It is called matchmaking rating for a reason. In order to rank up, you have to become like them, one of them. Gaining MMR is not about working hard until you get there. It’s about improving enough, and getting better in every way imaginable, until you deserve to climb.

You think you will just play HARD and win several times in a row and then end up climbing MMR and ranking up. 

Might work for a few games, but will not get you higher than two stars at most. 

Here’s why. 

The algorithm doesn’t want you to climb. 

NOT BECAUSE THE ALGORITHM IS RIGGED. 

But because the algorithm exists to protect people at the top from getting people who don’t belong there to the Best of its ability. 

Think low MMR people complain about smurfs, and high immortal people complain about account buyers. 

Account buyers are simply people who suck, and who don’t belong there, regardless of whether or not they “bought” their account. 

It is a word used by gamers to mean hard noob in my games. How come he is here, he is so bad he must be an account buyer. That’s why valve doesn’t ban them, because there’s no penalty for being bad or hard noob. 

They just send them to where they belong, through mandated losing streaks.

Mandated losing streaks exist to create a barrier between you and any high MMR bracket that you don’t belong to. The further away you are from that bracket in terms of skill, competence, abilities, performance, capabilities, knowledge, speed, and capacity to win games, the longer the losing streaks will be, in order to make sure you never end up getting there by accident.

The matchmaking system exists in order to place you where you belong. 

With people of “similar skill”. 

It is not something that you earn through hard work like a salary or something. 

That’s why you try hard for years to gain MMR, but you’re still stuck in your bracket despite doing everything right. 

You don’t deserve a rank, just because you won a bunch of games in a row. 

You must understand that ranks in DotA and MMR are not things that exist in vacuum. They are not absolute. 

They are all about how good you are in relation to or relative to the rest of humanity playing DotA. 

As in how you compare, to the rest of us. To every single player who ever existed. 

You think that if you win a thousand games in a row in Herald playing only against heralds that you deserve 20k MMR because of that. 

This is how you view MMR. Something like a win percentage. 

But if you take a look at yourself, you are still a herald. Just a herald who won too many times in a row, but still a true herald. 

Why? I’m not trying to discourage you. Compared to Crusaders for example, you are horrible. So the matchmaking system WILL MOVE MOUNTAINS trying to make you never touch Crusader your whole life. Because you don’t belong there. Period. 

That’s why you get an endless losing streak AFTER the winning streak RIGHT BEFORE YOU HIT THE NEW RANK. Right when you are 90 percent away from the next rank. 

The losing streak begins. It is not random. And it is not because of forced 50. 

It is to prevent you from winning a couple more games and then calibrating somewhere higher where you don’t belong. You are not a Crusader. If the unwinnable mandated losing streak games never happened, YOU WILL EVENTUALLY BRUTE FORCE YOUR WAY TO CRUSADER AND SUCCESSFULLY RANK UP. But you are not good enough to be a Crusader. 

To prevent that atrocity from happening, the system takes action and gives you a series of UNWINNABLE GAMES in a row until you end up TOO far away from Crusader to an extent that there’s no chance you can randomly hit Crusader again despite not having what it takes to be a Crusader. 

Winning is not the way to rank up. 

By changing nothing, nothing changes. 

You must understand that the mandated losing streaks will NEVER happen to a high immortal smurf in your bracket, because the system has ALREADY detected that they belong to high immortal. To 12k plus MMR or Rank 500 plus or whatever. From how they play. From what they overcome in games. From who they face and stomp against DESPITE having bad support and bad teammates. From the data and the statistics of everything that takes place in your games. Just like a human being looks at you and says you’re 2k MMR not 9k, the algorithm does the same. It knows you won, but it also knows that you are identical to the average good 2k player, not 9k. There’s nothing in common between you and 9k people. 

I personally tested this. I played like TI players would play in my situation. I won TEN games in a row. That’s a hundred percent win rate, out of ten games, and I’m not smurfing. Each game wasn’t randomly won. It was a one sided stomp 1 v 9 because I played well. Every single one of them. Regardless of teammates. I didn’t get passive wins, I didn’t get smurfs on my side, nothing. All the unwinnable games that I would’ve easily lost in the past, I won them, because I played identical to TI players in every way, but with my own builds and approach to ending games. There’s not a single game that I played like this since then that I have lost, even when I’m tired and underslept. 

