CHAQS NEW ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ADVANCED MIDDLE LANE SOLO.

Table of contents:
1. Introduction
2. All you need to know about the creepblock
3. When the action begins: the openings
4. Its all about the aggro
5. Controlling highground (New!)
6. Lasthitting under the tower (New!)
7. Dodging smoke ganks
8. Rune control and controlling the courier
9. To gank or not to gank?
10. Mana management (New!)
11. The importance of mid tier 1 tower. Tower mechanics (New!)
12. Doublewaving, what is it and when to use it
13. Hard matchups and how to deal with them
14. Picking the right hero in ranked -allpick (New!)
15. All the little things you can learn to become a better mid player
16. Practice how to and why to

CHAPTER 1. THE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Shoutout to the community
Never in my life have I thought that what started as such a simple idea would blow up after publishing
it. My guide got translated to over 15 languages (unfortunately some people copied it without my
consent, shoutout to ppl that are fair and asked me on my email first). I had over 700 thousands
unique visitors from all around the world and even pro players messaging me with words of
appreciation. Thank you so much for continous support, all the questions you asked me on email and
reddit and sorry that I didnt answer all of them. But enough bragging, lets get into the interesting part:
the guide itself.
1.4 Why are you writing this guide?
As Im not planning to join a team in the nearest future and I dont really care about my
competition getting to know all the tactics presented in this guide, I decided that sharing this
knowledge with everyone is the best option. Some people may actually hate me for making presented
tricks public, but hey thats how the skill progress in DotA world is made: elite knowledge becomes

well-known so you have to come up with something new! Im also an author of a really old Never
more learn 2 farm noob last hitting guide and every positive comment under it made me really happy
that a lot of players felt the joy of discovering new things when reading it. I guess I just enjoy making
people play better by sharing some tips and letting everyone test them in real games.
1.5 Who is this guide aimed for?
Well, definitely not for beginners. When I started writing this guide I decided that its mostly going to
cover the most advanced and only-known-to-few tactics. If you have troubles lasthitting or dont know
what runes do this probably isnt the most suitable guide for you, however I believe even 1k mmr
players may learn a thing or two that will improve their performance on the midlane.

Disclaimer:
The guide itself is just an educational material. That means that you have to conciously practice
techinques and strategies included in order to increase your skill level significantly. My guide should
be just a beginning in your quest to get better; its what you do with the knowledge obtained that
matters!
1.6 Mandatory pros and cons of being a mid player section:
Pros:

You get to play some [in my opinion] most interesting heroes with high skill ceiling.

You can do all sorts of big plays with your high level and gold advantage

Playing 1v1 is really fun and theres no better feeling than killing a good mid player solo

You dont depend on your team that much, practicing mid in pubs is way easier than
e.g. support

Cons:

Mid requires a lot of multitasking: using courier constantly, checking for enemy ganks,
controlling the lane equilibrium, harassing, lasthitting and finally controlling runes

The responsibility of ganking, reacting and dictating the gamepace relies on you

As you own the most powerful hero early-midgame, you can also do the biggest mistakes

If you lose your mid solo, the enemy player gets a huge advantage that often wins them the
game

This position requires a lot of practice and experience, the skill gap between competitively
experienced mid player and regular pub midder is mindblowing

As I said in the introduction Im not going to go into details about what playing mid means generally
or about what heroes should/shouldnt go mid and why. I want to break down playing mid layer by
layer and talk in a great detail about every one of them separately.

CHAPTER 2. ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CREEPBLOCK

What I want to start the main part of my guide with is probably one of the most overlooked things in
playing solo mid. As basic as it may sound, its the infamous creep block. Professional and more
advanced players know the importance of a good creepblock, especially in a melee vs ranged
matchup.
2.1 Perfect creepblock example pic:

Notice how none of the enemy creeps can see you and how all of your creeps are on the highground.
That means the opponent will not be able to know your positioning and you are free to harass him.
2.2 Things that perfect creeblock lets you do:

Harassing from the highground (enemy cant trade hits effectively with 25% uphill miss
chance)

Controlling the lane and creep balance way easier, makes enemy miss lasthits

Enemy cant see you and your positioning

If he gets too close you can use one of your spammable spells

2.3 Correct reaction to enemys perfect block

Yes, it happens even to the best players so theres nothing to be ashamed of. The solution to this is
really simple come close to the creeps as soon as the enemy shows up from fog and A-click him,
then run back a little. You should end up with at least some of the creeps down in the river, where you
can lasthit them without miss chance. If your enemy plays really passively and is not harassing you,
you probably wont be able to see him for a long time. In that case you can simply A-click enemy on a
different lane. Optimally you want to lure enemy creeps into attacking your ranged creep, so the wave
starts pushing towards your tower.
2.4 Abusing the perfect block
Take a look at this picture:

What I want you to remember from this screenshot is that ranged creeps give a really small circle of
vision to the enemy every time they attack. If you memorize this circle and remember to never stand
near your ranged creep when you get a better block you will make your opponent play in the dark.
2.5 How do I achieve the perfect creepblock?
There are a few little positioning tricks that will make your way better than average midders that
doesnt know them.
THE RADIANT
So-called RTZ block, you have to stand exactly at this spot where your heroes circle touches edges of
stones on the ground in front and to the left of you:

As soon as the timer hits the 0:00 mark, you should start walking forward. If you do this properly, youll
notice how all of the creeps walked to your right instead of one walking around the tower. What this
does is basically letting you start creepblocking faster, without waiting for that one creep to join the
others:

THE DIRE
There is no particular trick on the dire side but to maximize the efficiency of your block you should
stand around here on the steps, as all of the creeps will spawn just above you:

Whats the best command to creepblock? Move or Stop-spam?

