Ups and Downs. I'm still here. {1208 mmr}

Hello.

I played 15 games last week and lost 13 MMR points as a result. No gain. Worse, I was reported and I had to play low priority matches to be able to play ranked games again. Why I was reported? We were defeated by enemy in a 30 minutes game where everyone died 8-9-11 times and got 3 kills each, exept for mid. Mid had 17 kills. I was 0-15 at the end of the game and I believe they all agreed to report me. How come I finished the game 0-15? My -marked from the start with Jug- safelane was occupied by a Wraith King. Well, I was tilted and my CS was ruined but I didn't flame him. I muted all to concentrate. No politics.. And this was the result. Low priority single draft games.

If you are contested by any of your teammates for CS in your lane, it is very sad but, just leave there. See for a couple of levels what's going to happen. Ask them if they're laning there for good or they lane with you just to get level 3. If you're not making any last hits just leave there and go find your farm somewhere else. You may not have a good jungle hero, but slowly you will gain gold. If you stay at that lane, you will start to fight against each other, and you will do stupid things that will probably make you die. So, instead of achiving something slowly, you won't achieve anything and you will fall back. This will lose you the game.

This week at total I lost MMR. I lost some games. In between them to put my thoughts together I re-watched the Juggernaut guide on Gameleap (See the link in the column right). I tried to find an aspect to concentrate on. Then I decided to check my item timings. I wrote down what I bought at the start of the game, when did I purchased Phase Boots, Yasha and S&Y. I compared my timings to how well I did that game and who won. As a result, I wrote down target minutes for my early game items and tried to do my best to get them a that time.

You see, you can't gain anything without setting some goals for yourself. You can't somehow become a better player after playing 1000 games. You just can't. You have to focus somewhere and work on it and see the outcome. You can't expect to have good teammates most of the games to help you gain MMR. No, not anymore. You have to carry the game yourself most of the time. That's why I decided to spam a carry hero and I must be the best carry in my team.

I completed 40 games with Juggernaut. I'm posting my games between 25-40 below. My win rate dropped down to %59,46 after 40 games. I think this rate is still very promising.

One more thing. This week I started to stream on YouTube when I can. You can watch some of my past games there, too, if you are interested in low MMR Dota 2 ;)

Game#	Day	Game	Hero	Result	MMR	Gain	Match ID
26	15.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1246	25	3681340171
27	15.01.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1225	-21	3681432527
28	15.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1201	-24	3681494849
29	17.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1179	-22	3684664157
30	17.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1205	26	3684741921
31	17.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1181	-24	3684804202
32	18.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1155	-26	3686495114
33	18.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1179	24	3686548287
34	19.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1153	-26	3688302211
35	20.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1133	-20	3689272678
36	20.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1157	24	3690352142
37	21.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1182	25	3691444945
38	21.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1207	25	3692329358
39	21.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1182	-25	3692410499
40	21.01.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1208	26	3692474569

	Item Timings
Game#	S.Shield	Q.Blade	M.Wand	R.o.Aq.	Ph.Boots	Yasha	S&Y
26	00:00:00	-	-	00:04:45	00:07:45	00:17:01	00:20:45
27	-	-	-	00:04:48	00:07:52	00:13:52	00:19:07
28	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
29	00:01:13	-	-	-	00:06:25	00:10:37	00:15:31
30	00:00:00	-	-	00:11:15	00:11:15	00:15:31	00:20:54
31	-	00:00:00	-	-	00:04:29	00:11:18	00:14:06
32	00:00:00	00:00:00	00:03:05	-	00:07:21	00:13:47	00:20:13
33	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	00:04:33	00:12:03	00:15:48
34	-	00:00:00	00:03:04	-	00:10:50	-	-
35	00:00:00	-	00:01:27	-	00:07:12	00:14:38	00:24:22
36	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:07:52	00:13:13
37	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:12:46	-
38	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:10:06	-
39	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:06:32	-
40	-	00:00:00	-	-	00:05:40	00:11:34	-

Spamming Juggernaut {1221 mmr}

Hello.