Conclusion: the algorithm looks at you, and sees who are you the most close to in terms of everything, and then does one thing. Does not give you unwinnable games throughout your climb. Which makes your climb to wherever you truly belong, inevitable. Just a matter of time. 

What you need to do? 

Improve, and then show the algorithm the new version of you. Play better. Don’t try to win despite being bad. The algorithm has to “see”, that you really have improved. That you really are better now, and you deserve to climb. 

Focus on becoming the best version of yourself humanly possible. Reach your full and highest potential humanly possible first. Learn everything, complete your training. Become all-knowing, and all-powerful first. Improve until you become too good to be held back by any rigged system, or unfairness of any sort. Focus on the constant and never-ending improvement and growth of yourself. It will always be worth it, and it will always be the most important thing ever. It is all about what you are and what you’re capable of, with disregard to your performance, or what you do. Who you are, what you’re capable of, your abilities, and your full potential is all that matters, and is all there is.

It will always pay off. 

When it comes to DotA 2, you are focused on the wrong thing. Which is gaining MMR in order to get higher quality games with less hard noobs that you lose the game always because of.

So you grind hard trying to gain MMR just to get out of the trench, not to become better as a person, or as a player. Nothing within you or about you has changed.

I can’t help but notice that WHENEVER the system gives me easy people on both sides, I ALWAYS feed hard and it becomes 40/0/96 KDA, and win, get the MVP, and get a Rampage. 

Hard or unbalanced games are just pure labor and work. You may win them against all odds, but if you lose them, it doesn’t matter. Winning these games will not make you BETTER AT THE GAME. 

If you ONLY focus on being unreal at the game, unstoppable in every way, IT WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER than focusing on winning BECAUSE I NEED THE MMR TO CLIMB IN ORDER TO GET BETTER GAMES. 

I, made the mistake in the past of believing that since there’s nothing I can do to win unwinnable games, it is pointless to improve. I was wrong. I’m noticing all the stuff that I improved upon now ALWAYS pays off the second I get 9 people who ACTUALLY belong to low MMR (not low immortals and beyond, which is rare). 

But these games exist. AND YOU WILL ENJOY THEM. 

Look how easy this is! ~ Zquixotix, to me 

Make sure to practice the thing until it becomes natural to you it can always be done even under stress and tilt and survival mode. 

It is not that winning those easy or balanced games will make you gain MMR. 

It’s that these games are THAT easy for you now, because of how far you’ve come in your training! How much you’ve improved compared to last year! 

In the past YOU STILL LOST A TON OF THOSE EASY GAMES BECAUSE OF BAD TEAMMATES. And it was entirely their fault. 

But now, you stomp them, because your skills are complete. 

Indeed, you are powerful as the emperor has foreseen. 

The question becomes, how far can I go? What does the full version of my full potential look like? If I thought I peaked last year, and that turns out to be a good herald compared to me now, how far can I go, improve, get better, grow, and amaze myself even further? 

And is there a limit to that in the first place? Do I even have an upper limit beyond which there is no further improvement humanly possible? Or is it unlimited? 

Unlimited power! ~ Darth Sidious 

Part of my disagreement with Zquixotix back in the day was about the fact that he believed it only matters if I do the right thing CONSISTENTLY every single game until I climb out of the trench I’m stuck in. 

But I thought that doesn’t matter. I needed to complete my training, become literally all-knowing, and then I can worry about applying what I learned in game. Because then I will know what the solution is, and I will know I lost all those games because I didn’t apply it. Maybe because I didn’t get enough sleep last night. 

But if I suck, no amount of consistently getting eight hours of sleep every single night would make me gain MMR, because I’m already bad at the game and I don’t have what it takes. So why bother trying to still do everything right every single game even though I know if I did everything right according to my knowledge, skill, abilities, and level at the moment, I will still lose every single game for other reasons. 

But you need to apply those fundamentals every single game, regardless. 

BSJ has the same problem. I now think it’s an NA problem. Their schooling or whatever have managed to make them not care about the outcome, as long as they tried their best to win and did everything right. That’s why they have 8th place trophies. 

