Hey everyone, Librarian Husky here! In this guide, we’ll dive into Mid Razer gameplay, breaking down the strategies and unique item builds that rank seven Marlene uses to dominate his matches.

Introduction to Mid Dota 2 info

Hey, what is up, guys? Today we’re going to be watching Mid Razer, specifically Marlene’s razor, and how he dominates this game. This was a very impressive performance, in my opinion, one of the best heroes in Dota right now. He goes to somewhat standard Yasha into BKB build, but what’s really weird is that after the BKB goes straight into a Blink Dagger. From there, he builds Yasha into a Manta style, eventually completing a Hex, kind of going an assassin build, right? Not necessarily your standard refresher orb or Lincoln’s or maybe Sanjanyasha and AC, right. This is pretty off-meta, so let’s see how he pulls it off and makes it look good. And this guy’s rank seven, so you know he’s probably decent.

Gameplay Strategy: Wave One

Alright, so getting into wave one, I’m a little bit surprised, but he actually has his W skilled. I suppose you can probably steal about 7 to 14 damage with the first link if you’re good about it, and you’ll see that getting into the first wave, you don’t want to link right away. You want to link when both of the first creeps are about half health, and the reason why is that after you steal about 20 damage, which, you know, he’s against Lena, so that’s fine. 20 damage against Lena is more than enough because now Lena’s hitting for about 40, and you’re hitting for like 75, right.

Effective Strategy Execution

And so, yeah, with that added damage, with that bonus damage, he’s able to get three denies on the first wave, four denies on the first wave, which is obviously incredible. And from there, unfortunately, takes a lot of harass. This is kind of the downside of something like Razer against Lena; you have way worse attack range than her, and so you will get bullied, but four denies on the first wave due to the late link is really great. From there, it’s kind of the same thing; you just want to look for any opportunity where the mid steps up a little bit, and you’re just trying to steal about 10 to 20 damage.

Gameplay Strategy: Stealing Damage

You don’t have to steal a billion, right. He even does use his Q for a little bit of extra harass; you just want around 20 damage, right. You don’t even necessarily need 20 because you’ll notice it just puts them in this terrible range where they’re most likely to get denied. Lauren off on the Lena does a pretty good job of preventing it, but for the most part, you’ll get a couple of denies here or there.

Usage of Abilities and Items

After that, he puts two points in his Q and is going to use that to shove the wave and specifically secure the range creep. He does buy Tangos, and from there, he rushes Boots. The boots are just going to allow you to get your W off and keep it going, and that’s pretty key. I will admit this bottle refill definitely helped this lane a lot because Lena, I honestly pressures Razer really well, right. Like, this is one of Razer’s worst possible matchups.

Adjusting Strategies

But with the boots’ timing, he actually goes for an aggressive link. I don’t think this link was as good necessarily because he couldn’t get as many denies off of it, right. Typically, you want to let the lane develop a bit and then link, but it was still fine. He got some good damage and a few CS, and after everything is said and done, he’s 22 and 12 against the 14-2 of Lena, which is really impressive, right.

Mid-Game Adaptability

Because honestly, I don’t think this is that good of a matchup, so it’s super good. From there, he’s gonna pick up raindrops one, and a wind Lane, it’s just to be as fire-ready as possible. If you don’t go these items on mid-Razer, you’re gonna have a hard time kind of doing anything as this is a very aggressive link, but it is going to get the job done. A beautiful Q from the Muerta into the Gaze of the Lich gets the job done, and honestly, this play from the Tusk is absolutely insane.

Strategic Movements and Rotations

But I guess he takes away a shield Rune from the razor. I don’t know; I feel like you can’t. I feel like feeding away a kill is not worth it, but he gets another kill on the razor at around minute eight here. He’s gonna push in the wave and look for the top Rune; fortunately for him, he does get the Rune. He gets a regen room, and he immediately runs to the top side of the map. At this point in the game, the Tide Hunter had ravaged, and so a ravage into the razor spells would kill the PA, unfortunately.

