Gosubay has returned with the 5th edition of his column after a long break. After much experimenting with the Orc mirror, he has decided to write an article regarding this matchup.

The Orc mirror matchup is more hero-centric than the other mirror matchups, since the Blademaster provides a lot of damage and the Shadow Hunter extends the lifespan of each unit. Timing for this matchup is also extremely important as each player must do his best to creep faster and harder to gain an edge in hero levels.

Why is the Blademaster used much more often than the Farseer in a mirror matchup? There is only one reason: His dps accounts for at least 20% of the entire orc army, as compared to the Farseer, which does an insignificant amount of damage.

The Blademaster's Windwalk ability allows one player to hinder the creeping of the other player. On the other hand, Chain Lightning does minimal damage to grunts and Feral Spirits can easily be dispelled by Adept Spirit Walkers.

After scanning through the archives of replays.net, I could hardly find any replays of the Farseer being used in the Orc vs Orc matchup in the current patch. The popularity of the Farseer has dropped dramatically within the past year.

When I checked through the 1.21 replays, there were a small number of them. Most of these replays have the Farseer user winning and only one or two had the Blademaster user winning the game.

Therefore, I decided to write this article for those who are still clueless about the counters against the Farseer/Firelord strategy. On the other hand, a player using Farseer/Shadow Hunter shouldn't pose a threat to you at all as the Farseer is simply outclassed by the Blademaster in mid-game and late-game.