At The International 6, Chinese Dota 2 team Wings Gaming did more than just win. They challenged some of our deepest assumptions about Dota 2, including how the game is meant to be played and what the limits of innovation truly are. Unconcerned about solving TI6s metagame, Wings forged their own path to conquering the championship, putting absolute faith in their own strategies, their own playstyle and their own understanding of the game. This unconventional path bears closer scrutiny to identify any lessons there may be for the Dota scene as a whole.Greater draft diversityThe teams unusual drafts have been the main talking point about them for most of the year, reviving interest in dozens of heroes thought to be stuck in particular roles or used only in particular situations. Keeper of the Light, Treant Protector, Venomancer, Troll Warlord, Centaur Warrunner, Pudge: the list goes on. In truth, youd be hard-pressed to find a hero Wings have not utilized at some point in the last six months.Indeed, central to the teams identity is a willingness to draft subversively, aggressively experimenting with tools that are available to all teams but sometimes overlooked. Some of their experiments have been total disasters, Iron Talon Alchemist among them. In fact, it is fairly common to see Wings try out a draft that turns out to be a total flop and loses them the game in under 20 minutes.But it doesnt stop them from innovating. Even when a Pudge draft led to their only TI6 main event loss, they still opted to give the hero another run in the first game of the grand final itself. Again, it didnt work. But the team got back up and won the next three games to clinch the trophy.This suggests very clearly that Wings know what theyre getting themselves into with their drafts. They know that by preparing so many different strategies they open themselves up to the possibility that some of them will be exposed as incomplete or ill-conceived. But by embracing this uncertainty, they turn a potential weakness into an important strength.If youve only been practicing one strategy and that strategy turns out to be faulty, then a fundamental part of your teams identity is on the line. But if youve prepared a plethora of strategies, youve empowered yourself to be honest and critical of any one of them after a loss. Accepting the fact that one particular strategy was misguided is a lot easier when its not the only one your team depends on.Assumptions, revisitedOf course, there are many creative minds in Dota 2 and many teams that regularly innovate. What is unique to Wings is not the fact that they innovate, but the extent to which they do it. The team appears to approach the draft as a blank canvas, or at least one substantially more blank than for other teams. They seem to treat assumptions about strategic norms with great suspicion. Wings understand that most of what we refer to as the metagame is just a collection of popular ideas, not rules about the game itself. And so they test things out, seeing which tactics are actually constrained by the game itself and which only appear to be.This approach to drafting is just one facet of what seems to be their overall approach to the game. Wings constrain their own thinking as little as possible. They operate with fewer heuristics and fewer shortcuts than other teams typically do. They challenge some of the most basic assumptions about skill builds, item builds, laning strategies, rotations, and counters. This is the team whose offlane Slardar has more than once killed an enemy support with Bash at level two; it is a team that occasionally leaves lanes entirely empty, or roams cores using Smoke in the first few minutes of the game.Crucially, in most of these cases, an unconventional decision leads to a desirable outcome. What looks like a strange Smoke gank ends with an important kill. What looks like an unusual laning decision pushes enemies into an awkward position. What looks like a bizarre item build (say, Batrider not rushing Blink, a trend started by Wings) subverts the expected timing windows of the game, creating time and space for the team. But being able to understand a particular deviation in hindsight is very different from being able to see a pattern, or predicting one of these unusual decisions.And the reason it is so difficult is because all of us -- players, analysts, fans -- have become attached to certain norms of thinking about Dota 2. Certain things counter other things. Certain things are more efficient than other things. A particular hero is best skilled a particular way. We need to learn these kinds of shortcuts because the game is extremely complex and there is simply too much to process in order to make each decision anew every time we encounter it.It is important to note that these kinds of norms do change, and professional players do challenge them. This is a big part of what fuels the evolution of the metagame. However, Wings appear to be the first team to have found a way to quite deliberately and consciously free themselves from as many heuristics as they can. As a result, they can take a wider range of actions given particular contexts and thus achieve more optimal outcomes a lot of the time. Certainly, they do follow rules of thumb like everyone else, but in a more flexible and intentional manner than other teams.Fearless Faith_bianOfflaner Zhang Faith_bian Ruida is a