Filipino powerhouse TNC Predator emerged at the top of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Season 2-Southeast Asia Upper Division after two weeks of action.
Thanks to the overpowered Beastmaster with Aghanim's Scepter at the hands of 11K MMR midlaner Armel "Armel" Tabios, TNC pulled off a 2-1 reverse sweep against OB x Neon Esports in the "online rambulan" on Saturday night, April 24.
It was the third straight series win for Armel and the Phoenix squad which put them atop the standings of the eight-team league that stakes three spots in the second Major of the year.
Armel has played Beastmaster in three games so far this season including the winning Games 2 and 3 versus OB.Neon.
The 21-year-old pro used the hero in Game 1 of TNC's season-opening 2-0 sweep of Execration.
All in all, TNC enjoyed a 100 percent win rate when Karroch (Rexxar in Dota 1) was at the hands of Armel, who put up a whopping 11.71 KDA (kill-death average which is equal to number of kills plus assists divided by deaths).
Beastmaster was also banned against TNC by Execration in Game 2 and Smart Omega in two games, while he was only left open in Game 1 versus Neon as both teams seemed to have a strategy to counter it.
TNC's offlaner Jun "Bok" Kanehara believes that the hero badly needs a nerf as he is too OP in general when he gets Aghanim's Scepter. A Beastmaster with a Scepter enjoys zero cooldown on his Wild Axes on top of a bonus damage of 30 per axe.
"Definitely," Bok told the analysts in the PGL livestream during the post-match interview following TNC's triumph over Neon. "Valve needs to nerf it. Maybe put a two-second cooldown (on the Wild Axes)."
Actually, Valve has already nerfed the Beastmaster Aghs effect in the 7.29b patch, reducing the initial 40 bonus damage from at the start of the 7.29 update to the current 30.
But still the hero remained imbalanced according to captain-support Marvin "Boomy" Rushton.
"OP siya masyado ngayon. Baka next patch mane-nerf talaga 'yan (He's too OP now. Maybe he will be nerfed in the next patch)," he said in the post-match conference streamed through TNC's Facebook page.
"Hindi (ramdam ang nerf) kasi 10 lang binawas, parang wala lang din (The nerf was not felt because only 10 damage was reduced)," he added in jest.