Ha, ha! So true! In fact, based on my growing APEM experience where all aspects of the game are taken to bizarre levels, I wanted to write a very similar post categorizing player mentalities.
Let's go:
1. The Duel Master
These are guys that ONLY ever pick characters that work well in 1on1 situations, i.e. when you gank somebody farming a lane on his own which a) shouldn't happen b) is not the right way to do it anyway. Obviously proper ganks require teamwork, map awareness etc. but not for these guys! They will usually buy Elder Parasites on each and every hero they play, buy Brutalizers, 0 HP items, will never participate in teamfights (since if they did, they'd obviously die in 3 seconds) but are happy to pick up any leftovers after the whole team was genocided. Needless to say these guys use their skills, especially ultimates, ONLY to get single kills and ONLY if THEY are the ones who can benefit from them. Typical hero choices include Night Hound, Swiftblade, Magebane, Chronos, Forsaken Archer, Moon Queen, Scout, Bloood Hunter, Deadwood, Warbeast and to a lesser extent Sand Wraith. You'd think there are other excellent heroes that might be played that way like Dark Lady, Wildsoul, Soulstealer, Puppet Master etc. etc. but sadly they have too many active skills or require too much micro for a simple idiot o handle - their only tactics are catching a player and auto-attacking them to death.
2. The Kill Stealer a.k.a. R Button Expert
Not to be confused with Duel Masters these guys actually DO hang around their team mates but NEVER contribute anything to the actual fights. Some hero choices overlap with Duel Masters but usually the most important aspect is one skill that can insta-gib people, preferably at range, even if one more auto-attack by any other team mate would have done the job - more often than not this applies to a hero's ultimate. Typical hero choices include Pyromancer, Witch Slayer, Deadwood, Swiftblade, Moonqueen, Thunderbringer, Soul Reaper, Plague Rider and of course Scout and Night Hound. Real life example from a recent game of mine: a Witch Slayer that went Ghost Marchers and Assassin's Shroud (LOLWUT?) and nothing else and had like 2:1 K:D ratio while our team was losing and of course was blaming us for not having as many kills as him, even though he literally ONLY ran in with Shroud, Ultied and ran away. :-D
Staff of the Master, to make their R button so much more powerful (in most cases not really ;-), is a very typical item on these guys.
3. The Well Informed Noob
These guys are very dangerous since at first they might seem like a real contribution to your team. Most likely they are active on the forums or read guides but more often than not simply observe much better players do well with certain characters - usually against THEM ;-). Their behavior is marked by picking any hero that is considered overpowered right now, not realizing that some heroes are only OP because of their COMPETITIVE value and that you still have to know exactly how play and build the given character, especially when it comes to item choices. In the course of the game these guys will become very annoying, since they are convinced that everybody else on the team is failing, not them, since THEY are the ones with the OP characters after all. Typical character choices for these guys are Slither, Forsaken Archer, Zephyr, Wretched Hag, Plague Rider, Hellbringer, Tempest (oh boy, especially these two), Behemoth or even Pestilence. Be prepared for Tempests not catching anybody, Plague Riders casting Ults on single magic immune targets (Predator being a crowd favorite), trapping their team mates with Fissures and so on...
4. The Wannabe Supporter
These guys are characterized by very low K:D ratios, which they invariably explain by chanting the mantra of "I"m a support player" while good support players actually rarely go below 1:1 K:D. Similar to the Well Informed Noob these guys will pick heroes that might seem valuable at first - Demented Shaman, Jereziah, Accursed etc. However, they only know one small part of what constitutes playing a support role and that is picking an appropriate hero. They will NEVER buy wards, couriers, won't give you last-hits in the lane while not being able to last-hit or deny themselves (basically screwing up the lane and your farm), will cast spells at the wrong times or at the wrong targets, preferably themselves (DAAAMN YOU ACCURSED!) and of course feed a lot since support characters, while immensely useful and important if played right, are usually relatively squishy and defenseless. Prepare yourselves for quotes along the lines of: "I can't buy wards since I need the money to support you." (Actual chat message in one of my games 0_o)
5. The Hardcore Carry
This only applies to normal mode games, since in EM games only a retard couldn't farm up, which is what makes ALL carries OP. In normal mode games these guys will ALWAYS play carries despite having no farming skills whatsoever (AngryTestie or chu they are not) plus being perma-ganked due to a lack of map-awareness. They will continue on their little farming quest not doing anything else, repeating that they "will carry" even if your base is reduced to the last two defense towers. Needless to say these guys are completely useless feeders that NEITHER get kills (unlike Duel Masters or Kill Stealers) NOR contribute to teamfights. Arguably the most annoying and useless class of players. If you want to see a 1600+ player falling into this category watch LibertiORDeth's channel when he is playing (not Cake a.k.a. OTBatman, who is actually good).