great example of the Wings approach in action. He shows extreme diversity in his skill and item builds and in how he spends his time during the early game; hell be laning, ganking or jungling depending on what the situation demands. But, more importantly, he has taken his role as an initiator one step further than any other player.More often than not, offlaners are expected to initiate fights because of the kinds of heroes they play. But initiation is often an extremely difficult challenge. Your team has decided to fight over a particular objective and you know that means you have to make a move. However, the enemy team is positioning well and you cant see a good opening. Perhaps you cant get onto the best target, or can only get onto one target when you would rather get two. Maybe youre concerned about a blind spot in your available vision. You know that if you initiate sub-optimally youre probably going to be the first one to die and cant be sure your team will do enough to justify that loss. But the longer you wait, the greater the chance that things start on the enemy teams terms. At a professional level, initiators regularly have to navigate these kinds of situations.Its a scary thing, being the initiator, but Faith_bian has entirely overcome this dilemma. He just goes in. Every single time. Even if his initiation is sub-optimal. Thus, his teammates can trust him to get something started, which gives them a situation to respond to. Of course, as with Wings experimental drafting, sometimes Faith_bians fearlessness backfires. Sometimes, hes charging into four heroes at a level one bounty rune and feeding aimlessly. But the overall approach pays off.Faith_bians mindset is completely invaluable to Wings because it means at any stage in the game they can decide to take a fight and be guaranteed that he will create some kind of opening for them, regardless of anything else. His in-game illustration that initiating is as much about setting up your teammates as it is about getting value out of your own spells, combined with his willingness to be whatever his team needs him to be, made him the most valuable player of TI6.The world will learnWings are not a team of superhumans that somehow transcend the metagame. Indeed, theyre far from the first team to revolutionize certain aspects of how we think about the game. But they are the first to make such a consistent and deliberate effort to free themselves from the usual heuristics. With all the world watching, it will not be long before others begin to learn and imitate this approach, which will likely add diversity and new perspective into Dota 2s strategic space. The lesson from Wings is not to avoid using necessary shortcuts in reasoning when solving extremely complex problems. Rather, we should strive to be aware of those shortcuts we do make use of and think about them critically instead of assuming they are correct. Fake Shoes Discount Fake Nike Shoes . According to a report from the Winnipeg Free Press, the Bombers will name Acting GM Kyle Walters to the post full time. https://www.fakeshoesonline.com/ . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. Fake Yeezy . Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey last Sunday. The fine is the fourth this season for Goldson. He was fined $30,000 for a hit on the New York Jets Jeff Cumberland in Week 1. Replica Shoes Online . They had already blown a double-digit lead, fans were hitting the exits, and a long seven-game road trip waited at the end. While junior middleweight titlist Liam Smith admits hes the decided underdog in his pay-per-view showdown against Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez on Saturday, hes not about to take on an underdog mindset entering the fight.As Smith, 28, a native of Liverpool, England, is quick to bring up on more than one occasion, he is the only fighter who will enter the ring inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, wearing a world title.Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs), who is one of four brothers who box professionally, recently spoke with ESPN.com about whats at stake for him in this fight against Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs).Alvarez, as the face of the sport, seemingly has the power to fight whomever he wants. Why do you believe he chose you?I think if you look closely at the fights now, he was always going to come back to 154. So if he doesnt fight for the title, its a blatant excuse to get away from [Gennady Golovkin], in my opinion. So if he fights for the title, he has got a valid excuse. I have one of the belts at 154 at the moment. If you look then at the 154-pound champions, he looked to me. I obviously dont quite know in the States what his situation is exactly but I know I proved a fight with me is very easy to make. Also style wise, I think he can make a great fight with me and it will be a joy to watch for however long it lasts. There is no way this fight can be a bad one to watch.Getting a chance to be around Alvarez on your recent press tour, what did you learn about him that may have surprised you?There were a couple of things. There was not that much size difference between us at all. Being around him, I think hes a nice and okay guy. I dont want to pick on him too much. But you know, it seems like since he is at the top of the sport, everything has got to be on his say. People