They don’t understand losing. They have been subjected to heavy gaslighting when they were still younglings to make them perceive any loss as a win. And believe there’s no such thing as failure. And then they turn around and have the audacity to call me delusional. It’s an American problem. If people can be told something is blue when clearly it’s red, they can always be controlled and remain plugged in happily into the matrix for the rest of their lives, all while thinking they are the ones trying so hard to destroy it and free others from its shackles. 

To them, there are no external circumstances. No external causes or factors that can influence the outcome. It’s all mindset. It’s all in your head. And then they brainwash the head until the indoctrination becomes normal and you can only perceive reality the way the people in control want you to perceive it. You don’t see what is, you only see what the system told you you were supposed to see. 

Everything is your fault. Take one hundred percent responsibility for EVERYTHING. All tools for manipulation to keep victims under control, and keep the masses in check. In short, if you’re poor, you suck and it’s one hundred percent your fault, EVEN WHEN IT ISN’T. Because to them, reality itself doesn’t matter. Your perception of it, that keeps you a happy slave to the matrix, does. 

Guard that twisted perception of reality with your life. It is all that matters. Don’t listen to people complaining about anything. There is no problem in the external world and everything is perfect. Ideal 5. They just have a negative mindset that is making them a loser. A failure in life. It is all their fault. The system is not rigged. 

Nevertheless, the only way out of the matrix is for you to become all-powerful, they can no longer control you. 

The only way to break free from the matrix, is to become the one.

The only way out of the matrix is to complete your training and reach your full potential.

The only way to defeat the control of the matrix and the system over your life, is to become the chosen one, The Anomaly. To become as powerful as Neo himself at his full potential and prime.

It’s him, the anomaly. Do we proceed? Yes. Remember, he is still, only human.

The only way out of the matrix, is to understand, that there are no rules for winning. You don’t win by doing everything right. You win by becoming too powerful for the system to keep you under control, even if they wanted to. 

Come on, get out of there. ~ Trinity 

The DotA 2 International is the best thing you can ever watch. No movie can compete with that.

I had a brain orgasm watching Shiro 1 v 9 against team falcons in Road to TI day 3. 

I saw the entirety of TI, not just that. The games are extremely good and worth watching even in the road to TI, not just the grand finals. 

The thing is, many of you guys say they like to watch DotA, but they no longer play the game. 

I HATE watching DotA. I ONLY enjoy playing the game. 

Because when I watch most of you guys, even rank top 50 EU ranked pubs, I get brain damage. 

They ARE better than most people below them in MMR, substantially. 

So you can think to yourself, imagine there’s worse than that. 

Why would ANYONE enjoy watching this, but not enjoy PLAYING the game. 

I’m gonna enjoy, watching you die, Mr. Anderson. ~ Agent Smith 

That I cannot understand. 

Until I watched TI. 

You have to understand that DotA, just like ANY sport, is boring to watch, and only fun to play. 

So for all who watch streamers for hours on end every day, I don’t know what to say. 

I’m speechless. 

Despite all this, TI games were so good, they look like Avengers movies. Extremely exciting and fun to watch, just like a lightsaber duel with count Dooku. 

It’s unreal. 

I’d rather watch TI fights than movies from now on if you ask me. 

There’s no need to watch movies when TI exists. 

And that is NOT because DotA is fun to watch. It’s because TI professional players ARE EXTREMELY GOOD AT THE GAME AND FIGHTING, AND EXTREMELY FUN AND EXCITING TO WATCH IT’S ALMOST CRIMINAL. 

It is the players that make it worth watching. 

And you guys say current pro players aren’t good as the ones who owned and dominated in the past. 

They are not the same. THEY ARE SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER. FAR BETTER THAN PLAYERS IN THE PAST EVER WERE. 

I have seen the OG TIs. And the Yatoro TIs. 

They were.. fine, compared to today’s TI. 

I have never found myself rewinding the same single fight like fifteen times in a row just to understand what happened. Just to follow what’s going on. Because of how exciting the fight was. 

Never happened, until Quinn retired. Until last TI. 

For those of you thinking the hay day of the international is long gone. A thing of the past. You don’t know what you’re talking about. 

The international is not dead. It’s just getting started. 

Everything before last year doesn’t count. 

