Author: Nik Ranger

First look at Dota Underlords’ amazing new character models ValveValve have given fans of their new Dota Underlords game a sneak peak at the new and improved character models which will be added in the next update. Dota Underlords is Valve’s officially licensed version of Autochess, which started life as a mod for Dota 2 and inspired other games such as League of Legends’ Teamfight Tactics. With the genre remaining popular on streaming platform Twitch, the developers of the game have announced some major graphical changes that are coming to Underlords, and given fans a look at the new character models that will be added to the game. What makes the upgraded character models even more exciting is that they haven’t been designed and created by Valve themselves, but rather fans of the Autochess battler are the masterminds behind these improvements. In a tweet posted on Tuesday, July 30, Valve explained that all of the new character looks have been taken from creators on the Steam Workshop, meaning their hard work will be forever ingrained in the game, and used by hundreds of thousands of players around the world. Valve are also planning on more skins for Underlords’ characters, advertising a job listing focused on the creation of new models going forward. All of these sets come from the Dota 2 Workshop community. Is there a set out there you created or love to see implemented? Maybe you’d like to come create new content for Underlords? Join us! https://t.co/LOe0gahhfw Tune in tomorrow to see the second half of the new sets. — Dota Underlords (@DotaUnderlords) July 30, 2019 Each unit features three versions, with their skin changing depending on their star rating, which also dictates how powerful they will be in combat. Valve are planning to release more of the redesigned skins in the near future, with the entire set scheduled to be added to the game in the next major update, which also includes a rework to the game’s ranked system that should make it more clear to see how you’re progressing. You can see all of the character reworks coming to Dota Underlords below. Every Dota Underlords redesigned character model Abaddon Anti-Mage Lina Luna Phantom Assassin Queen of Pain Timbersaw Tiny Arc Warden Doom Dragon Knight Drow Ranger Gyrocopter Kunkka Medusa

Dota 2 player Fade retires after poaching drama between organizations Vici/ESLPan ‘Fade’ Yi’s short career ended as the 23-year-old announced his retirement from pro Dota on Weibo today, following some conflict between two Chinese Dota 2 teams regarding conversations that took place during TI9. It’s really easy to get burned out on esports. The pressures that come with pro teams and the highest level of competition can grind away on the brain, and not meeting expectations can be devastating to a player’s psyche. In a post on Weibo, (Chinese Twitter for those who don’t know), Fade announced the end of his pro Dota career, after starting just over three years ago: “I have retired. There’s no more drama and I no longer want to be in the epicenter. There has been too much bitterness in the past few years. Mistakes were made, and happiness there has been. I’ve let everyone down for too many times, and it shall all end here. Let me once again become an ordinary man, to enjoy the simple happiness of Dota.” This decision comes after a terrific 2019 for Vici Gaming and Fade, but also after a disappointing result at TI9. Vici finished first in three Dota Pro Circuit events this year, including the EPICENTER major and the DreamLeague major. But the team finished 5-6th in Shanghai at the International, and in their last series against Team Secret, were completely dismantled and embarrassed by Team Secret in front of the home crowd. They lost 2-0, got 12 kills across two games, and each game took less than 25 minutes. But Fade’s retirement comes after a bit of drama between Vici and Chinese Dota newcomer Royal Never Give Up, 7-8th place finish at TI9 surpassed expectations. After Vici Gaming’s owner called out RNG for allegedly trying to contact players while they were still playing at TI9, RNG put out an announcement of clarification to squash that notion: “Regarding the rumour that we’ve been unsettling players during TI, we have this to say: We did not enter talks with any of VG’s players during TI9, which we have cleared up with @VG_MCDJ and @VG_Qc. Rumours stops at the wise, and as a newcomer team RNG wishes to continue co-existing with the older teams. Once again we thank our fans for their continued support and trust.” After this announcement, @VG_Qc took to his Weibo to verify this, saying that it was not RNG who initiated the conversation, and that the truth was very shocking and surprising. He also commented on the RNG announcement by mentioning Fade and saying, “you have some explaining to do.” Fade’s announcement came just hours after @VG_Qc addressed Fade on Weibo, so it’s possible the conversation that must have took place between Fade and Vici prompted this retirement decision.