have to ask him to do things and if he says no then its no -- simple as that -- as far as interviews and things. Like, we went outside for a picture on top of the AT&T Stadium. There was not one picture that was taken because he was hot and he wanted to get back in. Its just little things. When you are on the top of the sport, this comes with it. It is expected, if you get my drift. I just think he was a little bit of a primadonna, so to speak.Alvarez has long battled criticism that hes overrated as a fighter because of his star power. Do you think he is worthy of the hype that has followed him?Look, I think hes a very good fighter. At this weight class, hes a world-class fighter. I dont think hes overrated but I think Golden Boy and the people around him have done a very, very good job. I think he has been promoted very well. This little dinky kid with red hair who turned pro at 15 or 16, he has developed very well. You do have to admit in the fights that he has beaten some very, very good names but the timing of the names can affect things. He fought guys like Alfredo Angulo, Alfonso Gomez and Shane Mosley -- they were all never going to win the fight. Its hard to watch those fights. Hes going against fighters who were retired or past their prime. He did not struggle with them but then he also did have very, very close fights with Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. Both of them gave him nightmares. I know they are southpaw fighters but they also had a plan and were hungry fighters who came to win.You enter this fight as the decided underdog despite holding the title. What are you looking to dispel about what people think of you with your performance?I think I am the underdog, definitely from the American side, because not many of them have seen a few of my fights. I think if you have clips of stoppages and clips of fights here and tthere, people would be more confident.dddddddddddd From my point of view, I am the underdog going into this fight. Im not saying Im not. But Im the underdog because I havent fought at that level yet against anyone of Canelos level. I also havent had the chance to. So when I beat Canelo, from my point of view, I will be able to say, I told you so. I told you I was at that level. And the people around me will be able to probably say the same. From the American point of view, it would be a massive upset from their side because they dont see where I came from and where Im at.When you think back to when you first turned pro, did the opportunity for a fight this large come at a time in your career when you expected it to?I think its right on time. Its what I have been asking for, for a long while now since I won the title. Im the champion and I look at it as the minute I became champion I was ready to face all comers. Im not going to say Im not ready for a fighter like Canelo Alvarez. Im world champion so if Im not ready for another fighter at 154, I dont deserve to be world champion. Thats the way I look at it and what I firmly believe.There is such a strong boxing tradition within your own family with your brothers Paul, Stephen and Callum. What do you believe is the reason for the success of four boxers from the same family?I dont know what it is. We are good people who come from a good family and have a good coach. We are a down to earth people who happen to be fighters also.When you stepped inside AT&T Stadium for the first time during the recent press tour, what were your emotions like?When I stepped foot in the arena, I just thought we are finally here. This is what you work so hard for. This is where you want to be. I saw my face in the middle of the playing field on a giant screen. From my point of view, it doesnt get much bigger than that. I think from my familys point of view also we are finally here. I have a chance to get a massive win for myself.It has been difficult for fighters to get a close decision against Alvarez in recent years, especially in the state of Texas. How much does that play a factor in your strategy?No, I dont think so. He has had a couple of close decisions that maybe could have gone against him but at the time I felt he had won the fights against Lara and [Trout] because I liked him better. He has more of a style like myself so obviously when I was done watching that fight I would like him the way he was doing it. I look at it as if I win the fight than the judges will have believed in me. Even though Im the B-side in the fight, I am also the champion in the fight. I just hope to get some respect [from the judges] that way. I am confident we will.Considering all you have been through in your career to get to this point, what do you imagine your emotions will be like walking to the ring Saturday inside a massive stadium against the sports most popular fighter?It will feel unbelievable walking in there and taking it all in. Obviously, Im going to be the away fighter. People think that might get to me. Once I will arrive in the ring, Im going to make the most of this fight because this fight I will remember for the rest of my life. From my point of view, this night is going to be remembered by the British people. Not from the American people as much, but from the British fans here who will watch me beat Canelo Alvarez. Its a massive night and opportunity and Im going to cherish every moment of it because this is where every boxer dreams to be. ' ' '