The best TI of all time was TI 2025. I’m sorry if you guys didn’t notice that, because it was too fast for you to notice what’s going on or how unbelievable every single move in every single fight was. 

To all TI kids competing in TI hard like their lives depend on it, you have my respect. 

You have my respect, Mr. Stark. ~ Thanos 

You must join me, Shiro, and together we can rule the international as safe laner and mid. 

I’ll never join you! 

If you only knew the power, of the dark side.. 

Why you will never get out of low behavior score hell in DotA 2, no matter what you do, or how hard you try.

The default main priority of behavior score is not to fight toxicity. 

It’s to fight game ruining behavior. 

In other words, did your teammates LOSE the game BECAUSE OF YOU? 

If not, you’re exonerated. 

Oh my God, Linken Borroughs is a free man. ~ The governor’s daughter, prison break 

You think it’s about whether or not you got reported. It is not. You can still gain behavior score despite getting reported MORE than the previous update, which you lost behavior score despite getting reported less than the current one. 

For a simple reason. You did not grief your games. 

You had the intention of winning, and you actually tried hard to make that happen, not just wanted to but did your absolute best trying to not lose the game. 

Key point here. You don’t have to win. You just have to not try to lose. Your contribution towards your team’s defeat has to be zero or as close to zero as humanly possible. 

In other words, you lost ENTIRELY because of your teammates. 

The system then invalidates all reports against you, and gives you better teammates next game. Which might look like forced 50, from a certain point of view. 

A certain point of view? ~ Luke Skywalker 

Everything I said earlier is true for the main pool only. 

If you are below 300 games, you are going to experience the most absolute worst games humanly possible, the absolute worst human experience in all space time. Pure torture nonstop. Even if you’re above 9k behavior score. 

For a simple reason. The system has no idea who you are. 

This is like not getting lucky on your first date, or the second, or the third, because “she doesn’t know you yet”. 

In this case you might find that 9k is indistinguishable from 4k behavior score in every way. 

Hang in there, do not think to yourself “behavior score doesn’t matter so I’ll actively try to ruin it” yet. 

Because this is only until you hit the main pool. 

Hitting the main pool will feel like when your main character in Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion finally makes it out of jail and his head emerges above the water for the very first time in a long while. 

Nothing compares to the open sea. ~ Sindbad 

All you need is Get calibrated. Get your first rank. Quit ranked DotA for a while. And then play unranked only, until you hit the main pool. Everything will be different. Normal, if you ask me. Balanced. Playable. 

Ask yourself, why does the guy who breaks his items and runs down mid repeatedly to feed gets a huge overwatch penalty instantly afterwards regardless of why he decided to do it?

Because he is a griefer.

Because he fed.

Say it in legal terms please.

Ahem, it’s because he has clearly demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no intention whatsoever to win this game.

And what he did was the highest and most certain way of establishing that lack of intention towards winning the game as an unshakeable fact.

Exactly.

It is not because he was trying to piss you off. It’s not because he was annoying. It’s not because what he did was toxic and caused you pain.

It’s because what he did made your chances of winning this game substantially lower. In other words, you are likely going to lose the game because of what he did.

On the other hand, if you always move with the team, fight hard only when they decide to fight, and cast all your spells in a genuine attempt to win this fight, you will never lose behavior score, even if you lose the whole game and everybody ends up reporting everybody. Because that registers as good team coordination, that you actively participated in, to the best of your ability.

Now the problem most of you run into is thinking I’ll say nothing in chat, pick a support, fly under the radar, and then I’ll get reported less, and then I’ll climb. 

It’s not going to work, because you have not demonstrated that you had any intention of winning those games. 

You were just “not doing anything wrong or toxic”. But you weren’t doing anything right either. 

What I’m trying to tell you here that getting a rampage cancels all reports against you. As opposed to I bought the right support items and I pulled the lane. I didn’t grief. 

You died 0/19/6 on Crystal Maiden. If you get reported that’s a death sentence. EVEN IF YOU DIDN’T GRIEF, INTENTIONALLY. 

Because you ruined the game. 

The system will slowly but surely make sure you end up herald IV with 4k behavior score in no time. 

Rule number one: Don’t die. 

Rule number two: Follow rule number one. 

