slashing that instead while this was happening Juggernaut was invincible between each slash was an interval during which Juggernaut could attack normally using his normal attack damage and attack speed this makes a lot more sense when you see it have a look at this clip of Juggernaut using omnislash notice how after each slash Juggernaut hangs in the air for a bit during this period Juggernaut could attack normally this meant that Aldo only slash didn't strictly speaking scale with his attacking prowess those in-between attacks did and they scaled specifically well with his attack speed the higher juggernauts attack speed the more additional attacks he could get between Omni Slash slashes combine the slashes and attacks made Omni Slash one of the most damaging abilities in the entire game it wasn't rare to see even opposing course die to a single cast of omnislash however the damage could be dispersed by having multiple targets for the ultimate available as it would randomly jump to other units in its radius as omnislash was leveled up it increased how many slashes it did eventually granting a significant invulnerability duration during its effect omnislash also had an agonym scepter upgrade that increased the number of slashes Juggernaut was an interesting hero he had all of the attitude of an agility late game carry but didn't quite scale as much as he would want from that style of character instead he offered a lot of early game fighting Power and significant team fighting support the time period between the international 1 and 2 didn't see many significant balance changes as it was dominated by the implementation of 44 additional Heroes still Juggernaut received a few small busts to his ultimate before the international too Omni Slash now dealt a bit more damage and had an increased number of slashes particularly his argument scepter upgrade was boosted by these changes during the international two Juggernaut was an unpopular Choice he was picked six times with limited success ti2 was heavily centered around the idea of pushing as Towers were worth much more gold than they are in modern DOTA it was common practice to invest at least partially into pushing focused picks to secure those resources ti2 was also a dual core tri-lane meta the offlaner was sacrificed to enable the rest of the team and secure money for the main carry an extreme example of this happened in game three of the Venus finals when Beastmaster did not get a single point of experience until 5 minutes into the game because of this it was crucially important that the two cores carry their weight Juggernaut struggled with this he didn't have great tools for scaling into the late game and he was better suited for an aggressive early game carry role unfortunately that wasn't what most teams were looking for at that time in particular he struggled to use his ultimate successfully because of the meta around him some of the most popular Heroes were summon based Naga siren Chen Nature's prophet and enchantress teams would usually have additional units accompanying them summons that would inevitably absorb omnislash hits blade Fury could also be shut down by nagasone hernette pierced magic immunity leaving Juggernaut to helplessly spin in place the few attempts to play Juggernaut as a position 1 physical carry failed he just didn't fit the meta that's not to say that the hero didn't see any success at all yet again it was the team that goes against the grain Navi that managed to make him work best they used him as a push enabling tanky frontliner putting heavy emphasis on healing Wards to give their team an incredible amount of long-term survivability let's have a closer look at game 2 of the upper brackets semi-finals IG vs Navi for this I would like to welcome a special guest my name is Alexander dashkevich hello everyone my nickname is host and I played for another swing service since 2011 and Paul maybe even 2010 until 2015. in this game Juggernaut plays in the safe Lane he is immediately given space to occupy the lane on his own and maximize his experience at only two minutes into the game Navi kills the opposing darkseer and then starts breaking down the Tier 1 Tower they don't quite manage to get the kill but bring it down to half health unfortunately for them dogsia is excellent at slowing down pushes and his constant iron shell spam has broken their momentum Juggernaut resets into a farming state but his supports move into the top to deny their own tier one Tower the healing mode is already coming in handy as it allows Harvest to survive against darkseer in the lane his item build is a little unusual and gives away nabi's game plan I needed mother region all the time to outpush these shielded trips yeah that's why either him builds the battle Fury through perseverance and uh but it's expensive and with perseverance you can can do anything I decided to to do this so it's probably gonna be soaring Vanguard that's why they can't kill me that was the point to get towers and then with the circuit words you can take The High Ground you can take rolls you can take whatever you want children watching my items and then I want to cry as far as you can see like we have a strategy it's uh yeah it's push strategy it's pretty easy one but you still need to realize how to do that and no one was buying soaring velvet right and there is one more game in finals there I made Power tree svenguard shivas so it's even more more ridiculous I'm not that easy to be killed so I can just spin all the time push waves and kill Tower that's the idea at eight minutes Nabi finally manages to break the bottom Tower they immediately moved mid to take the T1 there and then aim at top Juggernaut is fully embracing the pushing plan leveling up blade Fury and healing mode all the way to Max first before touching blade dance Navi takes the top Tier 1 and then the tier 2 Tower IG can't and dozen contesters the anaga siren still requires more time to become powerful now that you notice this and they are not slowing down immediately moving for the mid-tier too it's impossible for IG to delay this aggression as the summons break down their buildings and Juggernaut is keeping his team permanently on full health the only outer Tower left is the bottom tier 2. IG has a dangerous combo on their team song of the siren and vacuum song of the siren made the opposing team fall asleep and Invincible however at that time vacuum could be used on Heroes affected by song of the siren this allowed for incredibly easy combo setup IG sees the writing on the wall and they decide it's time for a play for that play who leads the way I believe it should be Zoe they're gonna cut for the shorter pass they storm up the river patience from Zoe waiting in the wigs Navi is about to be caught oh there's the Sleep the third he catches everyone oh this could be a total disaster thank you man ravage on everyone the black hole as well turns it around ravage as well stolen by Danny why are you kidding me they turn it around boy who's dead Swan trying to survive Juan's gonna go down puppy talked about the Naga counter it's line of heaven with us bkb they turn it around I don't even know how they're gonna do it Standing Ovation from the crowd we didn't expect that from behind but we are ready I have bikini then he has blink and uh yeah so he only the only only thing that you catch is a shadow Shaman and the enchantress so the attack was pretty much the bits the like desperate from them we didn't have to worry over here because they can't catch us they don't have the Instax or something and they don't have possibility to pierce through bikini because they they really can't catch me and they can't catch Enigma and that's the two Heroes who can kill like all five uh open team from this moment the game looks easy because they can't do anything they don't have ultimates and we can just uh do whatever we want from here it's just cleanup Nabi takes the bottom tier 2 then the barracks they reset and go for Roshan Naga siren uses her song to steal the edges but it doesn't make a difference at this point and now we smoothly secures the victory Nabi played this exact style of Juggernaut two more times in this Tournament winning the second game and losing the third India game against lgd we can see what a full Juggernaut item build looked like power threats magic wand soul ring Vanguard battle Fury and Abyssal blade this unusual style of Juggernaut most only used by Navi about Juggernaut itself it was uh hard times of playing because the the