Aghanim's Labyrinth: Tips and Tricks

Aghanims labyrinth dota 2 summer event — Image credit: Valve Corporation

Aghanim’s Labyrinth arrived a week ago and it turned into a huge hit for a lot of fans. Since it’s quite difficult you might want to check out our tips.

The Dota 2 Summer Event offers plenty of action and rewards reserved for the fastest of runners. Today we’re not looking at speedruns of Aghanim’s Labyrinth, just some useful tips and tricks that should help you get through. We’ve already listed some of the best heroes you can pick, though that list could be updated in the near future.

READ MORE: The Best Heroes for Aghanim’s Labyrinth

Even though the levels in Aghanim’s Labyrinth are randomly generated, there’s still only so many of them. The random part comes with Elite Encounters and higher difficulties where modifiers also come into play. These modifiers can sometimes spell the death of your entire team, so be careful what you pick. Sometimes you’ll choose a random encounter over an already bad one, but that’s a risk you might have to take. Here’s a list with all the possible effects:

Pyromaniac - Enemy Captains produce fire trails
Quiet, please! - Enemy Captains occasionally silence nearby players
Living In A Bubble - When in the bubble, enemy Captains gain evasion from attacks from outside
Temple Guardians' Wrath - Temple Guardians' cast Sun Strike
Rizzrack's Blade Dance - Rizzrack throws his chakrams
Galvanic Farewell - Enemy Captains cast plasma field on death
Stone Faced - Enemy Captains take reduced damage from the front
Explosive Personality - Players occasionally explode to damage allies
Magical Fortitude - All enemies have increased magic resistance
Thick Skinned - All enemies have increased amor
Lucky Strike - All enemies have a critical strike
Deadly - All enemies deal increased damage
Last Stand - Enemy Captains gain increased attack speed at low health for a short time
Surge - All enemies have increased movement speed
Chilling Touch - All enemy attacks slow their targets
Avatar - Enemy Captains occasionally gain magic immunity
Death Curse - All enemies debuff the armor of their killers
Vampiric - Enemy Captains gain lifesteal from all damage at low health for a short time
Degen Field - Enemy Captains reduce healing of nearby players by 100%.
Flicker - Enemy Captains teleport randomly and purge debuffs from themselves.
Drunk - Enemy Captains occasionally gain bonus move speed, evasion, and critical strike.

Aghanims labyrinth how to play — Image credit: Valve Corporation

Without further ado let’s also take a look at all the levels (not including the trap levels). We’ll be rating them with easy-medium-avoid:

Some Grouchy Dogs - easy
Chippy Conifers - easy
The Tomato Men from an Alternate Dimension - easy
Splitsville – easy

The options in the first few levels are usually a walk in the park unless you get some really terrifying modifiers (and/or bad teammates).

Blind Bombardiers and their Brethren – medium – Here you’ll have to coordinate with your team and destroy the Gyrocopter rockets or you’ll be in for a bad time.
Jungle Hijinx – medium – Take it slow during this level and try to kite as much as possible.
Elegant Ice Dancers – easy – Hide in one of the corners on the map and wait for Gary to die (you won’t lose the level if he hits the bucket), then just start clearing them one by one.
The Silent Killer – avoid – This level is simply not worth it. Even without bad modifiers, it’s a pain as Drow Ranger can do area of effect, silence you and go invisible. You’ll need dusts which cost gold and she hits like a truck.
The Beastly Babies – easy – One of the easier levels you’ll encounter. Just avoid the ogre hits and you’ll be fine.
A Strange Morphology – avoid – Much like the drow, it’s just not worth it. This level is certainly doable if you have 4 heroes with area damage, but in any other case just skip it.
Hoppy Bats – easy – You just have to kill the four bats, while dodging their Deafening Blasts.
The Scarabs of Scuttletown – medium – Things can get really bad if you get stunlocked.
Toothy Toothums – medium – Not that bad, just make sure you pull them one by one. Maybe ask your Wyvern to pull.
The Last of the Corpulent Killers – easy – Dodge the jumping walrus and kite as much as you can.
The Demonic Dozens – easy – Kill the warlocks, prioritize killing the buildings.
Boss: The Malorkian Hammers - easy
Boss: Rizzrick the Razorsaw - medium

It’s hard to tell which boss is harder, but it’s probably Rizzrick. He can burst some heroes from 100 to 0 thanks to his chain stun. The Hammers are much easier, since they function exactly like the “Beastly Babies” ogres (with the addition of healing and throwing the occasional hammer). Just make sure you kill them at roughly the same time, so you don’t have to deal with EXPLOSIONS.

