https://medium.com/@STRATZ/courier-kills-at-the-international-2017-74c8456d7927
one thing I didnt mention in the article. 8 of top 18 players for courier kills are eliminated.
I wonder if this is
a) pure chance
b) worse teams tend to go for these 'cheap' type of plays more often
c) teams resort to courier snipes more in later game (I think for a lot of the heroes who aren't traditional courier killers this is the case. They go to cut a creep wave somewhere, or farm opposite side of map, and by fluke come across random courier)
d) The actions that lead towards you being likely to snipe couriers, are the same actions that lead towards losses and tournament elimination
not really sure which one, and haven't figured out how you'd test that yet.