variety was close to zero you couldn't uh like deep for any builds if you play the proper carry you buy battle Fury Manta or Battlefield or maybe diffusion maybe but in particular situations where it was the Warlock against you and some other Heroes with the strong summons and you could like Purge the the strong salmon with the diffusion blade otherwise you just buy battle furial farm and yeah and you go pretty much the anti-mage build we've decided that strategy so I would just go tank and they like pick four range Heroes and stay behind and try to deal some damage on the disable every other we were playing with Juggernaut against ultimately Juggernaut wasn't bad but the meta wasn't suitable for him while Navi got some success out of the hero even they use Juggernaut as more of a surprise pick as opposed to anything standard patch 6.75 offer Juggernaut some assistance omnislash now killed Lane and neutral Creeps in a single hit this made the ultimate more useful in cluttered laning or jungle situations but unfortunately it didn't help with the core issue of being overwhelmed by summons as this change did not apply to player-controlled units Juggernaut also had his base attack time reduced from 1.7 to 1.6 this change is impactful but to truly understand it we have to take a deeper look at how DOTA works base attack time describes a unit's default interval between attacks while excluding attack speed bonuses a unit's actual attack rate as in how often they attack a second is calculated using the base attack time and attack speed bonus there are two ways to make a unit attack faster in Dota either increase their attack speed or lower their base attack time the standard base attack time for Heroes is 1.7 deviating from this value has a significant impact on the hero's viability as an attack based damage dealer as of writing this video hoodwink has the worst space attack time at 2.0 while the anti-mage has the best at 1.4 assuming they both have maximum attack speed Hoodwink attacks once every 0.29 seconds while anthemage attacks once every 0.2 seconds in other words Hoodwink attacks 15 slower than an average hero while antimage attacks 21.4 percent faster and when compared to each other anti-mage attacks nearly 50 faster than hoodwink side note alchemist's chemical rage gives him the lower space attack time of any hero going all the way down to 0.9 which would be the equivalent of 1320 to attack speed on a normal hero a nearly 90 boost paper scissors ax first considering that for most Heroes it's impossible to change their base attack time Juggernaut having his reduced was a fairly big deal and immediately made him a much more potent physical damage carry it was also especially beneficial to juggernon as high attack speed allowed him to connect with more additional attacks in between his ultimate slashes the international free meta game was still heavily defined by tri-lanes as already mentioned trilaning was the strategy where teams placed their main core and two supports into a single Lane this allowed them to basically guarantee significant form on that core as it was incredibly difficult to fight into free Heroes the core would then become powerful quickly and apply tower pressure which would then funnel money back into their supports DOTA was different back then there was less money available in general as a result it was difficult to farm up three Heroes and so most teams focused on only two of them their mid and try Lane core usually teams wouldn't challenge the opposing training off laners were tasked with survival and would frequently concede the lane entirely and go into the jungle instead however with any meta game comes the development of counter strategies on the one hand tridents were a secure way of getting your core farmed on the other hand a trident committed three-fifths of a team into a single space if you could figure out a way to beat that you practically won the game on the spot so how could you beat the trialing with a trident obviously I don't know what you were expecting this is where Juggernaut comes in at the international free Juggernaut was primarily played as an aggressive triling core his job was to be powerful in the early game so that he and his two supports could challenge the opposing training and shut it down blade Fury was a great asset for this as they did a huge amount of damage very quickly if he got close his supports would be chosen specifically to enable this juggernaut's entire game plan was about early power Face boots into magic wand and brazer into drums and then an agonym scepter his skill build also shifted a bit getting a single early Point into blade dance to help out with damage players like korok would spend the entire early game chasing down the opposing trilene even if that meant sacrificing his own Farm Juggernaut was about Temple Juggernaut was about crushing the opponent before they ever came online unfortunately an aggressive playstyle like this would leave the hero under farmed as he wasn't focusing on last hitting as much and would frequently die in fights to make up for this a juggernaut pick was often accompanied by a greedy mid laner like Shadow fiend or outward devour teams would shift roles making them meet their primary farmer by turning Juggernaut into a secondary or even a tertiary carry this strategy was incredibly risky if Juggernaut won his Lane his team gained a huge lead at the same time if he didn't then his team would fall far behind Juggernaut Games Were Always short they would end quickly one way or the other as the tournament progressed alliance's defensive play Star took center stage and influenced the other teams unfortunately Juggernaut didn't fit into that he wanted to fight but often teams wouldn't let him when orange tried in the game against the Lions the hero fell flat as the lines did something weird they surrendered Farm instead of trying to challenge the Juggernaut Lane Alliance shifted their focus to Nature's profit in the offlane and kunka in the mid they basically toured orange go ahead Farm up that Juggernaut gyrocopter will catch up after laning is over and your hero can't carry Alliance was right while Juggernaut offered early game Power he wasn't a proper mid to late game carry and by focusing on the other lanes they managed to win the game quite easily Juggernaut filled a distinct and unique role at the international free as the tri-lane breaker unfortunately this was a risky strategy and as such wasn't particularly popular especially as the tournament continued and teams figured out counterplay still he saw a play in 19 games total which is a perfectly respectable performance after the international free Juggernaut received a series of nice Buffs healing Ward had its movement speed increased from 300 to 450. this made it quite difficult for melee Heroes to destroy the ward as barely any of them could break that speed threshold and catch up to it omnislash's argument scepter was buffed and now reduced the ultimate's cooldown to 70 seconds this cooldown reduction was a huge deal there were certain benchmarks for the usability of cooldowns omnislash without agingham scepter had around 100 seconds cooldown in practice that meant that the ability should only be used in important fights as otherwise it might not be ready when needed with agonoms it only had 70 seconds cooldown which is just at The Benchmark for respawn times and getting back into position to continue fighting in other words it allowed you to use the Ability for pretty much any encounter giving much more freedom coupled with the increase and damage output this made agronom scepter a very powerful item Juggernaut also gained the ability to use items during omnislash this allowed for fun plays with blink dagger to extend omnislash's reach or could be used effectively with mask of Madness and satanic both of which were great ways to recover health during the invincibility provided by the ultimate the most unique change Juggernaut received was again a change to a space attack time first going down from 1.6 to 1.5 and then going from 1.5 to 1.4 giving Juggernaut the lowest base attack time in the entire game the base attack time change a set Juggernaut up to become a proper carry and at The International 4 he repriced his role as an aggressive trilene core single game by the strategy we saw at ti3 still worked Juggernaut actually shifted roles and was mostly played as a support now I don't want to give the impression that all teams were playing Juggernaut support it was just team DK