To be honest, what works the best for me and a lot of pro players is the combination of both. In this
video you can see comparison between players: some of them like to hold their hero hotkey to keep

the camera centered, Dendi uses screen panning, and Arteezy just clicks the hero hotkey every few
seconds to move the camera.
2.6 Letting ranged creep go first when to do this and why shouldnt you always use it.
Ive noticed what a lot of mid-level players love to do is letting the ranged creep go first, then blocking
the entire wave of melee creeps. Through testing this by myself Ive noticed that most of the time this
does more harm than good and heres why:

You expose yourself to harass! If the enemy sees that you have 1 creep less[that does the
most damage] he will simply start attacking you and he wont receive quite as much damage
from creeps that he normally would

You can end up doublewaved Ill talk about this a little bit later

You lose that orientation point in lasthitting. Usually you want to time your lasthit to land just
after mages attack. By losing that option you make it somewhat easier for the enemy to deny.

There are several occasions on which blocking without the ranged creep is desirable!

When you know you have way more damage on the first attack and you are sure you can get
the deny (eg. Kunkka with tidebringer)

When you are against a really low damage hero (eg. Sf, Quas Invoker)

When your creepblock is way better and you just let the ranged creep go first in the last
seconds of the block

When your enemy is really hard to lane against straight up and youll feel more comfortable
lasthitting under the tower

2.7 Practice
Remember that creepblocking is really easy to practice in singleplayer. To practice simply make a new
lobby, set cheats to on and take one of the slots. When the game starts pick QoP, set mode to wtf
and take your starting position. To start the game simply use the startgame command. After
un/successfully blocking your creeps simply blink back with your cooldownless spell and start over.
Repeat until you feel satisfied with your creepblock consistency.

CHAPTER 3: WHEN THE ACTION BEGINS: THE OPENINGS

After creepblocking its time for something I call openings. For me its one of the most important
stages during your laning. The first few attacks, moves and decisions show so much about player skill
that sometimes I can already predict how easy or hard the game against him will be. The morale
aspect of that should also never go unnoticed getting the first deny + lasthit combo may work very
demoralizing for some players and make you feel so much better about chances of beating your
opponent.
3.1 Before the horn
Before the game starts every good midlaner should make a quick mindlist that includes answering
questions such as:
1. Can I get ganked and by what heroes?
2. What do I want to achieve on the midlane? Should I aim to kill the opponent or just farm?
3. Can my courier get sniped? Do they have a Bounty Hunter or Natures Prophet?
Just these 3 questions will help youget yourself into the game and never be surprised by what
happens.
3.2 There are basically 3 situations that may happen after the creepblock, as shown on the graph:

To understand this graph and overall reactions after every kind of creepblock I made a video showing
some of the worlds best pucks! [+me]
Why this hero and why only one hero? In my oppinion its like every dream of mid player put together:
you have the silence, stun, you are mobile, have decent lasthit damage and its hard to gank you. Also
your first skill gives flying vision over the area and serves as a free blink dagger. In other words: the
possibilites it gives and the skillcap it has are far higher than for most of the heroes. About the second
part of the question, I wanted to make personal style of players to be comparable and its hard to do if
they play different heroes.
PS If you want to see the lasthit score, look at the top left, not bottom right. The creepscores on the
right appear to be bugged.

CHAPTER 4. ITS ALL ABOUT THE AGGRO

Whats that title about? you may ask. My answer is: if you learn and master the rules of creeps
aggro your skill on the mid will skyrocket. To be honest, after analyzing Arteezys play I honestly think
this is one of the reasons hes such a dominant player. Not even commonly known mid-gods like
Dendi or Ferrari use these tricks as well as him if they use them at all. Please remember that all these
little strats require a ton of practice to be mastered.
Now lets read a couple of facts that will prove extremely useful later:

Creeps will aggro anyone trying to attack allied hero in a 500 radius. That means if you attack
a hero while 501 units away from the nearest creep, the creep will not attack you.

Creeps have aggro cooldown of 2 seconds. Ill describe how to abuse that later in this
chapter.

It doesnt matter where the enemy hero you are attacking is. As long as you are in 500 radius
to the closest enemy creep you might as well A-click hero on a different lane and you still will
draw aggro.

Now, as you know the very basics lets move on to the really advanced things: in a good players
hands aggro is an extremely powerful laning tool that can be used in many different ways:
4.1 Aggro tricks securing lasthits
Lets take a situation like
this:

You are more or less as far from the enemy creep as your opponent. If your projectile speeds and
timings are similar the factor that decides who gets the lasthit will be your damage. And guess what,
the damage on every single hero is randomised before every attack. As a good player you dont want
to rely on luck, you want to use some sort of strategy to have the upper hand in this little game. This is
where creep aggro knowledge comes into play. By A-clicking the enemy hero as the creep is getting
low and instantly backing off, you drag the creep very close to you without exposing yourself to
harass. Lets say the creep was 500 distance from both of the players. After using this trick, its 200
units away from you and 800! from the enemy. Amazing isnt it?
Remember that this trick will not work if enemy creeps do not have vision of your hero. You can also
use this trick if you get a perfect creepblock but first you will need to put the knowledge from point 2.4
into use: before you rightclick the enemy hero to pull the aggro simply walk into the small vision circle
around your ranged creep. This will guarantee that the enemy can see you and you will be able to pull
this trick off.
Notice the circle around my hero, its drawn at a 500 range. Currently you can use this command only
at private lobbies with cheats on, but if you practice with your friends make sure to turn it on to get
used to it later! The best thing you can do when using this strat is to position yourself before A-clicking
enemy so that only one creep gets drawn towards you. This will make you push less than when
pulling all the creeps.
Take a look at this video: Arteezy has memorised the 500 radius circle so every time he rightclicks the
enemy, he pulls only the single creep that he wants to move towards him:
As you get more and more advanced in doing that trick, you will discover that the uses of this tactic
are only limited by your creativity. On this picture you can see a fight for 2 lasthits:

Most of the players would just accept the fact that you cant do 2 attacks at once so you can only get
1 lasthit or 1 deny. But with aggro tricks knowledge you can have both. Simply repeat the regular Aclick + back off but instead of lasthitting your creep, deny the enemy one first. As you can see its
currently being attacked by the ranged creep, so if you attack at the perfect timing, you should be able
to get both the deny and the lasthit to leave your enemy wondering what the hell just happened. This
kind of awareness comes with time and experience but if you practice enough, soon you will surprise
even yourself.
4.2 Aggro tricks messing up lasthits
The above tactic can be also used to mess up enemy lasthits in a simple way:

As you can see on this picture, theres one green creep getting attacked by most of the enemy
creeps. When the creeps need about 2 attacks to get lasthitted, you have to get most of the creeps in
your aggro range then A-click the enemy hero. Obviously creeps will immediately switch their target to
you and iIf you did this correctly, opponent will perform the attack leaving you a free deny. Remember
that this time you want to get as many creeps as you can in your 500 range circle!
4.3 Aggro tricks attacking enemy without drawing creep aggro.
This legendary ability, mastered by the chosen few does indeed exist and in fact its not as hard to pull
off as some people may think. Perhaps youve even done it before but you might have not noticed it. If
youve ever wondered how some of the players attack enemies without being attacked by their creeps
this section is for you. To start off, this works the best against melee/low ranged heroes. Heres a
little video that may help you understand the concept:
As you have probably noticed, despite being in the 500 range aggro zone, Im not getting attacked by
any of the creeps. The magic behind this is amazingly simple: you have to attack the hero outside
of the 500 aggro range, then without issuing any other command run to him and attack. What
happens is that after you attack, the creeps want to attack you but cant as you are not in their aggro
range. Your attack command triggers 2 second cooldown on their target so as you run to the creeps
you have 2 seconds of free attacks on your enemy when you wont get damaged by the wave. The
number of attacks depends mostly on your levels and attributes for most int heroes its 1, sometimes
2 attacks before the creeps start attackign you again.
This mechanic can be used as one of the openings: as you approach the first enemy creepwave you
can A-click your opponent from 500 range to the creeps and do one or two attacks. He wont be able
to trade hits effectively as he will most likely trigger creeps aggro himself.

CHAPTER 5. CONTROLING HIGHGROUND (NEW!)

This chapter will cover all the things you need to know in order to control the positioning of
creepwave. This is a very overlooked topic in our community: I think that players do not seem to
understand the importance of having your creepwave in a favorable position.
5.1 Controlling the first creepwave.
Just as the laning starts you need to ask yourself a question: do I want to get level 2 faster than my
enemy and make him farm under the tower? Am I rushing bottle so I can afford pushing the wave? If
you answered no to both these questions you most likely want to keep the lane static and not push
one way or another. You should just focus on getting as much cs as possible while harassing the
opponent if he gets out of position.
5.2 Blocking only the first wave: a common misconception
As the title states: its a common misconception that midlaners should only block the first wave. Every
time both creepwaves die you need to go back to tier 1 tower and start blocking. By doing that you
will ensure you have superior positioning, you are less likely to get ganked and your opponent has to
play scared because every time he goes for a lasthit he will be vulnerable to your supports rotations.
5.3 Pushing the creepwave to get the rune the intentional pull into tower range

The concept of pushing the lane before runespawn is definitely widely known. Although not everyone
knows you can do it using tower! If you see enemy has a huge wave incoming, you can aggro the
creeps as many times as it takes to get them in your tower range. This trick will make it easier for you
to get the creep equilibrium back but also requires you to feel confident lasthitting under the tower.
5.4 Tanking the creepwave to control the highground
Sometimes you want to maintain the enemy creep advantage by tanking the creepwave. Heres a clip
illustrating this technique:
In this case Queen of Pain tanks the damage to keep her highground advantage over SF. This means
that if he moves closer for a lasthit she can blink behind him and kill or harass him.

CHAPTER 6. LASTHITTING UNDER THE TOWER (NEW!)

Another overlooked thing in playing mid is that in order to not outplay yourself you really need to
know how to lasthit confidently. There are a few rules that will make it far easier for you to do it but all
in all it comes down to practice and getting comfortable with timings and the animation of your hero.
6.1 General rules of lasthitting under the tower
T1 Damage: 110
Ranged creep 300 hp, 0 armor, 0% reduction damage.

Your damage > 80:tower, tower, you

Your damage < 80:you, tower, tower, you (can also be T,you,T,you)

Melee creep 550hp, 2 armor, 10.7% damage reduction

Your damage > 67-70:tower x5, you

Your damage < 67:you, tower x5, you (can be for example: T, you, T,T,T,T,you)All credit for
that info goes to reddit user /u/Jkaos92.