Evil Geniuses partner with Team Razer ahead of The International 2019 Evil GeniusesLegendary esports organization Evil Geniuses have announced a partnership with Razer, a leading gaming lifestyle and technology brand, specializing in hardware and peripherals. EG were previously partnered with Razer for two years between 2013 and 2015, and are teaming up again for at least another two years, as part of the new peripherals sponsorship. Their world renowned Dota 2 team will be kitted out with Razer’s “esports-grade peripherals including headsets, keyboards, mice, and surfaces”, while they train and compete over the next two years. Evil Geniuses also field top teams in Call of Duty, Fortnite Battle Royale, Rocket League, Rainbow Six: Siege, Artifact, Smash Bros. and Street Fighter V. David Tse, Global Director of Esports at Razer, said “Team Razer is proud to partner with Evil Geniuses at the highest level of esports. We are always inspired by their passion and commitment, and our partnership will be fueled by the best of esports technology and skills.” Evil Geniuses have already qualified for The International 2019, Dota 2’s premier tournament, which is expected to have a prize pool exceeding 2018’s $25.5 million. “Razer’s high-performance gaming devices are top-tier and give our players a new performance edge,” said Philip Aram, EG’s COO, “Razer is the perfect brand with which to enjoy continued success and to compete for a repeat win at The International.” The International 2019 begins in August and, EG will be among the favorites again, and will now be kitted out in Razer gear as they go for another win. Similarly, Evil Geniuses’ CoD team, on console, will now be using Razer headsets while training, as will all their other esports rosters. EG’s other sponsors include Monster Energy, Xfinity, AMD, Auros, Need for Seat and Design by Humans. Razer also sponsors a number of other recognizable esports brands, including Immortals, Team Vitality and Alliance.

Eva Elfie shocked esports pros prefer Dota 2 over sex YouTube/EvaElfieYTMovie star Eva Elfie was shocked to learn that Dota 2 pros prefer their game to having sex after interviewing them at TI 2022. Dota 2’s The International wrapped up in October with Tundra Esports besting Team Secret in the finals to win the title, but that’s not the only thing that went down in Singapore. Russian actress Eva Elfie has proven herself to be quite the big fan of esports over the years and was in Singapore for the big event. While there, she had some rather hard questions for the game’s pros including whether or not they’d prefer sex or Dota. The answers surprised her. Eva Elfie shocked that Dota 2 players prefer gaming over sex While many players were stunned to hear the question, many answered that Dota 2 was their preferred choice. There were some exceptions, obviously, but by far the majority of players at TI chose Dota, leaving Elfie completely confused. During a podcast with Jake Lucky, the star was asked to talk about the question and the players’ response, explaining that she was baffled by their choice. “I asked ‘what do you choose, Dota 2 or sex’ and everyone chose Dota 2. I don’t understand why!” she exclaimed. “You’re really gonna play Dota 2 and not choose sex?!” While there’s no clear-cut answer to Elfie’s question, a tattoo 100 Thieves CEO Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag got after losing a bet could sum up what the Dota 2 players were thinking: “sex is temporary, gaming is forever.”

Esports legend Grubby hits Dota 2 Divine rank in under a year Image via BlizzardDota 2 is an extremely difficult game, and reaching the pinnacle of the ranked ladder can take years, even for professionals. However, former Warcraft III professional and esports legend Grubby hit Divine rank after starting from Herald in less than a year. Dota 2 is one of those games that require more than just a basic understanding of their mechanics to climb up the ranks. There are several aspects at a micro and macro level that players need to sharpen to perfection in order to reach the absolute top. As it happens, Manuel ‘Grubby’ Schenkhuizen, a former professional who is considered a legend in Warcraft III, managed to reach the top in a very short amount of time. He started at Herald IV and managed to hit Divine rank, the second highest in the game, in less than a year. Grubby receives praise from Dota 2 fans for his achievement Grubby started the ranked Dota 2 journey on September 28, 2022, when he calibrated at 680 MMR and was placed in Herald IV. On July 26, 2023, he announced that he had reached Divine 1 with an MMR of 4630 after 301 days. It’s important to point out that, during that time period, he benefitted from top-tier coaching lessons. Two-time TI winner Sébastien ‘Ceb’ Debs and analyst Brian ‘BSJ’ Canavan were among the community figures who helped the Warcraft legend to improve at the game. Naturally, Grubby has received massive praise from several Dota 2 fans and players. This also included popular analyst Kevin ‘Purge’ Godec who commented, “Congrats, awesome job” as he demonstrated his support. Former professional Wehsing ‘SingSing’ Yuen commented, saying Good stuff dude! Fantastic to see hard work pay off, immortal within a year ez” as he encouraged Grubby to push even further. The post has also received positive comments from general fans as well. One such fan commented “So proud. I’ve been following your journey, mostly through YouTube videos. Keep up the good work” as they showcased their support for Grubby. Lastly, a fan ended up commenting “Whatt? That was fast” as they were shocked at how fast Grubby managed to achieve the feat.