however team DK was the team that picked Juggernaut most often got a lot of value out of it and used it multiple times so let's talk about Juggernaut support team DK used to be structured primarily around their Ace player burning however after ta3 they picked up two new players Mushi and isai's eyes both of which excelled and garnered significant attention at that tournament this changed team DK into an oyster team they had three core players that were all incredibly good but they also all shared a greedy play style to properly utilize those players team DK how to protect all three which wasn't really possible using the traditional laning setup that's where juggernaut's unique capabilities came in blade Fury was one of the highest damaging abilities during the early game healing Ward could quickly reset an ally back to full health and omnisash threatened even the most durable supports team DK usually pay a juggernaut with a long range disable orientated support like skyraf Mage or Shadow shaman the pier then roamed the map always moving wherever their opponents applied the most pressure Juggernaut would never spend much time in a lane if there were no spin targets around he would either stack the jungle for his team or Farm easy camps himself when played normally blade Fury had a fairly long cooldown for irregular ability but team DK had Juggernaut roamed the map by doing this they gave him plenty of time to let the ability reset and he always had it ready when he needed it this play Star was good at ensuring that no hero on DK's side fell too far behind but it wasn't great at definitively securing Lane wins often DK would find themselves overall behind when coming out of the laning stage however there was nothing to worry about as now stage 2 of Juggernaut support came into action at ti4 the best way to get money quickly was to break down towers and kill Roshan as both objectives were very valuable it's been helped clear creep base quickly and the heating Ward protected DK while they were breaking down towers and taking early Roshan kills getting big objectives as soon as possible allowed DK to stabilize their lineup and make sure all their cores were in fighting shape then they slowed the game down and Juggernaut entered his final food stage while the free big cores were farming Up Lanham tried his best to fill the gaps and find enough money for an argonium scepter he valued this item so much that he would only buy brown boots and nothing else before rushing into it this may seem a little weird as it left Lanham with no way to survive in a fight but he didn't care about that as the core Juggernaut always had to worry about staying alive in fights so he could deal continuous damage via attacking as a support it didn't matter if all he did was place the healing Ward click ultimate and die earlier we spent a lot of time talking about how Juggernaut could get additional attacks in during omnislash however even if you didn't use this element omnislash was devastating by itself because of the set damage of each slash with an agonym scepter and the right circumstances omnislash was capable of killing anyone including opposing cores lanham's number one priority was to create those circumstances and that included getting agonom scepter as quickly as possible after finishing agonoms he would build a blink dagger which offered much easier positioning for the ultimate and a diffuser blade for additional utility and secondary resource damage during the ultimate as for his skill build Landon prioritized blade Fury and healing Ward but still got that single early Point into blade dance by the time Juggernaut finished his argonium scepter the rest of DK had formed enough and they would start being more aggressive again as already mentioned juggernaut's whole job was to run in and use omnislash a simple strategy that was absolutely deadly team DK used this strategy five times the ti-4 winning four of those games the only match they lost was against Vichy gaming and the overwhelming pushing Strat which would eventually carry VG all the way into the grand finals Juggernaut support may sound like an absurdist joke but team DK found great success with it for the sake of completion I should also mention that fnatic tried a similar style of Juggernaut but they used him in the offline Instead This didn't work as well in my opinion the big mistake they made was delaying the argument scepter for too long by actually buying stat-based items on the hero this left him a bit tankier but unable to do damage maybe they felt that Juggernaut had to have an impact outside of his ultimate due to his higher farming position on the team which was sensible but not as effective overall Juggernaut wasn't very popular at ti4 he was only picked for eight games total and the majority of those came from a single team but that team got a lot of unique value out of the hero and Juggernaut ended the tournament with a very respectable 75 win rate hey sorry for interrupting but I just wanted to thank you so much for watching the video if 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been up to the year following ti4 was one filled with tumultuous change DOTA as a whole started being reworked and had various new mechanics and items introduced out of the new items none had particular relevance to Juggernaut while moonshot had some late game potential it was too expensive to be bought in an average game and in theory sewage offered an upgrade option for shadowblane but at the time silvage was built using a Shadow Blade and a Sange which was an awkward combination and hence unpopular Juggernaut received various changes during this time period here's the summary his base agility was increased significantly but is agility gain and base armor with decreased to compensate for that this gave him more power early but slightly less slate blade Fury had its Mana cost reduced at higher levels which made it one of the very rare abilities with reverse Mana cost scaling which means that as the abilities leveled up its Mana cost decreases blade Fury also had its low level cooldown increased and high level cooldown decreased healing void had its Mana cost and movement speed slightly reduced blade dance was rescaled to be more powerful at lower levels this change was fairly significant as it made blade dance a very level efficient ability a 20 chance at a 200 Critical Strike is mathematically the same as the 20 damage increase to all attacks all it took to get this 20 damage boost was a single skill point which offered a lot of freedom in how to approach the character's skill build consider as well that play Dance maxed out at 35 crit chance AKA 35 damage increase which was incredibly High it may be a bit hard to conceptualize how much damage this actually was so here's the comparison a level 2 Phantom assassin ultimate only adds about 34 additional damage in short blade dance was an incredible tool for enhancing attack power finally omnislash no longer applied a minister all of these changes pushed Juggernaut even more towards his early game Power winter Bible was also released during this period and she was a significant problem for Juggernaut as the cold Embrace was capable of completely shutting down all Omni Slash damage caused SEPTA and Yules could do the same but mint surviven was exceptionally good at it because she could also protect allies instead of just herself couple died with minta wiven being a very good and popular hero and you can see why she posed the problem 6.83 and 6.84 through DOTA 4 Loop they wear the most drastic change to DOTA 2's design up to this point this new environment forced players into experimenting and relearning how to play the game as The Meta developed and we entered ti5 the most popular course became casters like Lena Les Schrock or queen of pain and physical cores with powerful spells like gyrocopter Shadow fiend and razor was important that the hero could clear out large creep stocks quickly and offered some early game fighting Power Juggernaut met both of those criteria blade Fury offered early power and could be used to clear Stacks unfortunately the three most popular picks at the international 5 were the aforementioned Lena queen of pain and gyrocopter all three of which had ultimates the Pier's spell immunity effectively negating juggernaut's early fighting Power a poor match-up spread against the most popular and Powerful Heroes usually doesn't bode well for tournament performance despite that some teams were willing to give him a try the