Monkey King can turn into Roshan, and 4 Zoomers shows us how

Monkey King’s Mischief ability has fairly limited use from a tactical perspective. It’s something people can have a lot of fun with, though.

North American pro team 4 Zoomers took Monkey King shenanigans to a new level in Dota Summit 13 while playing against Team Plasma. After killing Roshan, mid laner Nico “Gunnar” Lopez took the hero into the empty pit and used Mischief. Though people would normally expect him to turn into a banana or Healing Salve, he instead transformed into Roshan.

4 Zoomers used this to mock and intimidate Plasma, charging down mid with Aegis of the Immortal and initiating a fight by having Jaron “monkeys-forever” Clinton use Snapfire’s Gobble Up ability to launch him at the enemy team.

The play against Plasma was more of a flex serving as a precursor to a lopsided series victory in 4 Zoomers’ favor. The mischievous Roshan play was followed by a win as 4 Zoomers pushed high ground not long after. From there, 4 Zoomers ran over Plasma without any further monkey business to seal up a 2-0 series victory.

For the most part, Mischief has been used for cheeky plays in casual games and has been all but untouched in professional play. Mischief can be used to turn Monkey King into a courier, which has been used to bait enemies into overreaching for an attack.

This doesn’t necessarily change that, but it’s easy to see how Monkey King masquerading as Roshan might be useful in some very specific instances.