5 Ways Murky Will Break the Meta

Team Fnatic took a page from the Cloud9 Blizzcon strategy book and expanded upon it this weekend when they drafted Murky as their last pick in the final matchup of Enter the Storm. Most players would describe Murky as a god in Quick Match but useless in organized play due to his low health, but as Atheroangel showed us when played with a team composition built around him, Murky is a big threat to the current meta.

There's a few things that make the Murky a valuable pick. Map objectives that do damage to buildings directly, such as Sky Temple and Blackheart's Bay have the most to benefit from Murky's skills.

1. Experience Lead - Murky's skill rotation makes clearing minion waves extremely fast, which in turn means faster experience point collection in the early game. To add to the annoyance of Murky, though he doesn't have much health when Murky dies, he only grants the enemy team 1/4 of the experience points of a normal death. Adding to that, Murky also comes with a shield that allows him to escape any dangerous situations he may find himself in, which makes killing him a lot less of a priority in the enemy's eyes.

2. Constant pressure - Murky is exceptionally annoying because of his ability to push lanes down so fast. The fast minion wave clearing provided by Murky not only gives a faster experience lead, but it allows Murky to abandon his lane and split soak. Murky will be rotating to different lanes often to provide as much coverage as he can.

It is possible to take advantage of this and kill him when he is changing lanes with dive heavy characters like Greymane, or quick damage dealers such as Li-Ming or Nova.

3. High siege damage - When it comes to siege damage, the pufferfish is king. All he needs to do is toss it in next to a tower or building and watch the numbers rack up. To counter this, you can auto attack the pufferfish, destroying it and preventing any damage done by it.

4. Low risk - As a lane bully, Murky is a hero that provides some of the best lane coverage in the game.

In addition to only giving 1/4 xp when he dies, he also respawns in 5 seconds at his egg that he lays anywhere on the map. A great counterpick to a Murky is a stealth assassin, such as Nova or Zeratul, who can hunt his egg down and destroy it quickly. This will force the Murky player to run and hide while they wait for their egg cooldown to reset, giving you time to kill him and force a normal respawn timer on the Murky.

5. MURLOCS! - Yes, the ultimate of choice has almost always been Octo-grab for Murky, his alternate ability "March of the Murlocs" is getting a lot more utility in the meta. Trumpeting for help, Murky is assisted by dozens of tiny murloc lookalikes that bite, slap, and slow targets for their master.

Not only does the ability deal damage to players, but it also does a significant amount of damage to structures, allowing for a sneak attack play by Murky resulting in major problems.

This large area of effect spell can also be used defensively with Jim Raynor's Hyperion Strike ultimate to push an enemy team out of your base.

Though he is considered a bottom tier pick, everyime he has been featured in a profesional game, Murky has come up with a victory. Hopefully we can see more Murky playtime in the professional scene as teams start to see the benefit of the little fish from hell.

The specialist train doesn't look like its stopping thanks to Team Fnatic. They have proven once again that they plenty of tricks up their sleeve and they are ready to take on the rest of the EU scene.

Although, it could be argued that having Zagara and Rehgar on the same team is already a guaranteed win, I truly believe it was Atheroangel on Murky that secured the victory for Fnatic over TCM.