It’s a tragedy for Meepo players! For several hours, their favorite hero was removed from Dota 2 and was unavailable for picking. The hero became unavailable to be picked on July 3, but fret not, because it’s merely a temporary removal as Valve clarified, with the hero seemingly returning to the pool (for now) on July 4.
Here’s why some players’ dream (and some players’ nightmare) came true yesterday as Meepo was removed from the game.
Dota 2 Meepo (Image credit: Valve)
Meepo is a Dota 2 hero that can multiply into up to five separate units of itself. Unlike illusions, Meepo clones share the same stats and skills of the main Meepo. They can even farm experience across the map independently, making a good Meepo player often ahead in terms of experience in a game. This may seem overpowered on paper, but it comes with a risky caveat: If any of the Meepos dies, all of them die together.
But the character’s potentially overpowered nature isn’t why the hero was removed. As much as we wished Valve removed Meepo indefinitely, there are good reasons why Valve did it temporarily.
Meepo player dropping unlimited Manta Styles (Image credit: Reddit user, VashDota)
The removal has much to do with a bug involving Meepo’s Pack Rat Facet ability. For the uninitiated, this Dota 2 facet ability allows the prime Meepo to place any regular item on the designated neutral item slot. However, to achieve this, Meepo has to has full six-slot items first. This may seem like a late game-only bug, but all you really need is six Iron Branches and a Manta Style.
Then, the Meepo player has to disconnect before the other players control the hero to use Manta Style. Each time they use Manta Style, the two illusions drop two Manta Styles, which they can then pick up and sold for gold. Players were then abusing the bug to gain unlimited gold.
It seems like the newly-created Manta Styles behaved like neutral items while Meepo’s passive, which makes items usable by clones, manifested such a complex bug. In fact, it was so complex that despite Valve’s multiple attempts to patch this bug, it somehow returned in an alternative form.
High rank players abusing Meepo bug (Image credit: Gorgc Twitch channel)
For most players, it’s a pleasant surprise, albeit a temporary one. Meepo is often a cheesy last pick to ensure the opponents do not counter it in a game, such as picking Earthshaker, Axe, and other AOE-based heroes. As such, most players hate the average Meepo spammer because the game is as good as lost without a proper counter against Meepo.
However, the true impact of such a bug is a whopping +8% in Meepo’s win rate in pubs before Valve removed Meepo yesterday.
Regardless of Meepo’s removal, the Riyadh Masters 2024 goes on. There aren’t too many pro mid players that uses Meepo as a signature hero, but there’s at least one at Riyadh Masters.
Abed “Abed” Yusop is renowned for his phenomenal Meepo gameplay, so it’s a shame that Meepo isn’t currently available for him at Riyadh Masters 2024.
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