Sure Chen can send back someone if they get doomed but that's the same as if they died, gold difference aside, they're now in the fountain and you're fighting 4vs5. Chen is a so so 5vs5 hero, he nukes like once and MAYBE he does good dmg with it, he uses his mek ulti and maybe he managed to have enough creeps to actually do anything useful with them, or maybe he has none cause it's been a long siege and you can't go get any in your unwarded jungle. I think that's the main issue, get wiped once and rebuilding your army takes forever, it won't have optimal creeps and you might not even be able to do it if you're losing so the hero becomes completely worthless. I guess sending back doomed people works fine in your base though.
Kotl is a good hero if you want to focus on defending your base. Just chain blast the creeps, combos well with setup ultimates, can have someone farm a lane while VG is 5manning and Recall them into the fight when it starts.
Or you can pick a better early 5man lineup that might not push as well but fight a lot better. While VG generally pick good heroes for combat, they favor heroes that can push too, so you should be able to pick 5 combat heroes that might edge them out. You don't want to rely too much on long ultis either. Sure Tide is a great 5vs5 hero but first once they farm bkb, and they farm bkb fast since they're pushing all the towers, you lose a lot of efficiency and if you fuck your ravage up or don't win the fight, then Tide is worthless.
It's the same with Brew, I feel a lot of people fell in the trap of picking Brew against them and yeah you might be able to fight them with Brew ulti, but half the time they just run away and come back 20secs later and now you have a pretty bad hero left. You probably want good sustain too so you can convert a good fight into a push right away, so Urn and Meka are a must, and Medallion for quick roshan is also highly useful. Don't build into lategame items, build an Aquila or a Vlad and a Drums and if possible even a Pipe can give you a large edge in 5vs5. Basically, play like you expect to win at 20mins.
I'd pick something like Bane/Mirana/Kotl trilane(mirana being the carry here), DK or Beastmaster mid and typical offlanes, Centaur/Dark Seer I think preferably, something like that. Trilane is obviously just a random idea it can be anything that fights well, could be a sand king+skeleton king+mirana lane or whatever you want really, you want a good amount of control and a semi carry like Mirana who can actually nuke assholes down and not one that needs farm to be useful. Arrow is also always a good thing to have if you get pushed in your base as it can easily win you fights. Windrunner could also be a pick there. Mid could be Bristleback instead(or can be offlane if you want), Razor's fine too, Void's fine too but you most likely want to rush an Agh and not do the "damage" build because you need to chrono every fight not every other fight and you want health to actually live, couple with another hero that can help your damage(Ogre Magi potentially best here but his results are iffy, AA can be good with Chilling touch and Ice Blast is guaranteed on chrono).
A hero that was vastly forgotten this tournament was Visage. You want to 5man early? Hero is a FUCKING BEAST in teamfights. At the very least he'll soak up Doom every single time and still contribute via Familiars anyway. They don't have Doom? Holy shit are they gonna get nuked. Get agh, collect tier 1 tower gold if they're not down by backdooring with gargoyles. Scout the rosh, scout the ganks, scout all the things. Want CC? Bitch here come 3 gargoyles dropping on your head, but wait, there's more, resummon and redrop them.
There's a ton of forgotten heroes that excel at that shit. Clockwerk. Naix. Tiny(even without wisp but can wisp too if you want). Just don't pick 3-4cores with meh lanes and start building Midas and lategame shit, cause you're getting rolled at 10mins, it's no suprise.