In a nutshell all you have to remember is that if your hero dmg is lower than 67 then you need to
attack the melee creep once then wait for 4 tower hits then lasthit it.
6.2 Lasthitting under tower using spells
The rule of thumb here is that almost every spell that is level 2 will let you lasthit ranged creep after
tower hits it one more time. This includes:
Shockwave, Illusory Orb, Scream of Pain etc.
Usually spells that do 140-150 damage will also let you lasthit full hp melee creeps easily.
6.2 Getting creep into tower range only for a second
This technique gives you a lot more time to judge whether you need to attack the creep one more time
or leave it as it is. All you have to do is drag a creep into tower range then move out of it. Towers
attack projectile flies pretty slowly so youll heave a plenty of time to do your calculations.
Remember that this is just an example video. Dont try tanking 4 creeps with a level 1 or 2 hero
without a stout shield.

CHAPTER 7. DODGING SMOKEGANKS

If you have ever played any higher level DotA, youve probably met the biggest nightmare of every
mid player: smokeganks. They make you feel in constant danger and you cant focus on the laning as
much. What methods can you use when roaming supports appear during the draft and you know
youll have to deal with them?
7.1 Stop the rotation method
If you want to win mid with an easily gankable hero and you know enemy can make your life a
nightmare: get an aggresive trilane against them. This forces them to either stay on the lane and fight
back or get detected fairly easily because your allies will call miss as soon as the supports are gone.
Remember that as the game starts, before you see most of the enemy heroes on the map you are
not safe, and shouldnt take any risky moves as they can be just flanking you.
7.2 Colors method
This method works mostly in pubs, where supports arent missing from the map as much as they do in
more competitive games.

It simply relies on you memorizing the color of player/players that can gank you easily.

In this game Ive chosen crystal maiden as the biggest gank threat. If orange dot is missing from the
map and enemy carry is not farming under the tower because of CM pulling, I have to play really
defensively.
7.3 Scorescreen and enemy carry position method
This method relies on you checking the scorescreen constantly and seeing if enemy supports are
gaining any levels. If you feel they may gank you at level 1 and are still level 1 when they should have
already done pull or two, you should really be expecting gank soon. Another way to check the position
of enemy supports is watching if their carry is farming under the tower: if he is supports are currenlty
pulling, if hes not then its time to start worrying. This method is unfortunately not 100% reliable as
they may smoke immidiately after doing the pull and by the time you see enemy creeps back on their
safelane youll already be dead.
Its also really important to have a path which you are going to take depending on where the enemy
support will come from.

CHAPTER 8. RUNECONTROL AND CONTROLLING THE COURIER

Whether you like it or not runes and randomness that comes with them often wins or loses games.
Controlling who gets the rune is an important factor in how good of a mid player you are. You probably
know the basic start pushing 10-15 seconds before rune spawn rule so Im not even going to go into
details about it. What I want to talk about instead is what you should do if the enemy secures the rune
and what are the ablities that every rune gives.
8.1 Bounty runes at level 1 should you give up your block to get them?
Short answer: yes, if you know you are not in danger of dying when picking them up. Generally you
just have to judge which team has better level 1 teamfight composition.
Heroes that you have to look out for:

Undying Decay

Mirana Arrow from fog

Ancient Apparition Chilling Touch

Earthshaker Fissure

Spiritbreaker Charge of darkness, very tanky

Tuskar Snowball

8.2 Bottle crowing, controlling the courier

The answer to [almost] every problem on the mid: bottle crow. Nerfed in the last DotA version, but still
viable if you are melee hero with a spammable nuke.
Some bottlecrow tips:
1. The only significant change that the bottlecrow nerf brought is that you shouldnt ever use
couriers speed buff as it flies to you from base. Wait until you put your empty bottle in it, then
feel free to use it.
2. If you feel like enemy offlaner or supports are going to get your rune, already fly your courier
somewhere into the trees near middle lane and if it indeed is what happens, bottle crow
instead of wasting time checking the rune.
3. You should be especially careful if your opposing team has a Natures Prophet or Bounty
Hunter. They love sniping couriers and the gold you give them is almost like a free tower.
4. Use item hotkeys in the shop! This makes shopping way faster and can save your courier. If
you forgot about it and the enemy Qop is about to jump on it, quickly click shop hotkey then
courier upgrade hotkey for me its N and 8. If youre lucky you will trade 220 gold for a kill
on an overextending opponent.
5. You have to have a courier hotkey and all his possible actions binded too. Toggling between
your hero and courier and checking if your bottle is already refilled or if surge is available
saves a lot of time and sometimes even your life.
8.3 Rune usage

Haste: If you sense an opportunity, you can gank enemy safelane with this rune or you can
just nuke your mid opponent and make him unable to come close to creeps because of the
death threat. Earlygame most useful used 10 seconds before the next rune in order to secure
it.

Double damage: The mid autowin rune. If you get it you should push your advantage to the
max: zone out the enemy, deny all of his creeps and get all the lasthits.

Invisibility: Before level 6-7 its not that useful as youre not going to gank anyways and
ganking supports usually have sentries. Remember that you can use bottle once after
activating it without breaking the invisibility buff.

Illusion: Players usually activate the rune, A-click illusions into the enemy and watch them die
after dealing 15 damage. This rune actually has more uses than any other: you can stack 2
neutral camps/ancients at once, scout and deny the next rune, bodyblock to kill or send the
illusions to his highground to zone him out. Illu rune can also tank Rosh if you issue the
move command and then click on Roshan.