6. The Optimistic Pusher
These guys don't have any particular heroes that they like but nevertheless follow a certain pattern in their behavior. Their reaction to ANYTHING that's happening on the map will be saying: "Let's push!". It doesn't matter if the enemies outlevel you by 5 and are all missing in action and you lost the last 4 team fights. They won't give up and might actually drag the rest of their team into their overzealous and badly executed endeavors. Obviously the only good way to make a successful comeback in a game is making a good defense using terrain or building advantage or ganking somebody prior to a push - not to mention having map awareness so you can see what kind of resistance you might encounter - things these guys have never heard of. Very annoying, since they result in you team being repeatedly genocided.
7. The Hopeless Team Player
This is sadly the category most of us in 4P2 fall into. These guys are annoying in that they will get VERY frustrated when things don't work out due to no fault of their own but actually do most things right - it's just that you can't team play with retards and would probably have been MUCH better off picking a 1on1 hero or an OP carry to at least have any kind of chances of winning. This is basically what Greasy described in his first post. These guys will pick up ANY hero their team needs and will try their best to play the game "correctly" - spending thousands on wards, couriers, support items, building their characters right, giving team mates orders that are never followed by random public players etc. Of course unlike truly epic players these guys are usually not good enough to carry a team on their own, which makes all their efforts oh-so-futile and their rage levels rise.
8. The Pubstar Ganker
Now, pretty much the only specific player category other than "simply a very good player" you ALWAYS want to have on your team. In well coordinated high tier games or competitive matches gankers and ganking are only one of the strategies you might go for and might succeed or fail depending on many factors but in up-to 1700+ games Pubstar Gankers are THE SHIT. These guys are marked by very high K:D ratios and will usually insist on playing mid - grant them their wish. Despite the fact that most ganking heroes are not true carries Pubstar Gankers will kill the other team a ridiculous amount of times resulting in 15-minute concedes, frustration, name-calling and eventually rage quits. Good teams know how to make comebacks, protect themselves against ganks and also realize that early deaths are not always a sign of ultimate defeat but well - not in mid-tier pub games. If a high K:D ratio player goes for Andromeda, Arachna, Forsaken Archer, Moonqueen, Valkyrie (yes!), Blacksmith, Thunderbringer, Wretched Hag, Pollywog Priest (to a lesser extent), Puppet Master, Succubus, Voodoo Jester, Deadwood, Devourer (perhaps), Pebbles or Pestilence by all means do what you can to support them - they might go like 20:2 in the first 15 minutes or so. =)
9. The Outright Baddie
Not much to explain here. These guys are completely clueless but still might have relatively high PSRs through being carried by their buddies. They will pick ANY hero and COMPLETELY screw up, feeding enemies over and over, buying retarded items and finally even ragequitting when they realize that they should have kept playing with their friends but through their padded PSRs found themselves in a much too high tier for their skill. Sadly, if you end up with one of these on your team you will most likely fail unless the rest of the team is really good or coordinated. Luckily, there's still hope for these guys since everybody starts out as a baddie - just try not to evolve into any other of the bad player categories.
10. The Good Player
You will encounter these perhaps once in every 50 games and even more rarely will they end up being on your team. They are usually well-mannered, laid-back, happy and polite guys with very good overall stats (not just K:D) you will want to put on your friends list immediately after any given match. They will pick any hero that suits the team and just do AMAZING things with him, basically even going as far as carrying games with support heroes. Usually Good Players are on your PSR level only as part of their journey into like 1800-1900 territory and hence your contact with them might be quite brief as they will quickly start joining games you can't compete in. Sometimes Good Players will play on smurf accounts just to have fun, which of course can be very annoying if they join the other team but very beneficial if they end up on yours - try to find them and always try to end up on their side. :-D
Real life story: recently I was playing against [WHP]Dodo on one of his smurf-accounts in like 1590 PSR range. 100% win ratio and 12:1 K:D - ha, ha. He picked up Pyromancer and absolutely DESTROYED us in the lane and later used the farm and level advantage to make us concede at 15 minutes in. From watching high tier replays you MIGHT think these guys are not doing anything out of the extraordinary but remember - you only play as well as your enemy lets you and in balanced matches nobody can shine. True pros or Good Players will dominate low level games like nobody's business.
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