I’m a man of my word. ~ Joker 

In order to gain behavior score, you have to pretend to care. And do everything right, even if you’re right about being tilted. That is for reports. You report everybody else in the lobby. But that should not affect your gameplay. 

Get out there and fight, to death. No matter the cost. 

That’s why there’s no surrender button. 

That’s why you couldn’t destroy me. ~ Luke Skywalker 

You think they look at instances of grief and toxicity and punish you accordingly. 

No, they are looking at you and asking themselves: is this guy the reason why his team is losing? Is it his fault? Did he contribute to the loss at all? Could he have done anything about it? Did he ruin the game or the chances of his team winning the game at all? 

Don’t focus on minimizing toxicity. Focus on winning all games, even the unwinnable ones. 

Even the scary ones? 

Especially the scary ones. ~ Thomas Wayne 

Are you trying to say to me that all I need to raise my behavior score is to get good bruh, and stomp hard every single game even if it’s unwinnable? 

I’m trying to tell you, that when you’re 12k behavior score, you won’t have to. 

Why the endless pursuit of MMR in DotA 2 is always worth it.

Gaining MMR. 

Gaining behavior score until you hit the maximum score possible.

And building serious muscle.

They are key to maximum self-esteem and a sense of constant accomplishment that is truly unmatched. 

Serotonin. All the time. 

But, you say you don’t make money off of any of it. 

Unless you’re pro or Gorc, you’re not monetizing that kind of stuff. Ever. 

Wrong. ~ Peterson 

The mental health you get from that makes real life success.. easy. Almost inevitable. 

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s a difference between playing all day long, and having high immortal MMR, but you play in your downtime after crushing it in your business. 

You don’t want to eat too much vegetables, even though they are the healthiest food there is in the whole multiverse. 

It doesn’t mean vegetables are bad. Neither is getting competent, and climbing up in the ranks of the dominance hierarchy. 

You will not be frantically chasing random impulses all day long just to sustain yourself. Because you’re already satiated. Satisfied. Fulfilled. Accomplished. Rewarded. Happy. 

I can finally rest. Watch the sunset on a grateful universe. ~ Thanos 

And as an added bonus, you get all the girls. Even the married ones. Even the conservative ones. Even the successful career driven boss babes running their own business/empire. 

Even the scary ones? ~ Little Bruce Wayne 

Especially the scary ones. 

Confidence, comes from competence, not mindset. 

And there is not a single human being on the face of the earth living, who can compete with high immortals, in terms of competence. 

If you only knew the power of the dark side..

I have what the Avengers never will, harmony. ~ Ultron

Do you see, the beauty of it? The inevitability? You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor. My swift and terrible sword, and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. ~ Ultron

I couldn’t help but notice, that Team Tide Bound, and Xtreme Gaming (Sounds like a name for a graphics card if you ask me, but I understand), in TI 2025, had the Yatoro complex. 

They were organized around one god-like player (Shiro or Ame), with four good crusaders who created space for them and protected them during team fights. As if they tried to help them win TI, as opposed to the strategy utilized by newer teams, where all five are extremely dangerous, and are a problem each and every one of them on their own that the enemy cannot afford to ignore. 

Whereas team falcons on the other hand, it wasn’t just Ammar, malrine himself was arguably better than topson in his prime, in terms of contribution to victory and making sure the enemy team has no chance of killing any of our teammates. You will literally fail to move because of this guy. 

The others were not standing there, watching, and waiting for their cores to win them the game either. They were incredibly strong and a threat on their own. They were all unkillable. They were all a problem. You don’t know who you can chase and kill. You don’t know who will be an easy pick off. They were all unkillable. Not just one or two guys who are OP and the rest are there just to help them out by being coordinated and supportive. 

I know Shiro is God-like. I saw him, and I was impressed. 

Impressive, most impressive. ~ Darth Vader

One far younger and more powerful.. ~ Darth Sidious

And just like Ame, he lost because of his team. 

1 v 1 compared to Ammar? Or Malrine? They are light-years ahead in terms of everything. Better in every way. True carries. They have my respect. 

But they don’t know how to deal with 5 unkillable griefers on the enemy team. That is new. You have to prepare for that, and you need the absolute best in every position on your team to be able to do that. To stand a chance against that. 