Regeneration: Be really aggresive, get rid of all the mana then use it. One very common
mistake is overextending to spend all mana then dying in a humilating way. Dont do that.
Please.

Bounty rune: Even though after 2 minutes of keeping it in the bottle you will get about 2 gold
and a few xp points more I suggest you use it right away. If you get ganked and need to bottle
up inbetween enemy attacks you may find yourself surprised that you need to activate the
bounty first.

8.4 Wrong rune usage

A really common mistake that 80% of students that I coached do is using runes right away. If you have
level 5/6 and you get a really good ganking rune then using it to heal up is a huge waste. Try going
back to fountain, use it as you tp to the enemy safelane then return mid after a successfull gank.
Heres a short movie to illustrate what I mean:
After bottling the rune I got hit by stun + lightening of leshrac. I could have activated the rune then
used all bottle charges to stay on the lane but what I did instead was get back to base then use invis
to gank the sidelane.
Chapter 9. To gank or not to gank?
That is the question. You probably often ask yourself in pubs should I listen to my teammate? Hes
feeding and saying he cant do anything on his lane but Im just level 3
The answer is no. Never listen to offlaners crying about how hard their lane is, if they tell you to come
gank before youre even level 5/6 it means they have no idea about this game.
9.1 It is way easier to list when it is advised to leave your lane and gank than the other way around:

When you are not level 6 but get a rune like haste and see that enemy is low-hped and wont
be able to back in time

When youre level 6 or higher and you see enemies diving your team under the tower. Always
carry tp scroll past 6 level in came something like this happens! TP into double or triple kill
means a lot at early stages of the game.

When you see a fight somewhere near your lane and youre sure you will get some gold or
exp from kills/save your ally

when your supports dewarded the enemy so you are sure nobody will see you coming

9.2 Why is looking at the clock so important?

It takes wards 7 minutes to expire. Ganking enemies earlier simply means relying they dont have any
wards which in fact is gambling. If you gamble and lose you waste a lot of time, experience and gold
what your opponent is going to capitalize on. In the worst case scenario enemy trilane seeing you
coming with rune will set up an ambush and even kill you. Usually using a tp to get to the lane you
want to gank is an even better idea.
If you got your lvl 6, ganked successfully and still havent used your ulti, go back to base and regain
mana then use smoke and come back to gank the enemy carry again.
9.3 Balancing ganking and farming

Rotating too much is by far the most common mistake 3-4k mmr players do. Every time you want to
gank you have to ask yourself: what am I getting and what am I losing in return? If we assume that
every creepwave is ~150-200 gold then spending 2 minutes on the other lane may cost you up to 800
gold. Meanwhile you are also sharing experience with your allies while your opponent is freefarming
and getting solo xp. It takes a while to figure out when you should farm and when you should gank:
going with the rule of sum of the gains and losses and watching your own replays is the fastest way
to learn it.
Chapter 10. Mana management (New!)
Mana management is an extremely important aspect of playing midlane that I only discovered after
playing competetive DotA for a while.
10.1 Why is having mana so important?
If you stay on the lane with low a series of consequences is going to rain down on you:

You are unable to solokill the opposite midlaner even if you get a good rune

Some heroes like Puck or Magnus get really vulnerable to ganks if they dont have the mana
to use their escape ability.

But the most important by far is:

You are not a threat to the enemy on two other lanes. If you play against good players or a
good team they will notice it and they will abuse it. This means that they will attempt risky
kills and dives under tower that they wouldnt have otherwise. With 100 mana even if you tp
you wont be able to do anything more than rightclick them.

10.2 How do I preserve mana?

Do not nuke waves for no reason. You should either harass the enemy with them while
getting ~2 cs each time or just rely on your autoattack to get every lasthit.

Do not attempt a solokill unless you are absolutely sure you are going to get it or at least
force a rotation. Youre going to waste all of your mana and become a liability to your team.

10.3 What if I run out of mana?

Mana management is a bit like managing your water level during sport competitions. What pros say is
that the moment you feel thirsty is the moment you are already dehydrated. DotA works surprisingly
similarly when it comes to mana. If you run out of mana its already too late. You should have brought
a clarity or bottlecrowed: clarity is only 50 gold and it regains a ton of mana for what it costs, dont be
afraid to ferry it casually together with your boots or a tp.
Chapter 11. The importance of mid tier 1 tower. Tower mechanics. (New!)
Guess what another aspect of playing mid that needs people to be more aware of.
11.1 Why is mid tower so important?

It controls the access to your jungle if you lose it you effectively leave a huge chunk of the
map open to the enemy

You become way more susceptible to ganks your team has nothing to tp to in case of
opponents aggresion, the aspect of vision/truesight plays a big role as well

Tier 1 mid tower plays a big role in controlling the roshan area

Getting the enemy tier 1 tower gives you such a huge advantage that its really to
counterpush the enemy mid tower in the next 5-10 mins

11.2 My little study on the topic

I have analysed exactly 100 of my games to find out what the winrate of the team that gets tier 1 mid
tower first is. The results showed a clear winner: teams that get the t1 mid tower before their opponent
had 61% winrate!
I do realise that the sample may be pretty small but such a big advantage may not go unnoticed.
11.3 How to abuse the facts that youve learned about mid T1?