ESL and Redeye Pay Tribute to TotalBiscuit at ESL One Birmingham The first major DOTA 2 event in the UK started off day three with a somber tone as the entire venue paid tribute to John ‘TotalBiscuit’ Bain. The popular esports journalist, commentator and game critic was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2014, but despite the odds against him, he battled for almost four years until his death on Thursday, May 24th, aged 33. TotalBiscuit had his fair share of critics across the esports and gaming world, but after learning of his passing, there was an air of sadness across social media as the news hit home to his friends, co-workers and fans. As a former commentator for titles such as Starcraft II, TotalBiscuit had worked with ESL on a number of occasions, and in return they paid tribute to his service during ESL One Birmingham. The $1,000,000 tournament is the first UK major Dota 2 event in history, with twelve of the best teams in the world competing in front of a large crowd at entertainment venue, Arena Birmingham. On the morning of Friday, May 25th, host Paul ‘Redeye’ Chaloner spoke a few kind words about his friend, before conducting a minute of silence across the entire venue. Redeye looked visibly upset when discussing the subject and he later confirmed on Twitter that he never wanted to announce such a thing ever again. In order to try and stop that from happening, Redeye said on Twitter that he would be donating his fee from the event to cancer research. I’m never sure what is appropriate in these situations but I want to help. So, I decided to donate my fee from ESL One Birmingham today to Cancer Research. I never want to have to deliver a message like that on-air ever again. — Redeye (@PaulChaloner) May 25, 2018

Emotional OG player N0TAIL dedicates TI9 Grand Finals to recently passed pet In partnership with Razer – take absolute control today. During an interview on Saturday, August 24, N0tail revealed just how much it meant for him to be back in the Finals and why this year has been especially emotional for him. This one’s for you boy During the interview, N0tail admitted he still had a hard time comprehending that his team would be in the Grand Finals for the second year in a row. “It’s fucking wild, it’s crazy, it’s still sinking in very much,” the OG captain admitted. “Before this tournament, things were a bit dark – my dog had died, it was really rough for a couple of weeks, my self-esteem was pretty low, and now we’re here.” “You know honestly, I dedicate this tournament to him,” N0tail said. “But really, thank you Sebastian (Ceb), and of course everyone else. Just feeling so fucking lucky – so fucking good.” After an emotional depth-charge like that, it’s going to be hard not to root for N0tail and the OG squad to win their second Grand Finals in a row this year for his friend. We also wouldn’t want to be the opposing team, because N0tail seems ready to go full John Wick-mode on whoever makes it to the Grand Finals match. Who could OG face in the Finals? OG will go up against either Team Liquid or PSG.LGD, depending on who wins the Loser’s Bracket Finals. Team Liquid struggled through the Group Stage, where they fell 0-2 to PSG, and will definitely be looking for redemption on Sunday. PSG have proven themselves the best Chinese team in the tournament, and are looking to make a Finals run with the home crowd solidly behind them. Sunday is shaping up to be a wild day of Dota and one where we could potentially see OG make history as the first back to back International champions in history.

Dota 2’s DreamLeague S21: Schedule, playoffs bracket, results & stream ESLDota 2’s DreamLeague S21 is underway to whet the appetite of fans before The International 2023. Here is everything you need to know about the $1 million tournament. With TI 2023 still a few weeks away, ESL is running a shortened version of DreamLeague, featuring 12 teams from all over the world and a $1 million prize pool. Running only for seven days, DreamLeague Season 21 will be the last premier Dota 2 competition before The International begins. Due to schedule constraints, the tournament will feature a different format than what the Dota 2 community has gotten used to. Still, there will be non-stop action to keep fans entertained as the countdown to TI enters its final weeks. Below you can find everything you need to know about DreamLeague S21. This article will be updated as more information becomes available. DreamLeague S21: How to watch The tournament will be streamed live on ESL’s Dota 2 Twitch channel, which we have embedded below. Other streams: DreamLeague S21: Dates and format Group Stage (September 18-20): 12 teams are split into two single round-robin groups. – All matches are Bo2. – Top 2 teams from each group advance to the upper bracket. – Teams that finish 3rd and 4th advance to the lower bracket. – Bottom 2 teams from each group are eliminated. – Playoffs (September 21-24): Double-elimination bracket with the remaining 8 teams. – All matches are Bo3, except the grand final (Bo5). – DreamLeague S21: Schedule and results Playoffs Day 1: September 21 Day 2: September 22 Day 3: September 23 Day 4: September 24 Group Stage Green = Qualified for playoffs’ upper bracket. Yellow = Qualified for lower bracket. Red = Eliminated. Group A Group B Day 3: September 20 Day 4: September 21 Note: Due to power issues in Quest’s camp, their group match against Gaimin Gladiators has been postponed to Thursday. Previous results: Day 1: September 18 Day 2: September 19 DreamLeague S21: Teams and rosters DreamLeague S21 will feature 12 teams hailing from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, and Southeast Asia. The invites were based on the ESL Pro Tour ranking system. According to ESL, Chinese teams aren’t attending the tournament because of a conflicting schedule. Note: TA2000 will miss some matches due to a visa delay, with Shad filling in for him.