main argument in favor of Juggernaut was that in theory he would fit into that second group of cores that I mentioned a second ago their itemization usually followed a basic pattern early survivability which practically always meant a ring of a killer and sometimes a mechanism then a mid-game start based item usually a Saints in Yasha or a manta style then a bkb and then whatever late game tool was needed depending on the specific hero they sometimes also purchased some cheap farming tool like a mask of Madness or a Helm of the Dominator these Heroes were already Dangerous by themselves because of their spells all players had to do was keep them alive and give them a bit of additional power this logic was then applied to juggernaut as a result his item build shifted away entirely from agnum's scepter instead players bought in the stat base carry star Face boots Pullman's shield and ring of oculus for the early game the neither Drums of endurance for even more early strength or Yasha into Ibis ancient Yasha or amanta Style Juggernaut synergized well with agility-based item builds as due to its low base attack time he would effectively get more attack speed out of agility than other agility Heroes from here it was Ivan eye of Scotty or a school Battleship some players would also opt for a mask of Madness along the way and one time we even saw an early battle Fury these two items in particular had some fun Peak potential of omnislash and led to what was in my mind his best performance of the tournament Juggernaut had shifted into a simple straightforward physical damage position 1 core roll his job was to get money build big items and then attack opponents during team fights until they are dead he was usually played in the safe Lane protected by supports but Juggernaut was strong in theory he didn't need that much help at least gyrocopter didn't you could leave him alone in a lane and he would do fine teams treated Juggernaut in the same way but this didn't work as expected a position one chord that is solo laning was a huge Target and Juggernaut was a melee hero he had to get close to the creeper if to last it which left him exposed his only Escape was blade Fury which blocks spells but he could just ignore that and attack him instead when Juggernaut supports were rotating around the map he would frequently have to deal with getting ganked twisting the laning dynamic in such a way that Juggernaut the aggressive carry had to build and play very defensively to stay alive in those critical moments this manifested in his skill build in a unique fashion I actually can't tell you what a skillboard was because he didn't really have one best practice was to level up whichever ability was needed in the moment have a look at the screen for a moment Yes actually look at the screen you can put me back on the other monitor or in your pocket in a minute or two Juggernog was played six times the ti5 here are all the skill builds that were used as you can see there was no real pattern to it blade Fury at level 1 was guaranteed as the magic immunity offered by it was indispensable but other than that it varied on a game by game basis players would often get early points into stats as they wear the best option for short-term survivability in a gang scenario single early points into blade dance and healing Ward were common but by no means mandatory his mid-game skill builds were just as weird with players opting for whatever they needed in that particular moment whether that be crits for farming speed heating Ward for pushing or stats for safety OK you can look away again Juggernaut did not do well at ti5 only 6 picks total and he lost 4 of those games weirdly I don't think Juggernaut was to blame for that his abilities were strong and he had a lot of potential but the specific way he was played left me with the impression that players weren't really looking to play juggernon and instead we're trying to imitate the best carry of the tournament gyrocopter the players weren't really playing towards Juggernaut strings and that left him struggling another question remains why did players shift away from agingham's scepter the item hadn't been nerfed and was still incredibly powerful ax should have been good as the game had moved away from pushing and summons you might have the same thought that I did that the new items he was using had gotten buffed but no they hadn't players just stopped buying agum scepter despite how strong it was in the past I think this was a matter of him unfortunately being pigeonholed a bit finally it didn't help that his matchups against the top heroes with solar cluster while the hero in a vacuum was strong that didn't matter if he wasn't usable against the top dogs and this was likely the main reason why he didn't see much play between the international five and six another big set of new items were added to DOTA the most important of which was iron Talon ion Talon changed how DOTA was played moving it more towards the modern individualistic style of free farming course stacking and clearing Stacks became less important as More Heroes could Farm the jungle early this in turn shifted more emphasis towards pushing out lanes and clearing creepers quickly juggernon himself received hardly any changes blade Fury had its damage slightly increased at higher levels which was nice but not particularly significant healing Ward now initially followed Juggernaut around when it was summoned this change didn't matter for competitive play as the ward was always carefully micromanaged anyways and that's it ti6 rolled around and having received only minor changes Juggernaut Rose to the top of the park and became one of the most popular and Powerful carries of the tournament he was played by a wide range of teams and saw significant success both during the group stages and the main event let's tackle the obvious question right away what changed why was he so good now while Juggernaut did get buffed that wasn't why the changes weren't significant enough for that he also wasn't using any of the new items that were added instead it was the environment of round Juggernaut that had changed to accommodate him better the most popular course the ti-6 where Mirana that Rider Faceless Void and TimberStone blade Fury allowed Juggernaut to completely Dodge anything timbersaw wanted to do to him and omnislash was one of the few abilities that could actually kill timberson also while Timber saw had his truck come out he couldn't attack which meant he couldn't deal with the healing board rider was a tremendously powerful laner except his entire strategy of spamming sticky naporm didn't work against blade Fury Faceless Void would get slapped around by Juggernaut during the laning stage because blade dance enhanced this damage output too much and omnislash was one of the few abilities that could threaten him during a chronosphere finally Mirana was the big cat of ti6 her agendum scepter was incredibly powerful and offered tremendous magic damage if Mirana connected with a long-range sacred Arrow she could easily deal 1500 boost damage to a single Target and an additional 600 to anything in a huge radius around herself her farming speed and Mobility were unmatched and she worked excellently with the top supports of the tournament Shadow Demon Elder Titan and Olga Magi all of which allowed for easy setup into her deadly combo particularly Shadow Demon was brutal as the disruption meant imminent death except Juggernaut didn't care about any of that blade Fury could be used to prevent even a perfectly timed sacred Arrow from connecting but Juggernaut did struggle a bit to deal damage to her he still played better into Mirana than most other carries at the time unlike ti5 the Juggernaut matched up poorly into the top picks at ti6 he fit perfectly but that wasn't all teams started playing Juggernaut differently than before it became a priority to make sure he had a good Lane and could Farm early if that meant going mid then he went mid if that meant the safe or the offlane then that's where he was they no longer relied on juggernaut's early power to enable their movement but instead moved to enable his power this worked much better and he pretty much always won his Lane his item and skill build changed in accordance with this new understanding of the hero Poor Man's Shield an item that provided a 100 chance to block 20 damage off every attack became the starting Choice with the team gifting Juggernaut regeneration on top of that from here it was similar to what we