As patch 7.21 disrupted the meta, 7.21b followed up and gave some heroes the extra nudge they needed to emerge in pub and professional play. As ESL Katowice and MDL Macau unfolds, we're seeing a few new heroes and item builds surfacing in the midlane.
VIPER
Viper is a stable pick who excels at maintaining the early to mid game tempo, and sometimes thats all your team needs. The hero’s weakness in past iterations has been his ability to carry his team through the mid and late game, in spite of his strengths in the laning stage. Atos, Drum and Guardian Greaves build is an interesting take on Viper. They’re all stat efficient items that makes a hero like Viper even more of a nuisance.
MONKEY KING
Though his Agility gain did get buffed, he also benefitted largely from the movement speed changes in 7.21. His base movement speed increased by 5 and Phase Boots was buffed, from +20% to 22%. Every bit matters when it comes to placing Jingu stacks.
Monkey King’s power spike was always a little awkward relative to other heroes. Getting level 6 doesn’t do much for him, when he needs more items and levels to make use of Wukong’s Command. Now that the meta has slowed down and Hand of Midas is back in vogue, the game is more his tempo.
And here is a list of most used items on Monkey King.
NECROPHOS
His laning has been hamstrung since his rework of Death Pulse, moving his passive regeneration onto his Hearstopper skill. But patch 7.21 did bring a corrective, increasing his Int gain (2.5 to 2.9), buffing his his Ghost Shroud talent (+20% to +30%), and increasing his Death Pulse damage (100/140/180/200 to 100/150/200/250). He may not have the same relevance in the competitive meta, but in pubs he has an outsized impact, with the 4th highest win rate.