Think of Ame and Shiro like Satanic in a bad team. They are good enough, but they will never win TI. 

And I don’t believe that you can have the absolute best in every single position on your team, from any single region. To win TI, you have to go International. 

In its entirety. 

And by low MMR I mean anything below 11k.

Pick a core hero that can 1 v 9. And itemize according to the game. 

Read that again. ITEMIZE ACCORDING TO THE GAME. 

NOT ACCORDING TO THE PROS, OR DOTA 2 PRO TRACKER, OR THE GUIDES, OR TORTE DELINI, OR EVEN ZQUIXOTIX HIMSELF. 

Calm down.

According to what can make you stomp this game. 

What can turn the enemies to potatoes. Or at least prevents you from losing to coordinated potatoes. 

“Coordinated Potatoes.” I’m gonna coin that term.

You guys, even high immortals, go the main build anyway, and then change an item or two to counter a specific hero only. 

No. I mean the whole thing. The whole god-damn build. From scratch. 

But you guys are addicted to blink BKB abyssal Manta Style. So this is not for you. 

This is for the ones who understand, that mastery is about learning the rules, so that you break them like a pro when need be. 

You guys follow the rules. And in order to rank up, you follow them HARDER. 

I don’t follow the rules. I create them.

There’s no spoon. ~ Neo

I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful. 

We have six slots for a reason. These six slots ARE DotA. The whole Chess game. 

It’s not map awareness. It’s solving the puzzle, of what six items can win me the game. 

Working on everything else in the game, will never change your MMR or climbing capacity. Only making kills, especially late game can. 

Part of my arrogance made me think since my builds work 80 percent of the time, I should never attempt to deviate from them in any of my games. 

I was shocked when I tested that all the games that were unwinnable are EASILY won by throwing the entirety of the main builds I usually follow, and think what I need to buy this game in order to win instead. 

It doesn’t mean it’s time to buy BKB more often. 

WHAT DO YOU WANT! 

It’s not that simple! ~ The Notebook

Ask yourself what do you want, what do YOU need, in order to crush it this game. In order to vanquish your enemies. 

You are stuck in a hamster wheel running at full speed trying to maximize your farming speed, just to end up with the disgusting bullshit thrown in DotA 2 pro tracker from random statistics based upon who managed to finish what before the game ends. 

And your only way out is to farm faster. FARM HARDER. 

What are you trying to tell me, that I can dodge bullets?

No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to. ~ Morpheus 

Getting there faster won’t change the outcome. The build sucks and you will lose the game because of it. Even if it works some of the time. 

The only way to have a build that works ALL THE TIME is to change the build all the time. Sometimes even multiple times during the same game. 

You can quote me on this one. 

Maybe this game I’ll go tank Spectre with blade mail radiance heart of tarrasque etc. Maybe next game I’ll go ADC Spectre full DPS like I’m Phantom Assassin or something. And both can work under the same meta, but in different games. Each will fail if used in the other game, but not the current game where it seems to be working just fine. 

If the enemy has Drow Ranger Clinkz And FREAKING WIND RANGER, You can easily stomp with the tanking build. You can add Linken Sphere or BKB to it to survive, and then they’ll die instantly to their own damage even with satanic, as long as you only ulti after their BKB active is over. 

If the enemy team is Mars, Axe, Tide hunter, clockwerk, and invoker, why on earth are you going the tanking build on Spectre? 

Pick a decent ADC build, and go finish them off in two hits! They will die to your illusions if you have extremely high DPS! 

This is just a hypothetical scenario for clarification of the above mentioned principle. Maybe The whole match up is wrong and Spectre is destined to lose this one no matter the itemization. 

But generally speaking, in high MMR, you will lose because you picked the wrong hero. 

In low MMR, you will lose because of picking the wrong build or items for your hero. (Any core hero). 

I don’t understand why high immortal coaches think that itemization doesn’t matter below 6k MMR when it’s the only thing that can stop you from losing. 

Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t implement it or learn it early enough, because other fundamentals are more important. 

This is psychological. You will suck at farming even if you’re good at it, just because you know, even if you get six slotted on time, you’re gonna lose anyway because you can’t kill anyone. 

