Heroes of Newerth is an evolving kind of game. Month after month, strategies change, new heroes are picked and some heroes, famous in the past, are forgotten. This list will try to inform you about the metagame and about which heroes are the most fearsome at the moment, using the data from the competitive games played this month — exactly 58 between known teams and not counting scrims, nor stomps. 3 games were also remade and thus couldn't be used. Keep in mind that things are changing. Recent games showed that melee hard-carries such as The Dark Lady might make their comeback, but it's still too recent to show in such a list.
These heroes are the most awesome you could find and recruit. They're basically banned or picked (and first picked) nearly every game. Plague Rider and Torturer win the prize, being banned or picked literally in EVERY competitive game this month. Kraken has been made famous by FnaticMSI, while Tempest has been a consistent hero for ages - though not as dominating as in the current push/jungle strat metagame. The only "odd" one would be Corrupted Disciple, a bit less famous though really solid and strong at every stage of the game.
Legen... Wait for it... Dary!! Tier
Not as famous as the previous guys, those heroes are consistently picked or banned in competitive games. Though these are not the highest priority as for bans and picks go, they are still more than welcome in most line-ups. Despite the slight nerf to his mana cost, Myrmidon is one of the best supports in the game and same goes for Andromeda and Magmus. All of them are able to work in a tri-lane, roam and gank. Pollywog and Bombardier are among the best mid heroes, since they're able to deal a lot of damage early on, providing a kill almost every time the supports come to gank the mid lane. Slither and Pharaoh are huge solo lanes and have been popular for ages. Keeper has been nerfed recently but with the current metagame, he's a very solid hero and so is Ophelia.
No matter how strong the army is, Sellswords are needed to win a war. In Heroes of Newerth, the Sellswords are the guys you can trust to complete your 5-man-army. They're not the strongest and most of them aren't banned, except against given players, but they can still be awesome and perform really well. Glacius and Valkyrie are perfect examples of Sellswords: never banned this month but picked in 1/3 of the games. Despite her recent nerf, Silhouette is still a really good choice. Aluna and Puppet Master are seen less and less with the push metagame while Tundra becomes a viable pick in a lot of games.
The Specialists are the kind of scary guys, sitting in the dark corner of a gloomy inn of the Old District - the one in which you'd better be able to defend yourself if you want to see the next morning. Even though they're impressive, let's be honest, they're not THAT useful. That's why they're in the aforementioned corner instead of a battlefield. It doesn't mean that they're bad, they just don't fit in the modern warfare. They are never banned, except against certain teams - for example, Reason Gaming is the only team to have used Engineer in the whole month - but they can be picked and be very effective, either to replace another hero that has been banned or to go for a surprise strat. Among these specialists, Flint Beastwood is noteworthy since he was a very consistent pick two months ago. Let's also mention Amun-Ra and Magebane who could be seen more and more in the next months, having very good results in the few games in which they've been run.
Some of them have never seen the lights of the scene. Some of them were famous a while ago and have been forgotten. All of them drown their sorrow in alcohol, in the dark alleys. Sometimes, a drafter takes pity and picks one of them. Most of the time, they stay there, waiting, drinking, hoping that they too will be able to build their legend.
Arrived too recently to be listed, some of them are already buying stocks of alcohol to join the Drunkards. Rhapsody might enter the list with success next months, since she's been used a few times last week.
