The International 2025: Most effective off-meta builds

At The International 2025 (TI14), teams let everyone know their vision of the meta in Dota 2’s biggest annual tournament. Overall, the meta was quite diverse, and many of the 126 heroes received representation. 

Teams weren’t only racing to fight for the best heroes of the match; they made sure to showcase comfort picks and weaponise off-meta builds to break expectations. In this piece, find out about the effective curveballs teams used to catch opponents off guard.

Before we spotlight some of the off-meta builds seen in TI14, let’s take a look at the meta heroes of the event to establish a baseline and set expectations.

Naga Siren was the most contested hero of TI14 with a 96% contest rate. Yet, she was only seen in 10 games, as she was banned 128 times throughout the tournament. This was a common trend for the last few tournaments, as no team has found a good answer for her to let her through the drafting phase, and they’re practically forced to pick her first when she’s available.

Naga Siren’s ultimate has the powerful ability to stop a teamfight dead in its tracks, letting her team retreat and reset. There’s nothing better in coordinated play than one hero letting them completely save a lost fight. Beyond that, her catch, vision, and harass are great too.

Beastmaster joined as the other hero with the highest contest rate at 94%. He was banned from 114 games but was able to find himself in 22 matches. Whenever there’s a zoo meta, Beastmaster was always at the centre of it, buffing up the empowered summons. The prevalence of Helm of the Dominator made him a top for that exact reason.

Earthshaker (86%) and Marci (81%) are highly contested heroes in TI14. Earthshaker became the fourth most-picked hero in the tournament because of his synergy with the Kaya item that gave him a huge burst on his combo. While he was mostly seen playing from mid in the tournament, he could also flex into the offlane or support.

After them, there were four heroes with a 70% contest rate: Nature’s Prophet, Monkey King, Lycan, and Puck. The first two are top-tier carries that can flex into other roles, Lycan can substitute for Beastmaster, and Puck is just an overall good midlaner who’s difficult to pin down.

Supports made up most of the frequently picked heroes in TI14. Disruptor had the highest pick rate in the tournament, present in 53 games with a 45% win rate. His ability to recall enemy heroes while keeping them locked down is invaluable in a meta with high mobility heroes like Puck, Queen of Pain, and Ursa.

Snapfire, Bane, Pugna, and Hoodwink were other supports who were commonly seen at TI14. Sand King was one of the most sought-after heroes due to his high amount of magic damage and reliable initiation, similar to Mars, another common hero.

Compared to previous TIs, there were no problematic heroes that defined the tournament. There was a diverse spread for hero representation, and specialists, or players with signature heroes, were still able to bring world-class performance.

Now, it’s time to look at some of the matches in which teams used a niche pick to win the game.

PARIVISION’s opening match in the tournament was against HEROIC in the group stages. In the team’s first game, star carry Satanic brought a position 1 Tinker for their last pick. Tinker was surprisingly effective against HEROIC’s physical damage-heavy line-up of Monkey King, Slardar, and Bristleback. 

The constant blinds and shields set up its midlaner, Puck, for success, who was free to rain down right-clicks in their hour-long game. HEROIC came close to finishing the game, but it couldn’t do much against Tinker, who was shooting spells at the precipice of teamfights.

Tundra Esports displayed a cheesy zoo comp on its opening match as well against Yakutou Brothers, where all three cores bought Helm of the Dominator. Falcess Void and Lycan were expected, but Invoker buying that item instead of Hand of Midas was a novel idea. 

But Invoker also bought Drum of Endurance and focused on Forge Spirits, making it known that he can fit into this zoo strategy. The sheer amount of empowered units overwhelmed Yakutou Brothers, ending the game in just 34 minutes.

Wildcard brought out a carry Tidehunter against Team Nemesis in their first game. While carry Tidehunter is a known off-meta pick, the team went further away from that by building him with Radiance, Blink Dagger, and traditional tank items. They banked all their chips on Queen of Pain to carry them to victory, and all their carry Tidehunter did was focus on jumping the backline.

Nigma Galaxy was successful with mid Muerta, largely due to SumaiL’s individual skills. The team’s vision with Muerta also bought into the Helm of the Dominator hype, then bought an item like Witchblade to supplement her magic damage. SumaiL would also purchase Hurricane Pike on her for stats and survivability, then Aghanim’s Scepter for even more power on her first ability.

Nigma would also pair this with Clockwerk to have consistent Dead Shots, since the ability can ricochet off the cogs. Additionally, SumaiL brought out a mid Nature’s Prophet that was active early and kept a good tempo for the team, but ultimately lost the game.

In the lower bracket of the playoffs, Tundra and HEROIC both brought out alternative carries for their draft. Tundra let Crystallis run his carry Underlord that rushes Mask of Madness and Echo Sabre, while HEROIC ran a carry Pudge. It was amazing how HEROIC’s draft worked out for them, as they lacked damage but made up for it with saves, letting 4nalog’s Broodmother clean up fights.

When we’re talking about unpredictable picks, PARIVISION’s 9class has always been the person who mixed weird picks with a unique playstyle. In TI14, 9class used Monkey King support but supplemented it with Helm of the Dominator, preferring the summoner unit. With Monkey King in the trees and summoned skeletons running around blocking camps, the team had its opponents locked down and ambushed them at every opportunity.

He also exhibited his signature support Slark, which was solely responsible for denying as much vision from the enemy team. There was even a moment where he stole the Aegis away from Xtreme Gaming because he isn’t afraid to walk into the middle of the fight. 

But his most impactful off-meta pick was also against Xtreme Gaming, but this time in the semi-finals. In the first game, 9class played a support Void Spirit that was constantly looking for picks throughout. He did an outstanding job keeping Phantom Lancer and Shadow Fiend controlled for his team to follow through.

Saving the best for last, the Falcons’ last pick offlane Ursa on game four of the grand finals was simply genius.

XG won during the draft, and it looked like the team would close out the series. They banned heroes that could prove problematic to its strength-heavy line-up, like Timbersaw and Huskar. Left with no decent options, Falcons went ahead and took offlane Ursa to shut them out.

The offlane Ursa wasn’t present for most fights as they were actively avoiding it, yet Falcons could still hold its own, giving the greedy offlaner all the space in the world to free farm. When he finally came online, there was nothing XG could do to stop them.

Despite this working flawlessly in this game, please don’t actually blind pick Ursa in the offlane, as he needs a lot of gold and items before he can contribute, unlike traditional position 3s.

Teams always save their best strats for The International, so what you think might happen based on the meta doesn’t always end up that way. Underrated heroes who received no significant changes are suddenly popular, niche items that were left in the dust are now bought on every line-up, and oddities can come out of nowhere to become lynchpins.

For fans and audiences, an off-meta pick working well is always memorable and makes for great entertainment. But as players, the wave of copycats will create some miserable pubs for some time.