Going With the Flow: The Best Meta Hero for Each Role
Between the DPC games and a ton of third party tournaments, it is easy to figure out which heroes work and which heroes don’t. Today we are going to look at each position individually and tell you what hero tends to perform the best in it.
Position Five: 
Treant Protector
Treant is very good right now. Between high lane elusiveness, great damage, multiple sustain abilities, global heal and a mostly unique tower repair mechanic the hero is undeniably strong.
To get the most out of him, go for a 1-2-0-0 build by level three and a 1-2-4-1 by level eight. Nature’s Grasp is definitely the strongest level one ability the hero has, but then getting two points into Leech Seed makes for some easy HP trades.
Later on, though, you are mostly about heals and extra armor. Living Armor levelling can even be expedited at the cost of a second Leech Seed point, especially if you have low armor, but high HP teammates across the map. Best candidates for this adaptation are Tiny and Centaur.
Item-wise most high level players tend to simply rush Blink Dagger for potential instant counter-initiations. It is a BKB-piercing Disarm, so the ability holds high value at all stages of the game.
Position four: 
Rubick or 
Mirana
Both heroes in this category require a lot of skill to play. Landing good arrows and being precise with Leaps might not be as hard as finding good steals time and time again, but compared to most meta supports those two definitely stand out when played by an experienced player.
That said, we feel like Rubick is currently a little bit easier than he used to be. Most of his uniqueness revolves around Arcane Supremacy. It is a passive ability that provides Rubick with an insane amount of extra cast range, which is nice with virtually every spell in the game, but is borderline overpowered in some interesting cases.
Stealing Dispose from 
Marci or Pulverize from 
Primal Beast allows Rubick to initiate and isolate a long range target. Add Aether Lens and level twenty to the mix and you get to threaten enemy positioning even without any steals. At this point the hero becomes the king of low-commitment, “soft” initiation, where you get to look at the enemy response from a safe distance.
Mirana is quite different. The hero is mostly about landing good Sacred Arrows and potentially deleting a target with double Starstorm. We feel like one of the reasons the hero is so popular and successful is also because she can farm up jungle camps while laning, accelerating her gold income and ultimately allowing her to get good team items.
The latest trend is either Spirit Vessel or Guardian Greaves, though old-school Eul’s is still worth considering.
Position three: 
Death Prophet
The last round of buffs made the hero even more viable than she used to be. Between high sustain in lane and strong pushing power, Death Prophet is also one of the better late-game scaling cores, primarily because of how flexible she is.
The hero can go for virtually any item her team needs. With Greaves, Pipe and Crimson buffed in the last patch, there are always good tools to adapt to the enemy draft. By making herself as survivable as possible, Death Prophet becomes an ideal position three: a hero the enemy can’t ignore, but can’t really kill quickly either.
Getting all the survivability talents and all the survivability items makes for a hell of a frontline, that also sometimes gets to win her lane. Just make sure to max out Spirit Siphon in the offlane: the Crypt Swarm build farms faster, but can’t really fight early.
Position two: 
Batrider
With ultra glass cannons in the safe lane being the meta, dealing damage isn’t a priority: ensuring good time for your carry is. Batrider is excellent at that, with a very powerful, BKB-piercing repositioning tool.
Another big selling point for Batrider is how strong in lane the hero can be. He absolutely destroys any melee heroes and has high ganking potential to capitalize on a won lane. By going 
Boots of Travel, he can become a global menace and with a simple BKB he also gets a lot harder to kill.
Max out your Napalm, be proactive and you can create an insane amount of space for your team, while going on an early to mid-game rampage. Just make sure to not miss the transition point, where you will have to start playing more conservatively: at some point Batrider becomes 75% utility and only 25% damage.
Position one: 
Lina
We are not sure if anyone’s surprised about Lina being the most reliable, consistent and successful position one hero in the current meta. With her strong laning stage and excellent DPS from midgame onwards, the hero is simply broken.
A lot has been said about Lina in a previous post, when she was still considered “unconventional” and not a lot has changed in a week. Some players are experimenting with an even greedier farming build that skips Laguna Blade in favor of stats, but we strongly advise against it. It has a chance to tilt your teammates and +2 to all attributes is not worth it.
Otherwise the hero is as powerful as she ever was and we are patiently waiting for a patch to come out, or perhaps a new meta development to emerge. Do you have any ideas on what carries are good against Lina? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Carries against Lina? I'm unsure bar maybe a sniper but I'm a big fan of picking Axe/Clock into her. It does require the blink and blademail for the former but you can pretty much solo her. There is a big BUT however, and that Axe feels very "meh" right now. Albeit I play in the 'trench', he just seems very underwhelming.
@Kawaiisocks what are your thoughts on Axe as hero right now?
I've seen Axe do well against greedy melee supports. It is a very interesting dynamic.
Lina/SF as a carry kind of enable weak melee lane supports, most notably Riki and Nyx. I think Omni and Ogre Magi are also in this category, as are probably some other heroes. Axe can really punish a draft like that and I saw it a couple of times in tournaments I've casted.
The idea is Lina doesn't want to miss farm, but weak Melee lane support can't do anything to Axe. As Axe you get behind the enemy tower an pull towards the neutrals getting double the farm. Since Lina doesn't want to leave lane and miss creeps you do not feel threatened, not by Riki/Nyx-type supports. Lina can't waveclear early levels with the 1-1-4-1 build most players go for, so it is unlikely she rotates in to contest that, not without an opportunity cost of losing a wave of creeps. Most pub players and even pro carry players are efficiency oriented and might not adapt in time.
The end result is you profit very well out of this economically. You get a lot of gold and XP, as does Lina, but you can really propell Axe towards his key items and with higher tempo just take over the game. Don't get too greedy and too cocky, and I think it might work very well.
It also potentially frees up a position four support to pressure mid or to make some stacks.
You forgot pos 2 tusk
I think everyone should be aware that most of these heroes suggested are for games where your teammates do theyre job I wouldnt suggest picking Batrider mid or Lina pos 1 or DP 3 until you are atleast legend rank
I feel like there was a sorely missed opportunity to include Riki as one of the best position 4's over Rubick. This hero is crushing pubs right now just by picking up aghs shard for sleep dart. Beyond that, his build allows for more utility with lotus orb and force staff. Many people are even opting for aether lens and blink dagger just to double down on the strength of sleep dart. This hero is being played almost the same number of matches as Mirana in high-level pubs and matching her win rate; a whole 3% higher than Rubick's. Its only notable weakness right now is its relatively poor laning stage. Smokescreen is also a highly oppressive spell right now given that your counterplay options are force staff or BKB (the former, not every hero wants to build, and the latter, has been nerfed to have a 90-second cooldown; the recent trend towards dispels, such as lotus and grieves, won't get you out of the cloud).
And although I understand why such heroes wouldn't make the cut in this article, I would like to give some honorable mentions to position 5 Silencer, position 1 Slark, and position 2 Ember Spirit, Pangolier, and Tusk. These heroes have all solidified a place in the meta for their respective roles.
Why do you think Dazzle is unpopular?
To call an overall 47.75% winrate held broken is of course exciting. Any Blink Jump initiator can quickly take a Lina out of the fight. To play Lina as a P1, the draft has to fit, with e.g. a Treant protecting her. :-)