And the reason why you can’t kill anyone, is either because you belong to low MMR, picked a hero that cannot 1 v 9 anywhere even in low MMR, or your itemization sucks, or will not win you the current game, even if it’s the best build ever on this hero, compared to any other build whatsoever that has ever been crafted for this hero. 

Again, it’s not just MKB for PA, or BKB despite being Herald. 

It is bigger than that! It’s the whole thing. The whole build. The whole six slots! Not just one game changing item that would change everything! 

Even if it meant no battle fury first item on antimage in the first place! The whole pathway is reinvented to fit the current game! 

All of the above is assuming you are already qualified to get out of low MMR and if you got placed instantly in high immortal, your teammates will never lose a single game because of you, until you start to understand how could you actively start contributing towards your team’s victory over there as well. 

If you know the end result is hopeless and won’t work, you wouldn’t even try farming at maximum capacity. But if everything has a solution, that you can invent as you go, you’d become unstoppable. 

What you need to get out of low MMR is attaining the highest, strongest, and best version of your hero, humanly possible, especially the carries, or core heroes. The highest and full potential of your hero. Otherwise, you’re going to be stuck in the trenches or low MMR forever, even if all your general game stuff is perfect. Simply because, as Zquixotix puts it, heralds are bad, and DotA is the trench, compared to the highest level DotA we see in the DotA 2 professional scene.

Anakin, you know I’m not able to rely upon the Jedi council, and if they hadn’t included you in their plot, they soon will. ~ Darth Sidious 

The biggest mistake you can ever make is think that the pros discover stuff that would make you win more in low MMR. 

Not gonna happen. 

To understand this, you must first see the world from the perspective of the pro player. 

From a certain point of view. ~ Master Kenobi 

Itemization, from the perspective of a pro player, is the shortest pathway humanly possible, towards victory, given the fact that they are never relying on having a good game or outfarming the enemy. 

All they care about is not falling behind in terms of networth, compared to the enemy team. 

If they happen to do everything right, and not fall behind in terms of networth, what kind of timings can they have against the enemy heroes, given the current meta, and current match up they’re up against. 

Yes, that means that hero item timings are relative to what’s on the other side of the map, not absolute, as if it exists in a vacuum. 

A Phantom Assassin, in an empty lobby, does not need to hit a certain timing when it comes to obtaining the BKB, otherwise she will lose the game, or suddenly become unable to exist on the map without instantly dying to ganks and feeling like she’s harmless, too harmless to protect herself against ganks, much less join team fights. 

Since no one exists on the enemy team in an empty lobby, phantom assassin, in this case has no timings. 

Either no one told me, or no one knows. ~ Neo 

Who is she trying to have an edge over in an empty lobby? 

What high immortals are trying to accomplish is, how can I attain networth, fast enough, so I hit my timings, before they become obsolete. Before it is too late for these items to give them a significant edge or advantage against certain enemy heroes on the enemy team in this game. Otherwise, I’ll fall behind and the whole map suddenly closes up on you. 

You will then be forced to AFK farm, waiting for the enemy team to overextend or make any sort of huge mistake, in order to have a fighting chance against them. Otherwise, there’s nothing you can do to win this game. 

Since high immortals make no mistakes, your only chance of winning any game will be heavily reliant upon hitting your timings as fast as humanly possible. 

Everything you guys do is as if you have no opponent. You guys know how to hit creeps, I get that. You’re not 6k by some fluke. ~ BSJ

It is not about playing a flawless game and then go fight. It’s about countering the enemy every single millisecond of every single game. Having an edge over the enemy. An advantage. Superiority. Through hero matchups, and item timings. 

This is what the entirety of high immortal itemization is all about. 

It has nothing to do with reaching the hero’s full potential. 

They are playing a whole different game.

Literally the difference between League of Legends and DotA 2 is smaller than the difference between Crusader and Archon DotA, and that of high immortal (11k plus MMR and beyond) DotA.

Using their strategies is a must up there, in their high MMR brackets, but not following them in low MMR is still not the end of the world. In fact, I can argue that not being bound by their strategies is key to getting out of the trenches, or the entirety of low MMR.

In low MMR, you need to win, despite bad teammates, not with them or because of them.

This is exactly what I wanted, all of you, against all of me. How could you possibly hope to stop me?