Never gank when youre up against a hero that can push your tower really quickly:
Shadowfiend, lvl 6 Death Prophet, Leshrac, Beastmaster they will outpush the lane with
their nuke then take the tower before you are able to react

If you really want to gank ask one of your teammates to stay mid and keep creeps off the
tower

Exactly the same logic applies when your opponent rotates on one of the other lanes to gank the
moment you see him run towards your safelane start pushing to deal as much damage to the tower as
possible.
11.4 The tower chipping technique
If you watch a lot of pro DotA you may notice how they always manage to juggle the tower aggro in
order to keep attacking the tower and never get attacked back by it. On the midlane every small detail
matters so getting 2 or 3 bonus attacks every now and then may have huge consequences in the
future.
As you may notice in the short clip above I stop attacking the tower just about the ranged being
attacked by the tower is about to die. As soon as the tower switches to the next creep you are free to
attack it again. Tower will always focus on the melee creeps that are currently attacking the tower over
you and it will never switch aggro from a creep to a hero unless you attack the enemy hero in 500
range. That means that you only have to stop attacking when the tower is about to switch target from
one creep to another.
11.5 Movement under the tower
A common mistake middleskill players are doing is leaving the opponent to freely farm under his
tower. If you use the knowledge I provided you with you can do some amazing things right in front of
the enemy tower. Remember that as long as you dont rightclick your opponent while being less than
500 units away from tower it will never switch aggro to you. It should look like this:
Chapter 12. Doublewaving, what is it and when to use it
Doublewaving is a strategy designed to make laning against melee, low ranged and heroes that want
to be aggresive early way easier. It may also prove extremely useful if getting level 2 before the
enemy gives you a significant advantage.

Example: Puck vs TA
Normally Puck is considered to be severely countered by Templar Assassin. By using this trick though
you may gain enough advantage early to snowball and even win the lane. Getting level 2 when TA is
lvl 1 you are able to dive under the tower without risking to be hit and you can avoid any harass easily.
So what exactly is this strategy and how do I use it?
To doublewave someone means to accumulate a lot of creeps that start pushing him towards his
tower. Meanwhile you are free to harass with all the aggro tricks youve learned (yes they work on
towers too) and deny his creeps as he tanks them under the tower. Heres a video of me performing
this strategy against my friend:
There are few things you have to remember when trying to do it:

never let enemy get 2 ranged creeps, actually the first creep that you kill should be his ranged
creep you stop the pushing and you can harass the enemy easier

you DO want to focus more on attacking the enemy hero than on lasthitting on the first wave.
That way you start pushing ijust in the right timing.

use your spells! Using spells like static remnant/illusory orb/scream of pain deals damage to
creeps comparable with 4-5 autoattacks

dont push too fast! If you kill the first enemy creepwave before your second wave arrives you
will just give the enemy a lot of lasthits for free and your plan will be ruined

There are a few things you can do to prevent getting doublewaved:

Pull the enemy creeps into your tower range

Autoattack the enemy creeps/use your nuke

Try killing the ranged creep first

Chapter 13. Hard matchups and how to deal with them

There are some heroes that make you want to quit DotA after laning against them. Remember though
that every hero in this game is beatable. OD walks into a bar. There was no counter.? Not anymore!
13.1 Playing as a melee hero against ranged, very disadvantageous matchups like DK/ember vs viper
This is another common question I get: What do I do if I get into an extremely disadvantageous
matchup like Viper vs Ember?
First thing you need to remember is: do not die. Dying means you wont be able to come to this lane
anymore without dying again. There are a few advanced techniques you can use to get a few more cs
from an unwinable lane.
13.1.1 From tower to tower
One way to make sure your opponent is unable to zone you out of experience is to give the
creepwave some momentum so it jumps from one tower to another. This should be performed with a
very specific timing as if you nuke the creepwave too early the enemy tower will kill all creeps by the
time your second wave reaches midlane and you will end up with creeps in the same spot as when
you started. Try practicing this strategy in a private lobby before you get into a real game.

To do this try to push the wave really hard approximately 10 seconds after the creeps have met in the
middle of the river. The desired outcome is your opponent farming the second wave under his tower
and then you farming the next one under yours.
13.1.2 Aggro, aggro, aggro
This strategy uses the trick that youve already learned in the Chapter 4. Rightclick your hero while
being less than 500 units away from the enemy creeps. In this case you dont want to do it just once.
You want to keep using it as many times as it requires creeps to spread really widely all across the
midlane. The opponent wont be able to both cs and harass you that easily.
13.2 Playing against Templar Assassin
As you just read, there are strategies to make Templar Assassin a beatable hero. One of the most
impressive performances Ive ever seen was Arteezys Puck beating TA with treants armor. Luckily I
have a ticket for that tournament, so heres a video for you!
Arteezy uses every trick possible to outlane his opponent. His lasthitting under the tower is also
flawless this game. Despite not getting any runes he outcses TA severely and even gets a kill with
some help of a jungling DS. This video proves what an amazing impact hard work and dedication
have on your play.
13.3 Playing against obsidian destroyer outworld demolisher Outworld devourer
This hero used to be the ultimate antimidder. Unless you played Razor, Kunkka or Lone Druid there
just was not much you could do after he hit level 3. As of 6.84 this hero should win most of the
matchups against int heroes but some of them that can stay away from astral imprisonment can do
OK (such as Queen of Pain, Leshrac or Lina). You should not focus on playing aggresively against an
OD. What youre looking for is getting as much CS as possible, leeching experience, rune control as
well as stacking woods to get back into the game. After you hit level 6, go gank and contribute to the
teams current situation. Maxing the nuke that will let you grab few extra lasthits against him is
strongly advised.
PS If everything else fails, theres always good old gank him youll be fine.
13.4 Playing against a batrider
Batriders sticky napalm is one of the most annoying skills in the game. It makes you turn forever,
easy to harass and zone out. Im probably not going to say anything particularly new here but getting
a stick and backing off every time you get 3-4 stacks is a must. One of the biggest flaws on batriders
laning is his projectile speed. Good bat will get 100% of his lasthits, but as napalm obviously doesnt
work on his own creeps you should be able to farm a bit too. If you dont die to him by getting caught
will already be a big win for your team. Heroes that are pretty decent against a bat are OD, Puck,
Queen of Pain and Zeus !
Chapter 14. Picking the right hero in ranked -all pick.
I get a lot of questions regarding the topic of raising your mmr. In my opinion to raise your mmr reliably
you cant just pick the same hero every game and expect it to work (with a few exceptions of
overpowered meta heroes of course). Personally I like to wait for the 4th or last pick when selecting
my hero. I do that not only to counter the enemy mid but also to see what my team composition still
lacks. So
What should you keep in mind before selecting a hero?
14.1 Question one: what does my team need?