Here is my Dota 2 routine for the last ten days: Queue for ranked, ban Axe, mark safelane on minimap and first pick Juggernaut. I'll share how my first 25 games went below. I have a win rate of 60%. I raised my MMR from 1025 to 1221. Ok, not very good but it's something. Since I started spamming Juggernaut I feel confident about holding safelane carry spot. That used to scare me a bit before and I used to feel insecure because I didn't know how good I can be. I didn't even know if I was doing good or bad. But spamming over and over again, now I can tell myself I'll do good and that gives me confidence.

I had great games and of course I had a few very bad ones, too. There was a game where I was flamed badly but it wasn't my worst game. My worst game became a nightmare because a Legion Commander decided to play at safelane with me! Jungling was the only option but there was a Riki at the enemy team. Well I wasn't flamed by others because they recognized the situation and it wasn't my fault. Because I first picked Juggernaut for the safelane.

Spamming the same hero makes your mistakes more distinguishable to YOU. If you fail at the same kind of situations over and over again with the same hero it's probably because of your wrong decisions or impulsive reaction at those situations. It becomes obvious because you know you are not pushing the wrong skill button or you don't know the outcome of using that skill. You have to recognize your enemies skills and act accordingly.

To raise your MMR quickly you must have win streaks, like 5 in-a-row. I have one 5 in-a-row win streak, and one 3 in-a-row win streak. As my MMR raises I had fewer streaks. I'm trying to understand why. 200 MMR is not much to make a difference I think. Anyways. I think I'll keep spamming with Jug until I play 100 games with it.

	Day	Game	Hero	Result	MMR
1	4.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1025
2	4.01.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1000
3	4.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1023
4	6.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1048
5	6.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1073
6	6.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1098
7	6.01.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1122
8	6.01.2018	5	Jug	Defeat	1100
9	7.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1124
10	8.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1146
11	9.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1125
12	9.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1150
13	11.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1123
14	11.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1146
15	12.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1120
16	12.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1144
17	12.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1169
18	12.01.2018	4	Void	Victory	1193
19	13.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1169
20	13.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1194
21	13.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1169
22	13.01.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1193
23	13.01.2018	5	Jug	Victory	1218
24	14.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1193
25	14.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1221

Why am I stuck at 1K MMR? {1150 mmr}

If you are reading this it means that you really care about Dota 2, your MMR and you really want to do something about it. But why are you still stuck in low MMR?

MMR is really only related to your win rate and the number of games you play - period! Let's say you earn or lose 25 points of MMR per game and you have a win rate of 65%. If you play 1.000 games you will win 650 of them and lose 350. The difference is 300 games where you'd earn 25 points per each one of them and that makes 7.500 MMR. Quite astonishing!

I wrote before that I've played 1700 games until today. If I had 55% win rate my MMR would be 4.250, but it is 1K! Out of those 1700, I only won 868 games. These numbers give me a win rate of 51,05% and that is really disappointing. But this win rate is the only reason why we are stuck. So how to raise win rate, right? By winning games! :)

Ok, don't get mad. But doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. So you must know that something is broken with your play.

Most of my games I used to try to pick later to fill a position that my team lacks. People tend to mark a carry and pick safelane or midlane on minimap from the start. That almost never changes. So if you try to be a nice guy and a good team player you are left with these options: Pick a Support, an Offlaner or a Jungler. Doing so completely hands the fate of your game to the guys who pick the carries, and in a low MMR game the chance to come across with a decent carry player is scarse.