Dota2: TI9 Grand Prize eclipses the Fortnite World Cup Valve / Epic GamesDota2’s premier event of the year The International has so far amassed a prize pool of over $32 million, and the number is even more staggering when comparing it to the Fortnite World Cup’s gigantic payout. Sentinels Kyle ‘Bugha’ Giersdorf made headlines across the world when he earned esports’ largest single payout reward of $3 million by taking the top spot at the Fortnite event in New York. Not to be outdone, The International has reached a prize pool sum that will actually pay out even more cash to its winners, when equally dividing the Grand Finals’ winnings among the five players that make up a Dota2 team. :movie_camera: @GhostGaming: A Fortnite World Cup Story by Dexerto :starstruck: Ep.1: Motivations :fire: Ft. @Ghost_Bizzle, @aydan, @seanpcc, @GhostSaf w/@elgatogaming | #FortniteWorldCup pic.twitter.com/DFvpFJm3gN — DEXERTO.COM (@Dexerto) August 12, 2019 The esports world learned of Bugha’s name overnight because of the enormous amount of cash he had earned in a single event. But esports has grown to the point where his July 28 milestone will technically be eclipsed by the winners of The International 2019. Read more: How to watch The International 2019 – “The Grand Prize of The International 2019 now stands at over $15 Million USD,” notable Dota2 community member ‘Wykrhm Reddy’ said. “Five players will earn more than $3 Million USD EACH making it the largest payout ever for a single player in the history of esports.” The International’s prize pool has been growing at an incredible rate, year after year. The current pot is nearly touching the $33 million mark, according to the Dota2 Prize Pool Tracker at the time of writing. This is nearly $10 million more than what The International 2018 offered its contestants when its crowd-funding efforts ended with a pot of just over $25 million. Though some were quick to point out that just because the Grand Finals winner will claim the prize of over $15 million, it won’t necessarily mean that every player will get more than Bugha’s sum. Dota2 teams also have a coach, org and more to pay out after the event, which sheds off some of the winnings that go to the players. But taking note that the Fortnite World Cup winner himself had to pay up large sums of taxes in the aftermath of his winnings, it seems like there are stipulations all around to consider. Even still The International is going to be a landmark for esports prize pools and will feature some of the best Dota2 action when it runs from August 15 to August 25.

Dota 2 fans outraged by Pro Circuit and Midas Mode 2 event clash ValveDota 2 tournament. After the culmination of The International 2019, Dota 2 fans have been patiently waiting for more information regarding the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit. On September 10, Valve announced the rules of and changes to the circuit that leads into next year’s International, but that announcement came with a major complication. Midas Mode 2 is an upcoming Dota 2 tournament being organized by Moonduck.tv, which Slacks is a founding member of. The dates were finalized for September 24 – October 2nd, and this finalization came after numerous date changes in the past. The tournament features a unique format, as each team is given an amount of currency called Moonbucks, and they have to use this currency to pick and ban certain heroes, pick sides of the map, and even pause. This gives teams an out-of-game economy that they have to manage throughout the tournament, complete with a stock market and bounty system to help them manage their Moonbucks. But now plans may have to be changed yet again, as Valve announced a new streamlined qualifier system for the majors and minors of the DPC, and this first qualifier is set to take place between September 30 – October 5. The community has not responded well to this conflict, suggesting that at best, Valve doesn’t care about lower-tier tournaments, or at worse, deliberately scheduled the qualifier for the same time. At the time of writing this, 1:25 PM EST on September 11, a post on the Dota 2 subreddit titled “Petition to change Qualifier dates to not destroy Midas Mode” has a reddit score of over 5000. The subreddit also has several posts at the top of its page outlining why Valve should be supporting tournament like Midas Mode 2 rather than sabotaging them. SirActionSlacks is clearly not pleased with the conflicting dates either, especially after having to change dates a couple of times already. Slacks had already secured numerous sponsors for the event, a venue in Denver, Colorado, and a $150k prize pool. He also doesn’t want to let down supporters and fans who have contributed to an IndieGogo campaign that raised $15k and allowed backers to customize items and heroes that will appear in the tournament.