If your team consists of 3 agility heroes picking another carry would obviously be really questionable.
If your team already has so much physical damage the most optimal heroes will be either boosting
their damage (Magnus, Beastmaster) or providing them with reliable disables to give them more time
to attack the enemy (QW Invoker, Puck, Brewmaster, Warlock, Magnus, Beastmaster)
14.2 Question two: can i counter the enemy lineup with just one pick?
Examples:
1. Lack of instant disables > pick mobile heroes: Queen of Pain, Storm, Puck, Tinker
2. A lot of mana intensive heroes -> pick Pugna or Nyx
3. Lack of outpush abilities -> Leshrac, QE Invoker with necronomicon, Beastmaster, Dragon
Knight, Death Prophet, Mekansm SF
14.3 Question three: does my team need more damage/a carry?
If you answered yes pick heroes that farm fast and scale well into the lategame:
Shadowfiend, Templar Assassin, Storm Spirit, Ember, Kunkka
14.4 Question four: Does my team need more outpush against enemy deathball?
Pick heroes with outpush abilities:
Magnus, Lina, Puck, Tinker, Zeus
14.5 Question five: Does my team have map control heroes?
(heroes that outpush lanes a lot/gank: Natures Prophet, Antimage, Nyx, Clockwerk). In that case I like
to get mid hero that can easily get a lot of solo pickoffs
Examples: Storm, Lina, Euls + max E Invoker, Queen of Pain
14.6 Question six: Am I really confident in my skills and want to carry the game alone?
If so you can just pick one of the meta heroes while counterpicking the enemy mid. Usually these
heroes are capable of getting a lot of pickoffs while farming quickly. These are the heroes that are
used by 6k+ players that want to raise in MMR/dont want to rely on their team to win.
Examples of counterpicks to common mid heroes in the 6.84 meta:

Leshrac -> Lina, Pugna, Huskar

Lina -> Templar Assassin, Puck (if youre good at it)

Queen of Pain -> Windrunner, Lina, Storm Spirit (if you win laning stage)

Shadowfiend -> Leshrac, Lina, Queen of Pain, Templar Assassin

Storm Spirit -> Shadowfiend, Lina, Queen of Pain, Windrunner, Leshrac

Templar Assassin -> Viper, Ember Spirit, Windrunner

As you can see theres much more to picking your hero than just looking at what the opposite
midlaner has chosen. Counterpicking is indeed generally advised but you should always look at the

broader picture and ask yourself whether the hero you are about to pick is going to work with your
teams lineup and against 4 other enemy heroes. Theres still a lot of DotA to be played after the
laning stage is over!
Chapter 15. All the little things you can learn to become a better mid player
This chapter is devoted to all the things that are too inisgnificant to deserve their own chapter.
Together though, they give you a ton of knowledge that often proves really useful in-game.
15.1 The unwritten rule of every 1v1 matchup
Always go for a lasthit over deny. Its always more important for you to have items rather than prevent
your enemies from getting them. More gold more opportunities.
15.2 Mouse precision matters. A lot.
Clicking heroes in complicated teamfights, precisely selecting which creep to lasthit and which to
deny, checking things on minimap quickly all of that requires a lot of mouse precision. I noticed that
after practicing my mouse skills I am a lot more confident during every match.
To get your clicking skills to another level I suggest minigames like this one:
http://games.jlbn.net/playgame.php?getgame=3295&width=1680&height=949
You should be able to get over 50k+ points before you can say that your mouse precision is OK.
100k+ means you are really good and with 200k+ you will never have to worry about your mouse
precision again.
15.3 The damage of combined level 6/7 spells
For some people this may seem completely redundant but Ive seen some pro players checking
enemys hp before going for a kill. After all its always better to know something than not to.
Remember that this is a pure spell damage output calculation . Youll almost always be able to add 14 autoattacks to the combo what will deal somewhere between 50-200 additional damage.