Forced Movements and Game Impact

The PA reads the movement, and so he doesn’t get the kill, but it’s okay, right. He kind of forced the PA out of the top side of the map, which is exactly where she wants to farm. She doesn’t want to have to kill these neutrals, but you know, his rotation will force her to, so that’s good. And then he TP’s bottom, so he forces the carry into a bad position, right, into some optimal farm, and then is fast enough to actually TP to bottom. He pops his Q, pops his ulti, which reduces armor and does damage over time on the lowest HP Target, and he’s able to get a triple kill for his team. Now, moving in towards the mid-game, honestly, Marlene is way more active than.

Mid-Game Strategy and Rotation

I would have expected at the 11-30 minute mark here he makes a rotation to the top side of the map. Personally, I expected him to just push out mid and contest the 12-minute Rune, but he does something way more aggressive. Also, he takes his level 10, 14 agility Talent. This talent’s just insane; it’s so much damage, it’s armor, and its attack speed.

Applying Pressure on the Enemy

Yeah, and he raps on the PA now; they don’t get the kill. This is just, once again, a good read from the Phantom Assassin. Blurs a stupid ability, but they don’t get the kill. It’s still alright, though. Once again, he forces the PA into a position where she can’t farm what she wants because the PA wants to farm the incoming top waves. That’s the most optimal farm for the PA.

Understanding Opponent’s Gameplay

And so, by him rotating to the top side of the map, even though he doesn’t kill her twice now, it has limited her farm greatly. And that’s what most mid players don’t understand, simple rotations to especially greedy carry players like this V-tuned guy. He is the most greedy carry player in all of DOTA, and I’m not just saying that. He’s unironically, in absurdly greedy. Look at his items, and he does this most games where he just has Battlefield components, no Treads, no boots, no nothing, right.

Analyzing and Adapting to Enemy’s Strategy

He’s extremely easy to gank and can’t fight back, right. He’s just pure farm, and so I guess Marlene, sort of knowing this or just wanting to pressure the carry in general, takes advantage of it and punishes him hard. At this point in the game, I think this is kind of mostly well. He should swap in his overacts; it’s a bit of a mistake, good matter but and some not mattering just pops this ulti.

Evaluating Game Pace and Team Fights

This is honestly just a good ravage, bad read from the enemy team; they could not fight, huge Lich ult too. Oh my God, glitch in the early game if you mess up; you just lose the fight. So from there, he actually does slow down the pace of the game. I think it’s kind of just him saying okay we’re moving into the mid game. The enemy team is going to group up a bit, and Razer, without BKB, is sort of a bad hero.

Preparing for Upcoming Challenges

Like obviously, the enemy team might mess up and not go on you, and then you’re gonna kill them all because you do a ton of damage if you get ignored. But let’s say that doesn’t happen because you’re essentially a melee hero, right. Everything you do is close range besides your Q. If that’s the case, assuming they actually go on you, it’s very hard to do anything early on, like quite difficult. And so he’s gonna wait for his BKB, kind of slows down the pace of the game, farm set up, gets.

Game Strategy and Engagement

It, and funny enough, it ends up instantly turning into sort of a won fight here, at least not a fight but a won engagement where he’s able to kill off the touch. It just barely comes off the courier, and he turns around now with his ulti and BKB on cooldown. He once again slows down the pace of the game, and I think this is why this guy is really high rank. He doesn’t force bad; he understands the kind of movements that are reliable and consistent.

Understanding the Gameplay

When his ulti is on cooldown, he doesn’t, right. I would say Razer without ulti just lacks damage, honestly. Yes, you could still sap 150 damage or so, but for the most part, it’s not good enough as oh, he links up the Lena here and with the BKB just whips her down. I guess that’s the blink dagger timing also; he has a great Lotus helps out with the Mana.