saw before Face boots Aquila Yasha however there was one big change battle Fury became a common pickup after the Yasha to enable his farming then he would upgrade into Manta style and buy a blink dagger bling dagger gave him even more farming speed and reintroduced that instant kill potential we saw at ti-4 Yasha battle Fury and bling dagger combined offered a crazy amount of farming prowess and that became one of his defining characteristics from here he had many options and he would choose depending on the game's circumstances the important takeaway is that Juggernaut was given his own item build an item build designed to work with his strengths his skill build also became more refined while he still had some flexibility players would usually max out blade Fury as quickly as possible and invest single value points into heating Ward and blade dams from here they would again decide based on the game whether they wanted to level up healing mode blade dance or stats omnislash was of course always maxed out as quickly as possible this became a standard skill build going forward so I won't keep bringing it up Juggernaut had really grown into his own and became a clear centerpiece of the tournament but he wasn't the highest DPS carry his unique defensive profile was very valuable and offered important reliability I also don't want to undersell his damage blade dance was an incredible ability an omnislash could still cleanly One-Shot even multiple Heroes as Heroes rise in popularity their counters also become more prominent Juggernaut himself was benefiting from this but counters to him also existed Sven in particular posed a huge issue as warcry not only protected sven's team from physical damage making omnislash ineffective but Sven also did enough damage himself to cleanly kill Juggernaut during blade Fury however those counters weren't chosen frequently enough to deter teams from picking juggernaut in conclusion Juggernaut was excellent at the international six he was picked and found 37 times making him the 11th most popular hero not only did he match up well into the heroes above him but teams that refined his skill and item build into a unique style that was effective against most of the cast shortly after the international six concluded Juggernaut received two Nerfs his base damage was reduced by two and healing mode had its Mana Costa increased while the damage reduction of only two points may not seem like much juggernon already didn't have great starting damage so this changed stung quite a bit then 7.0 was released and brought the talent tree to DotA 2. Juggernaut was one of the beneficiaries of the first batch of Talons but his weren't the best in the game they were more than solid and most importantly they provided exactly what he needed survivability and or physical damage this resulted in Juggernaut receiving additional nurse healing Ward now had a 75 Gordon experience Bounty which was a genuinely huge amount and he lost 5 movement speed I do want to stress here that 75 golden experience for a Summoner comes out every fight and dies in a single hit is absolutely devastating and made the ability way more difficult to use before Juggernaut would frequently slam the void down have it die immediately but still benefit from the overall linger and that was a fine outcome but now healing watch should only be cast when necessary unfortunately Juggernaut came into ti7 in an overall worst position than he was before his playstyle didn't change from the previous tournament he was still the aggressive position on Kerry who could enable early pushes that he had been juggernaut's skill build remained the same although his items slightly changed moving away from Battle Fury and instead frequently incorporating a diffuser Blade the fuser blade offered a significant agility bonus and recently had its mana burn buffed to 50 per attack which was a significant amount it synergized nicely with Juggernaut as he could still utilize the mana burn while attacking during blade Fury and omnislash unfortunately the environment of the tournament had changed into an unfavorable Direction the best picks Were Heroes with powerful disables like urshaker sanking and Puck while juggernaut's inbuilt magic immunity allowed him to perform reasonably well against those he didn't offer any lockdown himself the diffuser blade was an attempt to remedy that but it wasn't enough to make up for Juggernaut not having an inbuilt stun or slow some of juggernaut's old worst enemies had returned as well liking and Sven were Center Stage picks we already talked about by Sven was a nightmare for Juggernaut like him post similar issues but he was even more problematic his summons easily absorbed omnislash and his ultimate combined with an economicon free offered way more damage than was needed to overwhelm Juggernaut whether he was using blade Fury or not not only had Juggernog been nerfed but the environment of the tournament was strongly hostile towards them and so he only saw scattered use surprisingly one of those picks came in the last game of the grand finals by Team Liquid they used them as the safe Lane carry designed to burst down the long-term fight-orientated course from newbie death profit and venomancer this worked reasonably well but he still struggled with the overwhelming quantity of disable from the radiant side the game eventually entered an anxiety-inducing stalemate in the mid lane that lasted multiple minutes to break it liquid took a huge risk and used Juggernaut as bait double damage miracles foreign [Applause] despite ending on an exhilarating high note the international 7 was a step back for Juggernaut he was picked 12 times winning five of those games while this placed him comfortably in the middle of the pack it was the Far Cry from the top pick he had previously been it's unlikely that the corporate here where the nurse he received Juggernaut was a simple hero that played a simple role he was good at what he did but his power was less important than his environment and at this moment the environment wasn't in his favor 7.07 was released in late 2017 and with it came a change the devastated Juggernaut solo laning capabilities Poor Man's Shield was removed from the game this directly impacted his ability to be aggressive during the laning stage blade Fury was the powerful ability it protected from Magic and did huge amounts of damage however to deal damage blade Fury required Juggernaut to get close to his opponents and this gave them plenty of opportunity to Simply attack him while this may sound silly it's still to this day one of the best ways of dealing with Juggernaut blade Fury was unlikely to kill her on its own and 5 Seconds of attacking from multiple Heroes hurts poor Manchester protected Juggernaut during that period and its removal significantly reduced his laning potential Juggernaut also received some direct changes his talents were reworked a bit and we're still fairly good blade Fury now no longer science them which allowed healing War to be cast while spinning this made it much easier to find a good moment to start regenerating health blade Fury also had its damage buffed and finally his base armor was increased by one unfortunately a huge hit came to blade dance its Critical Strike damage was decreased from 200 percent to 180 percent this was a significant Nerf although a deserved one setting aside whether or not Juggernaut as a whole was overpowered blade dance definitely was it was much stronger than other similar abilities and required a smaller investment to be powerful overall Juggernaut was left in an even worse spot than he had been at ti7 that's not the lady unfortunate truth the international Aid was an absolute disaster for Juggernaut he only saw play in two games and lost both in them he was played in exactly the same style and with the same item and skill build that we had seen before so what went wrong why was he bad the problem was again his environment if we go through the topics of the international Aid we find it absolutely stacked with Heroes that could easily deal with Juggernaut mange4 Spirit swapped his Omni Target to safety tiny tanked all of his damage Mirana leaped away Rave King didn't mind dying to his ultimate the Weaver ran away invisibly or time-lapse the damage necrophos became a feral winter violin protected whoever he was attacking Ursa absorbed the slashes within rage and Phantom Lancer created an army that he couldn't deal with a more hostile field could hardly have existed the rest of the meta