Breaking the meta: How 9Class became Dota 2’s most innovative support

Dota 2 is constantly evolving and ever changing, which is the main aspect that keeps us addicted to it. But every now and then, we get to witness some truly unique deviations from the norm. It’s not every day that a player comes to change your mentality about a certain hero or a role.

Over the past year, a 20-year-old newcomer named Edgar "9Class" Naltakian has consistently proven that the soft support role, or position 4, can be played differently, and his name might become synonymous with what a utility role can mean in Dota 2.

How did it all start?

Egor watched his brother play Dota 2 before he started to play it himself in 2014, when he was just 11 years old. When he was in the 9th grade, he already had offers to join various stacks, but preferred to focus on school before committing to a professional career. He enrolled in the Moscow Aviation Institute, but soon realised that his passion lies elsewhere and paused his university studies for a year in favour of Dota 2.

9Class made his professional debut at the beginning of 2023 with Team Sexi. By the next year, he received a friend request from Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, who invited him to play with Tundra Esports. This marked his first Tier 1 team, and 2024 was truly the breakout year for 9Class. He placed 4th at Esports World Cup last year and qualified for The International 2024 with Tundra. However, due to his young age and Russian nationality, he couldn’t get the visa for Denmark and missed the opportunity of making his TI debut. By the end of 2024, he was recruited by PARIVISION, with whom he became back to back ESL One Champion, claiming the trophy in Bangkok and Raleigh.

9Class had clearly shined since his first days at Tundra. But while with the western European outfit it was his gameplay, map awareness, clutch plays, and his toxicity that put him under the spotlight with good and bad, at PARIVISION, he seems to be fully unleashed.

Some may say 9Class has a different or unique hero pool compared to any other position 4 support in the scene, and they are right. However, his preferences are much more complex. When he made his debut, 9Class made waves with his Techies. He was regarded as the best Techies player at that time, and without a doubt, he can still keep this feat, although he himself talked about how he liked the old Techies so much more compared to what the hero is today.

9Class doesn’t care about your meta

Even from his early Tundra days, 9Class showed that he’d rather go for weird picks than play the meta. He was one of the first to play Centaur Warrunner in the soft support position. He would take Leshrac for himself in a meta where the hero would shine in the mid lane. If you look for someone responsible for the support Nightstalker, Clinkz, Gyrocopter or Ember Spirit in your games, you can look at 9Class, who has occasionally picked them in professional games. He is also the one to have normalised the support Terrorblade.

Speaking about Terrorbalde support, it’s worth mentioning that 9Class is at the top of the list of players with 10 or more games on the hero in the past year. However, he is the ONLY support player to have more than 10 official games on it. More so, he boasts an 81.82% win rate in 11 official matches.

As strange as it might be to see a support Terrorblade, especially for those who don’t go through the pubs madness every day and just tune in for Dota 2 tournaments, when catching on some PARIVISION matches, you will see 9Class going even further with his idea of turning hard carry heroes into supports.

More recently, he’s been tormenting his adversaries with position 4 Slark, which he plays like more of a utility support. His item build is almost always consisting of a first item Eul’s Sceptre into Treads, and later on a Scythe of Vise. The idea is to be the most annoying support your opponent will ever encounter. Slark’s natural skill set is allowing 9Class to play extremely aggressive and be safe while doing it. When he adds the Eul’s to his inventory, the chase potential is almost infinite for 9Class, who has delivered thrilling plays at ESL One Raleigh 2025 and PGL Wallachia Season 4.

Slark is his most played hero, along with Tinker at ESL One Raleigh 2025, a tournament which PARIVISION has won. He has eight games on Slark at the $1 million LAN held in the US and a 62.50% win rate with it. He has slightly better stats on Tinker, which has been played in the support role since he got the healing bots facet, but still, a 60% win rate on Slark is still incredibly good. While he played the hero eight times at the ESL tourney, at the recently concluded PGL Wallachia S4, he has only three matches on Slark, but with a 100% win rate.

At the same PGL event, 9Class revealed a new twisted idea.

What if Templar Assassin is played as soft support?

TA was the most contested hero of the tournament, being picked or banned 110 times in the 115 games played during Season 4. PARIVISION’s carry, Alan "Satanic" Gallyamov, is an absolute TA specialist and proved it in Raleigh, where he had a 100% win rate in 4 games with it and at the PGL event.

However, with TA becoming the most contested hero of the Wallachia tournament, Satanic got to play only two times before the grand finals. It could have been three times before the grand final, if in the upper bracket finals, a TA first pick hadn’t actually gone to 9Class. It was most likely a draft adjustment rather than a planned support TA, and even though the pick didn’t work perfectly, PARIVISION still won that game and secured their spot in the grand finals courtesy of 9Class being able to turn a hero like Templar Assassin into a support. His item build featured Treads into a casual Orb of Venom for the lane harass and a Force Staff, which soon got upgraded to Hurricane Pike.

That’s the only game he has on TA, but BLAST Slam III is right around the corner and there was no balance patch since PGL Wallachia Season 4, so don’t be too shocked if the madness continues.