Execution of Strategic Moves

Remember to pick those up and just with the link willing to use the BKB for the solo queue, which is huge. It gives him a full level, oh boy, gives him a full level, and he secures himself the illusion Rune, which he’ll eventually go take. And then yeah, it’s funny; it’s just like a rinse-repeat of the same ideas: ulti on cooldown, big key Beyond cooldown into the jungle.

Repetition and Consistency in Strategy

Pushing out waves, looking for the wisdom Rune, right, just kind of doing the outside of the map. Farm it up type thing, so rinse, repeat, get stuff done, get a kill, and then go farm. And same thing here, with everything back up, he’s going to group up with this team around the mid lane. He is going to look for the Rune because why not, right.

Making Tactical Decisions

On Arcana and is absolutely huge, and so is a haste an illusion and envisions whatever it is as he finds the PA. This was just a good TP. Caesar split-pushing, no C, can’t fight her, kicks her out, forces the BKB, that’s huge, yes.

Decision Making and Map Awareness

It does put his ulti on cooldown; it also puts his TP on cooldown, but with some good map awareness, he knows he’s not going to get ganked top. He can push out top, then use the portal, get to bottom, reconnect with the team as his ulti’s coming back up because he used the Arcane Rune on the last ulti usage.

Execution from a Winning Position

And I would say, from a winning position, he’s doing almost exactly what you’d want him to do. The Darksier was caught split-pushing, and so, instead of letting this guy do whatever he wants, he TP’s in and once again forces another TP. Then he’s going to connect back towards the mid-lane, and eventually, they’ll be able to close out the enemy.

Understanding the Game Dynamics

This entire time as well, they’re doing a great job of just out-farming them; they’re not 12K ahead, and this is mostly because of his choking. Now, at this point in the game, the enemy team truly can’t fight him. At level 15, he took 14 strength, and at level 20, he takes the extremely broken minus 0.1-second eye of the storm strike interval.

Strategic Talent Choices

This makes your ulti hit more quickly, and it’s key because it stacks the armor reduction, so every single hit makes every auto-attack do more damage, and every strike of the ultimate does more damage. So this talent is massive; it’s super notable.

Engaging the Enemy

Yeah, so from there, we’re gonna see you smoke up; he’s got a haste Rune. They’re gonna look on the mid wave; he’s gonna go in right, just complete psycho. He knows he can’t really get gone, does get hexed, but because of the haste, he is completely fine, and they find a good jump on the enemy PA.

Impact on the Battlefield

She barely gets away, but you could see the disruption that Marlene caused. He goes in, and no one can fight him, no one wants to deal with the BKB razor, Darksier gets solo killed.

Game Strategy and Hero Abilities

If he wastes surge, honestly, even if he used surge properly, he might just die because Razer’s pretty damn fast and can track very well. But yeah, no one wants to fight him; they all get zoned out, and the PA gets left alone and nearly dies.

Effective Use of the Refresher Orb

Alright, to end off the game, we’re gonna be looking at the refresher orb timing. I would argue that Razer is the most effective refresher orb user in the entire game, and you might be saying, what about something like Enigma? I mean, sure, but honestly, in a lot of games, it’s sometimes hard to use double black hole, especially if there are cancels.

Utilizing Razer’s Abilities

For a Razer, it’s extremely easy; you just use your first bkb, use your first eye of the storm, blink in, HEX whatever you have, right. But mostly, just use your ulti, use your bkb, then you refresh, and then when your bkb is running out, you use your second bkb, and you immediately use the second eye of the storm, right.

Maximizing Damage Output

You don’t wait on the second eye of the storm because they stack, right. And as we talked about, the more hits, the better because the more hits, the more effective the hits are. So, we’ll see in a team fight as they’re gonna go up, right. He just kind of jumps in, Yolo ravage onto the PA.

In-Game Decision Making

That’s honestly a cool play, right, and he goes in but has his bkb going, double eye of the storm. Well, he should have popped the second eye of the storm; he’s a little bit slow on it. You want to do it immediately, right.

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