game had shifted as well rigid door lanes were grasping The Meta which made it difficult to do the open map movements we saw at ti6 to enable Juggernaut farming in late game potential also became more and more important as additional resources became available on the map without battle Fury Juggernaut was a mid-tier speed farmer blade Fury Clear Creek base quickly but it wasn't particularly effective against jungle camps and juggernauts struggled even more when killing large ancient stocks that's why he would often buy a farming item although that delayed has fighting potential such a delay would have been fine for another hero but Juggernaut didn't have the same late game power as other carries blade Fury was strong early but almost became a liability in the later stages so much so the Juggernaut would frequently find himself buying bkb anyway omnislash had some scaling but also a large portion of its damage was set physical damage which meant it would fall off significantly towards the later stages of the game seeing as Juggernaut had firmly settled into his role as the main carry this was a major issue that he couldn't overcome on his own valve also observed this development and they decided it was time to rework omnislash at its core the abilities stayed the same but the old system of slashes and attacks was replaced with a much simpler and more intuitive implementation the new omnislash had a set duration during which Juggernaut attacked his targets with increased attack speed and damage he would still bounce between nearby enemies and it still made him invincible on a surface level it was the same ability but it was weaker early and way more powerful late because it uses actual attacks as a basis for its damage Juggernog could scale into the late game now omnislash was a genuinely devastating ability his agendum scepter also stayed effectively the same now increasing omnislash's duration instead of Slash count the patches that followed were all about nerfing Juggernaut omnislash was tuned down a lot from its initial implementation healing Ward had its movement speed decreased and blade Fury saw a reduction in its damage independent from that one of his favorite items ring of Aquila was removed from the game it wasn't all bad though Juggernaut had his base agility drastically increased although his damage and armor were reduced to make up for that he was still left with more attack speed than before which worked especially well with his new Ultimate up to this point Juggernaut had always been an early to mid-game carry the longer a game would go the weaker he became when compared to other similar Heroes which is why he was initially used in a pushing centered playstyle his new Ultimate changed his Dynamic entirely but he was still strong during the laning stage and was happy to participate in early pushes he now had a mid-game drop where blade Fury wasn't effective anymore an Omni Slash wasn't online yet because he didn't have enough items in turn he gained significant late game Power this trade-off made sense as the pushing strategies we saw in the early years had died off at this point of doda's development buildings no longer had the monetary reward that they used to have and instead gold was primarily earned through map control and farming after his rework Juggernaut fit better into this environment as he could cut through anything with omnislash as long as he had a net worth lead this actually changed some of the hero Dynamics we had seen before Sven used to be a counter to Juggernaut as warcry mitigated omnislash however the new omnislash often didn't care and quickly sliced through it for the early game Juggernaut had blade Fury which Sven didn't want to deal with a mid game which is when Sven would usually overwhelm him Juggernaut didn't want to fight anymore and instead focused on farming as a result Juggernaut came to be considered a counter to swim which was incredibly convenient as Sven was a strong pick at ti9 another top carried that Juggernaut dealt well with was life stealer light Steeler also had inbuilt magic immunity which he relied on to be a merciless brawler in fights he was all about closing distance then sticking to his Target while he punches them in the face and heals himself with his life stealing abilities fortunately Juggernaut didn't care about any of that not only did Omni Slash bypass magic immunity it also turned Juggernaut Invincible which meant that light Stiller couldn't attack him to heal himself however I don't want to oversell Juggernaut omnislash was powerful yes but only if he had enough items to enable it Juggernaut usually had to have a lead to be able to kill the opposing carry he didn't have the tools to play from a losing position as omnislash wouldn't do enough and all of his other abilities were easily dealt with luckily he had the abilities needed to build momentum early momentum that he needed to maintain this Reliance on omnislash also manifested in other late game scenarios DOTA as a whole had continued to morph towards farming the backpack and the TP scroll inventory slot increased the potential of all heroes but late game carries benefited the most as Heroes became more powerful with more money available buyback became a fixture of games it was no longer enough to kill the enemy team once you had to do it twice Juggernaut wasn't good at that omnislash was incredibly powerful but once it was used it wasn't cooldown for a long time and without it Juggernaut wasn't as strong as other late Game Heroes he simply couldn't do enough damage his problems didn't stop there aeon disc which was a near perfect counter to omnislash had gotten buffed and became a frequent item choice on a wide range of Heroes additionally ti-9 was haunted by aggressive cores that would overwhelm Juggernaut before he could make it to the late game particularly enchantress was an insurmountable problem Juggernaut had no way to kill her during the laning stage an impetus cleanly dispatched of him even through blade Fury the international nine was give and take for Juggernaut resulting in average pick rates he must never topic nor an off net a surprise it was the niche Choice with a specific use the teams that opted for him would usually pair him with a buffing hero to reinforce his lackluster mid-game capabilities and speed up his bombing Magnus was the Premier Choice but oga Magi or leach were also options Empower in particular was fantastic as it amounted to a free battle Fury speeding up his farming and offering significant fighting potential and power also synergized with juggernaut's item build as it enhanced base damage and Juggernaut still builds very stat heavy Manta star was the standard First Choice then the fuser blade was common or straight into ioscardi when an additional farming item was needed Maelstrom and mjolnir became the items of choice butterfly abyssalblade and Monkey King bar rounded out his item sets some players explored refresher orb as the late game option which would let him perform better when going up against spyberg but unfortunately it resorted in a lack of damage and hence wasn't popular at the international nine Juggernaut saw play across 18 games out of which he only won six three of those victories came from tournament champions OG who always pay a juggernaut with a buffer and made sure to give him lots of space by creating absolute Mayhem on the rest of the map let's have a look at one of those games in detail as they showed well what Juggernaut was capable of and how he had changed over the years OG Lanes Honor on Juggernaut in a strong safe Lane actively protected by grimstroke Ana's early game is fairly uneventful as he focuses on farming in the meantime Monkey King is having the time of his life in the mid lane getting multiple kills and winning the lasted War this forces newbie to rotate Heroes into the mid to salvage the lane as enchantress approaches level 6 Anna first moves into the jungle then moves bottom to help Magnus push down the Tier 1 Tower this opens up the bottom side of the map and Juggernaut immediately uses this as a farming space his creep clearing is greatly enhanced by Empower which both Magnus and Juggernaut take care to ensure is active as often as possible as the radiance starts applying more pressure Anna is entirely focused on staying away from the action and keeping the farming going Juggernaut is not a hero that should be approached alone any gank efforts require a team seren realizes this as he always steps and gets quickly cut down by