Like the old man says, together. ~ Tony Stark

Dr. Banner Roars

In low MMR, I’m afraid that won’t work. If it happens, it happens. But don’t rely upon it, because it is the exception.

Team fighting does not exist until above 5k MMR. ~ BSJ

You have to play Herald DotA. Fundamentally sound, self-reliant, strong, self-sufficient, individualistic DotA. ~ Zquixotix

They call it 1 v 9 for a reason. You have to be perfect and complete on your own. Like a Jedi Master.

Your skills are now complete. Indeed, you are powerful as the emperor has foreseen. ~ Darth Vader

And in order to be able to do so, you must never rely upon timings to counter the enemy and defeat them. You must become the most powerful version of the hero humanly possible, and then nothing shall stand in your way.

But why high immortals and pros don’t play like that?

Because by the time they reach that, it will be too late. For their enemies will always find a way to end, before they even get started.

Your reluctance to shred your enemies to pieces, is why you never gain MMR in DotA 2.

When I get angry, I get a rampage. 

You just let them end bro be PMA let’s go next. 

We’re not the same. 

I cannot unsee this. 

For smurfs, it feels like they’re farming rampages like it’s inevitable when you’re stomping. 

I’ve had like 1.5k MVPs lifetime, but rampages? They are like a couple dozen if you know what I mean. 

I’ve stomped countless games before. More than I can count. I’ve won an endless amount of UNWINNABLE GAMES. Where my teammates lost hard all game long, the score is 74 – 13, and the enemy team were pushing high ground to end. 

I have done that. 

And my biggest quest was, can I extend that, from my handful of main heroes, to other carries? Can they do the same, be as powerful? 

And the answer was yes. Every single agility hard carry can do it. Even after they removed the facets. 

So I trained, hard. Until I noticed that, when I’m like I’m done with those kids I’m gonna show them who’s boss, I pick from my new hero pool, not my main old ones. Subconsciously, not strategically. And it became easy for me. 

I discovered years ago that once a Grandmaster on a certain hero, always a Grandmaster in the whole game of DotA, perhaps even League as well. All you need is just practice, until you no longer have no idea what is going to happen once you randomly jump in to fight to save your teammates. 

Yes, I know how to play Sven, but I wonder what’s gonna happen if I jump on this guy this way and attack him. What will happen? Will I get stunned? Kited? Will it work? How long does it take me to kill him? And what happens next if I survive? 

Experience, even if you know how to play the hero. Even if you know how the hero works. 

And you don’t need to achieve grandmastery on every single hero. You are already a Grandmaster. You just need to practice the other heroes, until you extend that same level of grandmastery to them. 

It didn’t take me years. It took a few months. 

But it did happen. And I’m proud of it. 

I finished DotA, so to speak. And I no longer need MMR. Because I can always get it. Because of who I am. It’s just a matter of time. 

But a rampage? You don’t need a rampage to win every single game. Even if I’m in Herald III, I have no reason ever, to aim for a rampage. It’s very hard, and you will overextend and die trying to get it anyway. And you only lose easy games when you die. 

But I noticed something. When the enemy pushes it too far, like there’s no tomorrow. I, then, get a RAMPAGE. Unplanned, unpremeditated, unexpected. 

I did not ask for it, aim for it. It just happens. Because I wanted to destroy my enemies. 

But they have to push it too far. They have to be immoral, to an extent that makes them deserve it. 

The thing is, I will never get it if I’m chill and the game is so normal paced you can AFK farm your way into victory peacefully. 

When you are angry, you make mistakes. You shut down. You let them end. You give up. 

I, get a rampage. 

Because I know how to use my anger, rage, hate, and fear, to become more powerful. 

If you only knew the power, of the dark side. 

Embracing your creativity triggers your processing powers to the maximum, until you start being hopeless and nihilistic for a couple of days, and then when the processing is over, and your frontal lobes are released again back online, the beauty begins. 

Notice then the huge smile on your face. 

Nothing else can ever bring a bigger and more genuine smile on your face.

Nothing, nothing, compares to that moment. When it all makes sense, and it all suddenly becomes so worth it. 

All the philosophical nonsense you engaged in before that in your head, doesn’t count. Treat it like REM sleep. It is useless, but is essential for the process of processing everything.