QoP lvl 6: 432 dmg, lvl 7: 488 dmg (no shadowstrike)

Puck lvl 6: 285 dmg (+75), lvl7: 338 dmg (+75) [75 is the coil break damage]

Zeus lvl 6: 439 dmg, lvl 7: 495 dmg (no passive included [40-120dmg])

Magnus lvl 6: 312 dmg, lvl 7: 368 dmg

Tinker (laser rocket build,no rearm) lvl 6: 428 dmg, lvl 7: 508 dmg

15.4 Dodging Qops shadowstrike procs with phase shift/euls

When I died to something I should have been able to avoid I decided to learn how to dodge each one
of the shadowstrikes ticks. One of the methods is to count to three and phaseshift every time you are
about to get hit, but this metod is not realiable at all. How I do this is by memorising shadowstrikes
status icon, where each tick occurs on the timer then phaseshifting just as its about to hit you. Heres
a picture with green lines showing when to use phaseshift to dodge every damage instance :

15.5 Dodging snipers assassinate with phase shift/euls/blink etc.

Same as above, this method uses status icon to determine when to blink or use you item that will
dodge enemys spell projectile. Works every time, regardless of how far from the sniper you are:

Sniper stops channeling when the assassinate status is just a few pixels to the left from the centre.
Use your spell or euls at that exact moment to dodge the flying bullet.
15.6 TPing out from pucks coil without taking damage
Sometimes you know you wont survive pucks ult orb silence + autoattacks combo, especially if you
break the coil. Tping out breaks the coil even in your fountain so thats not a viable option. Or maybe it
is? If you wait for pucks coil to go past 1/2 of the status bar, you are free to tp back to base and you
wont receive any additional damage! Thats because pucks ultimate lasts for 6 seconds and tp
channels for 3 seconds.

15.7 Positioning your courier closer to the mid lane

In DotA every second matters a lot. Sometimes the smallest things can win or lose the game. Things
like getting your bottle 0,5s faster. I remember dying to pudge just because my bottle was a quarter of
second too late to get delivered. You can prevent this kind of situation by positioning your courier as
far as possible, but still in the shops range. Heres how it looks like:
RADIANT:

DIRE:

15.8 Camera hotkeys

Camera hotkeys are a great way to make checking for rune way easier. If you dont know what that is
its basically binding certain camera position somewhere on the map to a single hotkey, in this case:
runespot. In DotA 2 console allows you to bind them once and forever.
To set runespot camera hotkeys paste following commands in your console:
bind X dota_camera_set_lookatpos -2287 1817
bind Y dota_camera_set_lookatpos 2960 -2353
Obviously you can change the X and Y hotkeys to any other key you want.
15.9 Random useful facts
DotA is an incredibly complex game and there mechanics that even DotA veterans are surprised to
discover.
I prepared a short list of random facts that may prove useful when you play the mid solo role:
1. You need two or more levels in exort to take off Templar Assassins refraction charges with
icewall. Orb of venom will not trigger refraction charges.
2. If someone stands exactly 450 units from your hero, you can hit him with all three
Shadowfiends razes
3. If you have troubles with detecting when kunkka fakes his torrent buy a stick. Whenever you
gain a charge you know its coming.
4. Tinkers laser miss buff is applied after a short interval. You can dodge it [but not the damage]
by using skill like phaseshift or banes sleep immidiately after getting hit.
5. Storm spirits overload can be triggered when your projectile is already mid-air. Abuse this to
get easy firstbloods.
6. You can use salves and bottle while under effect of pudges level 1-3 rot.
Chapter 16. Practice how to and why to
People who play support say that the 4 and 5 positions require the most practice. People who play
offlane and carry say the exact same thing. And to your surprise every mid player believes his position
is the hardest and needs the most experience. So how, what and with who do I practice?
16.1 How to practice mid
Host a lobby with your practicepartner, set it to: cheats on, only mid and start the game. Depending on
what you want to practice you can set your match to:

bottle crow on, runes off: allows you to bottlecrow, this training is usually focused on farming
spells usage as you can them a lot and its difficult to kill the enemy

runes on, bottle crow off: makes you practice runecontrol but sometimes is luck dependant

runes on, bottle crow on: balances the luck factor

if you want to, you can add additional 220 gold at 3:00 with -gold 220 command to pretend your
support has upgraded the courier

 some people like to practice with pooled tango, to get one or two of them use -createhero lich,
then wait for the bot to buy items. After he does you can pool yourself tangoes
type -startgame when you are both ready to waste less time on waiting for the creeps to spawn.
This feature still seems to be somewhat bugged because if you do this later than -0:30 it will spawn
two creepwaves.
16.2 Some of the most common/interesting matchups to practice:
1. Puck vs QoP
2. Puck vs Bat
3. Puck vs Storm
4. Puck vs Magnus
5. Puck vs Windrunner
6. Qop vs Magnus
7. QoP vs Storm
8. Qop vs Bat
9. QoP vs Windrunner
10. TA vs QoP
11. Storm vs Sf
12. Storm vs Windranger
16.3 Things you get from practicing mid

You can master all the aggro tricks I presented you with in this guide

You get better at timing your lasthits and feeling the hero

Your bottlecrow and rune control gets way smoother

You learn about some mindgames that come with practice

You can learn your mistakes if your practice partner is better than you

16.4 Where do I find players to practice with?

If none of your friends likes to do it, then its time to find a new friends

Try searching popular

chat channels like purgegamers, merlini, reddit or NaVi. If you still havent found anyone then
try this guild: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/1v1Dota2Guild

If you ask the admin, he will add you to the guild inside the client and there you will find a plenty of
players looking for practicepartners. Other good places to search for decent players are are ixdlOpen/Invite channels respective to your continent and big forums like joindota.com