Omni Slash and blade Fury the game is centered on the top and the mid lane as Newby desperately attempts to break the mid-tier 1. however OG invests significant effort into keeping the tower alive this is of no concern to Anna who is the sole occupant of the bottom half of the map he only involves himself with his team to reapply and Power Juggernaut quickly finishes Yasha Defuse The Blade and Sage by 19 minutes he is Comfortably leading the net worth of charts and even starts fighting here and there however the first encounter he involves himself in still ends on a dicey note who is forced to spin and TP out don't think he went back to the base Juggernaut never has to go back to the base a quick healing board and he's good to go again lands a beautiful ultimate to secure three kills for OG and then it's time for Roshan the radiant challenges the attempt but gets run over as Anna leads a violent charge into their team after finishing Roshan OG ramps up a push in the bottom Lane the fight starts out in a diet's favor but they are unable to deal the damage needed to break through newbie's defenses the uncontrollable nature of omnislash doesn't work out for OG as the ability bounces to the side and kills ushaker instead of one of the cores without it Juggernaut doesn't do enough damage to take Sven down quickly OG Retreats and goes back to farming Juggernaut finishes up his eye of Scotty shortly after another fight Bruce dream protectors caught in the radiance jungle and both teams take the challenge Juggernaut Omni slashes enchantress however she quickly uses yours on herself and the ultimate ghost wasted undeterred Anna runs at anyone he can see and swings at them newbie responds with a beautiful earthshaker Sven combo play but due to the Tanki item Builds on OG's side it doesn't take them very far Juggernaut and Monkey King then chase down the stragulus ending the fight in a dominant fashion at the end of it only three dire Heroes remain alive and all of them on no Health they are forced to retreat as Amber spirit is forming the bottom Lane he is caught by juggernaut however by himself Anna can't do much and tries to disengage newbie moves in and this is the opportunity they trapped juggernaut with a fissure Anna quickly spins and places a healing Ward out of vision and out of range newbie sees how quickly Juggernaut is healing and that backup is coming and they are forced to flee Juggernog never has to miss a beat and within seconds he's back to full health OG takes a moment to regroup finishes up the butterfly on Juggernaut and takes the next Roshan then the time to push bottom has come sep isolates men who is quickly chopped to Pieces then Anna makes sure his team stays alive while they break down the bottom and meet Barracks newbie tries their best and takes one final foreign foreign managed to build a lead and maintained it and then used it to crush anyone who crossed this path while impressive this was only possible because OG bought him the time needed to farm up OG clearly had faith in the hero as they even used him during the main event like in the game we just saw they won all of their games while playing Juggernaut so the problem wasn't that Juggernaut was bad but more that he was hard to use and difficult to find an opportunity for other teams also weren't stupid and they knew to play aggressively when going up against him when Juggernaut managed to build a lead he could easily run away with the game as he annihilated anyone he came across but when he fell behind he wasn't very effective and didn't have good tools to bounce back nonetheless ti9 was definitely a step up from what we had seen before 18 picks 13 bands and almost 16 contest rate by no means a bad performance ti-10 was postponed for a year this gives us a two-year period of changes a very busy two-year period along the way Juggernaut received a multitude of Buffs at level 20 he gained a plus 160 blade Fury damage Talent a genuinely insane amount which made the ability hit for 1600 damage total his base attributes were also improved gaining more native movement speed attack speed and attack damage omnislash was buffed to provide bonus attack speed as well and its Arginine scepter effect was reworked now Juggernaut gained a new ability after buying aganim scepter Swift slash Swift slash was a smaller version of omnislash it worked exactly the same and shared all of its effects but it had a much shorter duration and cooldown Swift slash offered Juggernaut a way to use his ultimate for a burst of damage as a gap closer or for a moment of invulnerability without needing to commit his actual ultimate and its lengthy cooldown in late 2020 7.28 was released and with it came Swift blink and agonim's shard Swift blink was a blessing Juggernaut had always liked blink dagger but unfortunately it was an item that did nothing for his physical damage output which made it difficult to fit as that element of the hero became more important swiftling fixed that he could now buy a blink dagger and then eventually upgrade it into an incredibly powerful late-game agility item juggernaut's Agnes chart was also quite powerful and quickly became a popular choice it enhanced blade Fury increasing juggernaut's movement speed while spinning and having him attack a random nearby enemy once every second for full attack damage one of the major issues Juggernaut had always faced was that eventually there would come a point in each game where blade Fury did less damage than his normal attacks but he still needed to use it for the magic immunity usually at that stage blade Furious damage had fallen off as well which left Juggernaut spinning while not actually doing that much even worse he would leave himself exposed to being attacked this sometimes even resulted in Juggernaut buying bkb despite having inbuilt magic immunity because pkb didn't have those downsides this new organum Shard especially when combined with his level 20 Talent significantly addressed that issue while one attack per second was less than Juggernaut would normally be able to do it was by no means a slow attack rate blade Fury was no longer a liability past the laning stage and instead had become a genuine threat even in the late stages of a match this effect was so strong it even received a massive Nerf reducing the damage of attack stun during blade Fury by 25 percent overall this period was very beneficial for Juggernaut and he received many significant Buffs however the biggest changes during this era didn't come to Juggernaut directly but instead to the game as a whole first buildings had their bounties reduced even further than they had before this made the old sieging style of pushing a relic of the past as it wasn't worth the effort anymore second Roshan now dropped agnem's Shard on the second kill while Towers became worth less money Roshan became worth significantly more these changes manifested in a strict metagame for the international 10 and onwards at ti-10 juggernaut's playstyle remained mostly the same as we had seen before he was still a position One Core that played strongest from a lead and he was still bestest friends with Magnus one change was the emergence of a new item build that attempted to give Juggernaut the early fighting Power he needed to contest in the modern era Echo saber into maelstrom Echo Sable provided some nice early starts in Mana regeneration along with a helpful slowing effect that synergized metal of Blade Fury as it could be triggered during the spin even without the argonom's shard Maelstrom then offered farming speed and a nice late game upgrade path from here Juggernaut settled back into the stat-based item build that everyone was going for although saying Shin Yasha had gotten more popular than Manta Star as it had received various bars over the years that simply made it a more consistent item specifically it had recently gained status resistance as well as health regeneration and lifesteal amplification both of which were fantastic qualities for any hero to have but were particularly nice on juggernon as he had access to a significant amount of Health regeneration due to Healing wart on the flip side of this healing reduction had also become a much more easily attained ability as iOS cardi and Chivas God offered it since 7.26 and 7.27 respectively my Juggernaut definitely enjoyed using the buffed eye of Scotty so did other Heroes and YouTube's ubiquity healing Ward lost a substantial amount of power agendam's Shard was also a frequent choice although at the time it could