Here are my win rates with main support heroes:
Winter Wyvern 10/14 = 71%
Vengeful Spirit 11/16 = 68%
Tidehunter 12/19 = 63%
Omniknight 11/18 = 61%
Oracle 8/13 = 61%
Lich 16/27 = 59%
Jakiro 4/7 = 57%
Crystal Maiden 31/55 = 56%
Witch Doctor 28/57 = 50%
Dazzle 28/57 = 50%

You see that I have lower win rates with hard support heroes and the more I play the win rate goes down to 50%! I'm a good support player, I know that. Good carry players almost always thank me and I got commends. But being a good support player in a bad team doesn't win you games. As the percentages above show that's a cold hard fact. You can't lead your team much to take objectives as a support player at low levels, where there isn't much communication and where egos are in charge.

Of course, there were games where I was THE bad carry player. When things start to flip over I think I panic and I fight battles to halt enemies tower pushes even there is very little chance we can win. For that reason I can't have enough farm and I can't keep up with the enemy carries. That WAS my problem as a carry player. At the end of the day, I know when I fail as a carry and I always apologise from my team.

(i) I shared my top rated heroes below:

(i) ...and here are my worst rated heroes :)

If you look at my stats, my top rated heroes are core heroes. There's almost no support hero. Considering that I never went over 2K MMR and all of my games were played between 1K and 2K MMR, playing support hero isn't viable here. I can say I'll never pick a support hero again for a long time and I won't feel sorry about it if nobody buys the courier.

Well then, what to pick? My top hero might be Wraith King. Sniper looks first but I played less than half games with him compared to WK. However by my experience I know that in a bad team I also suck with WK.

Maybe I should return back to my days before the 2017 International: use picker tool and pick what suits best from my top ten. But, pro players say that picking below 4K MMR is useless. I'll take their advise into account this time.

I believe what I must do is to spam the best hero that suits my play style. It must be a carry. I like playing aggressive. I like to go in and out of fights. Sometimes I fail to watch what my teammates are doing and I go too deep. Hell, whether you watch or not! They flee away a lot while there's a good chance to win a team fight. So, to survive I need an escape hero. It needs to be a pusher to push lanes when nobody else cares about taking objectives. It must have ganking potential, because in 1K nobody cares about ganking. I've seen 1 smoke per 100 games, really.

While these ideas were floating in my mind I picked Juggernaut in a ranked game. Well, I picked him again in another game. And another ... I started spamming Jug and things started to change slowly. I'll share my progress with him in the following posts.

(i) Juggernaut's Information Page in Game

Let's Start! {1000 mmr}

Well, Hello!

Welcome to the Veteran Noob's MMR Challange Blog!

I called myself a noob but between you and me, I have been playing Dota 2 since Februrary 2015. It has been almost 3 years now. I deliberately stayed away from it for sometime because I knew I was going to get drawn in it completely. My friends who had insisted me to play Dota left the game quite sometime ago. The tension of winning games was too much for them, we had many arguments. Because of their MMR progression stalled, they left.

Despite my friends, I'm stunned by the deepness of the game and my curiosity of "what goes on a pro player's mind  while playing" still keeps me playing.

I know that MMR doesn't solely show how good a player is but mine is really low and this started to hinder my gaming pleasure a lot. I was kind of a "broad knowledge" player from the start instead of being an "MMR guy". I completed the All-Hero Challenge at my first year to get better with all the heroes. I was trying to get better at picking. I even was trying to develope my own picking tool before I started this blog.


(i) The trophy awarded for completing the All-Hero Challenge in the game.

I almost hit 2K MMR by the time of 2017 International. Until then I was using picker tool and picking my top 10 rating heroes according to the line up (See your top rating heroes at the STATS page of your profile). Then the battle pass quests began. I like to play big. I played ranked games, used double rank when I had any, picked heroes to do the quests. Well, it was not too long before I dropped below 1,5K. After the Dueling Fates (7.07) update, honestly, I didn't do much to raise my MMR. I just played. That brought me back to 1K MMR.

After playing 1700 matches and being at 1K MMR looks really hopeless, right? Well, I don't think so. I believe my skill and knowledge of the game is beyond 1K MMR. So, what to do? Follow me here, we are going to find out together.

(i)You can see my current STATS below. Also our good old MMR is still there! See it at the top right corner of your STATS.