Aghanim fragments — Fragments can be used to purchase upgrades during the summer event. (Image credit: Valve Corporation)

An Unwinnable Standoff – medium – You’ll need some sort of save here for the duels or an Orchid Malevolence. Nuke the Skywraths and don’t hit LC while she has Blademail active.
Arrows Of The Moon – easy – Focus killing the buildings and avoid the arrows. Also don’t stick too close since the glaives will bounce and deal a lot of damage.
A Mind-Tingling Offer – easy – Interrupt/kill the Shadow Shamans. You can even farm them for some talents like Sniper’s Big Game Hunter (grants 3 permanent agility when you kill a captain with Assassinate).
The Pugilist Pixies of Plague Wood – medium – The Pucks aren’t too bad, but watch out for the Elder Titans as they can seriously mess with your team positioning.
A Bad Trading Post – medium – Depending on modifiers and your ability to kite the Troll Warlords, it’ll be either a walk in the park or a nightmare.
Manipulators of Time and Space – medium – You’ll need ways to interrupt the Lich, otherwise it’s impossible. Kill Lich first.
Miniboss: Mister Cleaver – avoid – Pudge is a really tought fight as his Dismember lasts until you die. The only way to live is to have a teammate interrupt him. That’s sometimes impossible if he has the Avatar modifier. Also there’s a neverending swarm of zombies coming at you.
My Rock Collection – easy – Well, what can we say, it’s rock golems. Kite them and don’t go near because they hit hard.
Urn Your Keep – medium – Try not to aggro everyone as you might get wiped. Focus Doom first, then deal with the rest.
They Speak in Spectral Tongues – easy – Fairly easy if your team doesn’t use area of effect or damage over time spells.
The Soothing Sound of Sirens – avoid – This level is usually hard and some modifiers make it borderline impossible. You’ll need a way to escape right after the sleep.
Carty's Revenge – easy – Kill the catapults first, then deal with the rest.
The Briney Boys – medium – Watch out for that Ravage coming from the biggest Tidehunter. He can use it fairly often if you focus him, so try to kill everyone else first and leave him for last.
Your Friend Grunch – easy – Kill the Underlords first.
Miniboss: Bogdugg the Bad-Bringer - easy – Beastly Babies 2.0 – focus the magi first.
Boss: Storegga The Ample - medium
Boss: The Purple Shadow – easy

Out of the two bosses, The Purple Shadow is the easier one. He has the same skillset as Void Spirit and his spells are easy to dodge. Storegga, on the other hand can nuke you with a single stone, so watch her animations carefully.

Angry Stuff With Wings – easy – Dodge the tornados, kill the Wildlings first.
Tiny and Io - Elemental Adventure – medium – Some modifiers can really make this level a nightmare. Just dodge the Tiny tosses and kill the Io’s first.
Al, the Chemist – easy – This is a DPS test. Focus the first chemist only, then deal with the second one. You either kill or get killed.
Badland Bandits – medium – Much like Arrows of the Moon you’ll need to dodge and kill buildings.
Miniboss: The Bomb Squad – medium – Don’t get hooked by Pudge and you’ll be fine. It’s easier said than done though.
Miniboss: The King Returns – easy – Have a part of your team aggro the creeps, while the rest kills the buildings.
No Time To Brood – medium – Dodge the poison spit, or you’ll get kidnapped by a spider. Make sure you’re sticking close to your team so they can save you.
Battle Squawks – medium – Kill the phoenix egg or die, it’s quite simple.
Miniboss: Blazhan and Frozhan – easy – Lure the big one away and kill the small one first.

The Apex Mage is the final boss and he can be absolute hell if you don’t have the right items. We recommend Black King Bar, Hurricane Pike (if ranged), plenty of movement speed, and/or magic resistance. If you’re lucky enough to get an Ex Machina neutral item, you’ll be borderline unkillable by Aghanim as he’s only casting spells. Most of them are easy to dodge once you get their pattern.