only be purchased after 20 minutes game time which gave it a slightly awkward timing that made it difficult to fit that's because the international 10 was centered around very specific timing plays first it was important to destroy the opposing offlane Tower quickly to open up the triangle area as the farming space this should happen at around 10 minutes into the game at the latest then teams farmed 4-bit until it was time for Roshan Roshan attempts would happen anywhere from between 12 to 18 minutes game time but earlier was better afterwards the game settled into farming again with both teams contesting over the available space on the map until Roshan respawned 8 to 11 minutes later at which point the first crucial fight of the game happened the second Roshan kill was incredibly valuable and would always be heavily contested these rashan timings were miserable for Juggernaut but he could assist nicely in the early Tower Porsche the first Roshan fight came slightly too late for blade Fury to still be powerful but too early for him to have enough items to be strong and while it was possible for him to have farmed Enough by the second Roshan fight his opponents would play around that and apply pressure to make sure that he didn't weirdly the old omnislash would have been better here still even the old ultimate wouldn't have addressed the other issue a prevalence of Roshan fights meant that Juggernaut had to either deal with or use an address of the immortal and he wasn't really good at both his dependence on omnislash came to bite him again in the same way he struggled against baibag he struggled against orbif ajis worse than done sometimes even hard to deal with payback and urges which he simply couldn't do that's not to say there was no merit to Juggernaut at all he was excellent against certain portions of the meta in particular he was strong against a lot of the popular support choices like disruptor of Phoenix however he unfortunately struggled against the strong course of the tournament like tiny and Mars who could tank his damage or storm Spirit who easily slipped away from him overall The Meta game wasn't in his favor Juggernaut was again a middle of the park hero he saw playing eight games with a 50 win rate however this makes his performance sound worse than it actually was as he was banned 19 times these bands came from teams that either were using the aforementioned supports or we are going up against Magnus Magnus was one of the top picks of ti-10 a Magnus Juggernaut was a well-respected hero combination as with Empower Juggernaut could quickly out Farm anyone and keep up the necessary Temple to engage in the aforementioned Roshan fights even if that's not how the game played out a nicely placed reverse polarity into an empowered omnislash was a terrifying proposition and so it made sense to take Juggernaut out of the hero pool unfortunately that poses a new question did this mean that Juggernaut was good or Magnus 2022 brought only a few changes to Juggernaut he could now get plus one second blade Fury duration at level 15 an agendum's Shard had its purchase timing change to be available at 15 minutes these changes made Juggernaut a very popular core for a good few months during which he played mostly centered entirely around blade Fury unfortunately this resulted in nurse shortly before TI 11. his movement speed Shard bonus movement speed and healing Ward radius all were reduced [Music] heading into the international 11 the general game plan remained the same as the ti-10 it was mostly the cast of popular Heroes that changed the two new Heroes marzy and Primal Beast dominated the field they saw a huge amount of play and were used by every team both of them were tanky strength Heroes that didn't mind brawling and specialized in locking an opponent down in other words they destroyed juggernaut however it wasn't just them tiny and undying also held a firm grip on the meta and Patch had risen from obscurity into a top pick that dominated juggernaut due to a series of nurse Magnus had fallen from grace and without his assistance Juggernaut was not able to compete in this new environment he only saw play in three games did horribly in all of them and ended the tournament with a 0 win rate itemized we were back to Manchester but it didn't really matter as they never got to play properly ti-11 was an absolute disaster for Juggernaut as he was pushed out by newer more powerful Heroes and a meta game that didn't let him play to his strengths Juggernaut has always been a hero with curious abilities that pulled from different ideas he started his journey in Dota 2 as a tanky Pusher held his own as an aggressive trilene core dig briefly into being a support and then finally dug his heels into being a main carry on his travels he was mostly defined by his surroundings but his abilities were always strong their specificity meant that he needed the right circumstances to thrive those finally showed themselves at the international six where he took center stage and performed excellently but DOTA continued changing over the years the idea of sieging a base or slowly pushing a lane became a distant memory and a part of Juggernaut faded away Roshan became the most important element a newer faster Heroes took over the game Juggernaut was slowly exiled as half his tour kids supported an outdated playstyle and the other half wasn't enough to compete I believe he now sits at a crossroad between an off laner and a carry it could be a worthwhile idea to explore the old Juggernaut ultimate and see if elements of it might not find a space in the modern implementation returned to him the early power that he used to have and he might find himself as the formidable position free as is his future doesn't look bright and even his past wasn't as glorious as I think many of us expected across Dota 2 history Juggernaut was by no means a bad hero but unfortunately he also wasn't particularly good but don't despair Juggernaut fans for nobody knows what surprises remain hidden underneath that mask don't you know who the [ __ ] I am [Music] foreign I hope you guys enjoyed it we certainly enjoyed making it honestly working on this channel is a very um exciting experience because we get to dig really deep into the history of DOTA and there's so many weird quirky things there honestly wait until next month wait until the i o video they've got a little treat for you there in terms of quirkiness but anyway I honestly couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that the primary way to play Juggernaut at ti4 was support Juggernaut legitimate it's crazy go watch those games they're actually pretty fun but yeah anyway some special thanks of course as per usual I want to give big thanks to hawast for joining us for an interview that's fantastic I very much appreciate that if you're interested in seeing the full interview you can do so by becoming a channel member here then I want to give a big thanks to metaphy if you go to metaphy.gg balmy you can get yourself India and watch the videos over there as well and if you watch them over there you also don't get interruptions like this so yeah is that something you prefer they're all on metaphy you can go into DOTA category and search onto documentaries which is currently only us there's not that many dollar documentaries a shame because there's so much cool stuff but anyway setting down is like um but yeah I hope you guys enjoyed it next month we have the i o video coming which is of course a very big one it's like two hours long now um I want to be clear here that going forward there's gonna be one video a month on the First first day of each month that's when we are uploading and we uploaded a bit more frequently at the start here because we wanted to make sure there's some content on the channel but these videos take a very long time to make so now it's gonna be a little bit slower but don't disappear what that means is that we are able to sustain this channel right like we are working at a slower Pace because that means that we're able to just you know focus on making the videos really really good but also have a sustainable schedule that we will be able to stick to in the long run uh so you know that's really important anyway I hope you guys enjoyed it and I'll see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Stories of Dota

Views: 216,970

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Id: n_hvNkNSPZE

Length: 83min 38sec (5018 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2023