If Amer “Miracle-” al-Barqawi’s world-record setting Timbersaw against Na’Vi at DreamLeague was any indication, you would think that the Manila Major would be awash with the psychotic, tree-hating machinist. But if you ask Ioannis “Fogged” Loucas, the teams in Manila could benefit more from picking up the eccentric hero.

“I don’t think as many people are looking at the hero specifically but I think he’s extremely strong,” said the former PotM Bottom player, turned desk analyst for the spring major. “People are still sleeping on Timbersaw in this strength-based metagame.”

Of the over 80+ heroes already picked in just two days of competition in Manila, strength heroes like Beastmaster, Doom and Slardar are the most contested, with Beastmaster and Doom at 86% and 83% pick and ban rates respectively. Timbersaw has only been picked 3 times.

The Chinese-inspired draft combinations that involve Lifestealer paired with mobile playmakers such as Puck and Bounty Hunter have also caught on in the tournament metagame.

For Fogged, Timbersaw’s ability to cut down and ignore tanky targets can be leveraged by more teams to devastating effect.

“Some players can play Timbersaw well. Miracle is the obvious example here, but other teams have great Timbersaw players as well,” said Fogged. “Moo from Digital Chaos can play it offlane and he did pretty well. I just think that anyone who can play him will play him.”

In DC’s day one game against Wings Gaming, Moo put up 19,616 damage to heroes en route to a convincing victory against the Chinese squad. Of 19,616 damage, 14,284 came as Pure Damage, cutting through the armor bonuses given by the Assault Cuirass and Vladimir’s Offering on Wings Gaming’s primary carry Shadow on the Lycan.

“He’s also received like 4-5 changes and he was already extremely powerful. All of the heroes being played right now just pushes him over the edge,” he added.

On metagame

While the strength-based metagame has been all the rage in tournaments coming into and at the early stages of Manila Major, Fogged believes that there is still room for a new metagame to evolve as the main event nears. At The International 4 for example, the Death-ball style metagame that dominated the main event and spearheaded by teams like Vici Gaming came as a response to the pick-off heavy, Skywrath Mage-centered drafts of the group stages.

“Everyone is sort of converging into the strength-based metagame just because it’s been so effective, but I do think some teams are stepping ahead of the curve,” explained Fogged. “Liquid and Newbee for me are just ahead of everyone, just because to me they are the most dominant right now.”

“Most teams are clicking with it (strength metagame). The only exception is Wings, because they kind of do whatever they want. Secret sort of does their own thing as well, but I don’t know if it’s because Secret is stubborn, but something is different a little weird about them.”

Asked who he thinks will win the last Major before this year’s The International, Fogged is resolute on Liquid. “They got really lucky at the draw. They are matched up against MVP, who I think is underperforming in this tournament,” said Fogged. “They (MVP) had that insane game against Mineski with the megacreeps, but that was more because Mineski made some mistakes instead closing out the game.”

The Manila Major main event starts on June 7, 10:00 AM Philippine Standard Time, at the Mall of Asia Arena.

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