Dota2 host SirActionSlacks forced to sub in for NaVi at tournament Moonduck.tvJust minutes before the semifinals of the European portion of Moonduck.tv’s Midas Mode 2 competition, the Dota 2 International informed the tournament organizer Moonduck that they required a stand-in. Their demand for who must fill in as replacement was not expected. While Midas Mode 2 is far from a serious tournament, old school Na’Vi has still decided on the best option available, despite how unconventional it is. When Na’Vi experienced “scheduling conflicts” before their semifinals match with Sir Sadim’s Stunners, SirActionSlacks was forced to deliver the news to the broadcast team, as well as relay the TI1 champions’ demands. TI1 Na’Vi demanded a large amount of Moonbucks for both squads, which is the out-of-game currency used by teams in the tournament needed to draft champions, select sides, and pause. They also said they would not play unless Slacks himself stood in and played the Techies character for the entire series. “So with my hands completely tied five minutes before the semifinals start,” Slacks relented to his analyst comrades, “I must abide by these hostage demands.” With that, the beloved community figured departed the on-stage catch for one of the computers in the back, to prepare in solitude for the task before him. But Slacks is well-versed in Techies and proved he’d be no fifth wheel early. This sort of silliness has been a critical part of the Midas Mode 2 experience. From sock puppets to absurd community created contributions to a ludicrous opening ceremony featuring Gabe Newell of all people, Moonduck.tv and Midas Mode’s insistence on not taking themselves too seriously is all part of their charm. This tournament that is beloved by the community almost didn’t happen, as the Midas Mode 2 dates previously lined up with those of the qualifiers for the first minor and major of this year’s Dota Pro Circuit. Thankfully, Valve remedied the problem by changing the qualifier dates, allowing Midas Mode 2 to carry on without any problems (except for the old Na’Vi scheduling conflict, of course). The winner of the Sir Sadim’s Stunners and TI1 Na’Vi series will face TI3 Alliance in the European grand final. The Asian group is scheduled to begin on September 30, and will feature prominent teams such as Fnatic, Vici Gaming, and EHOME.

Dota 2 Frostivus event: Arcanas, custom game modes & more ValveFrostivus is coming back to Dota 2 and Valve has confirmed there will be “a few more moving parts” than the devs had initially planned. Here’s everything we know so far about the upcoming event and all the goodies along with it. After a fairly disappointing Compendium for The International 2023, Valve has confirmed that Arcanas, as well as the in-game Frostivus event, is in the works. First introduced in 2012, this will be the sixth iteration of Frostivus in Dota 2, with the last one being Frostivus: Flockheart’s Gamble in 2019. Making a return after four long years and with a massive expectation from the community to make up for the Compendium, Valve’s official statements suggest that this could be one of the biggest Frostivus events so far. Having said that, let’s dive in and check out everything that Valve has confirmed so far about the returning event. Dota 2 Frostivus announcements After the release of patch 7.34e on November 20, 2023, Valve released another blog post to address what is next for Dota 2. Given that the devs had confirmed that there will be Arcana releases after TI 2023, the anticipation in the community is at an all time high. Although Valve has confirmed both Frostivus as well as new Arcanas, they have also stated that it will be a while before the latter are released. To be specific, Valve has confirmed to release Frostivus sometime during December. However, it will take more time to complete everything for “the event surrounding the Arcanas.” While the lack of Arcanas in the Frostivus event comes as a disappointment for many in the community, this also confirms that there will be a second in-game event shortly after Frostivus 2023 with the devs confirming that they look forward to releasing the Arcana-related event “in the next few months.” At this point, we know that Frostivus is set to release during December as has been the case with all previous Frostivus happenings in the game. Additionally, Valve’s blog post also drops a little teaser stating there could be even more updates in store before the Arcana-related event, and with several mentions of the word in its plural form, the community could be in for a treat with multiple Arcanas getting released during the upcoming event. With the developer not revealing much about the upcoming updates, events, and cosmetics at this point in time, we will make sure to update this section with all the latest information and leaks as soon as they are revealed. So, there you have it, that’s all the information available for Frostivus 2023 and what is next in Dota 2 after update 7.34e. If you’re looking for more news and tips for the game, make sure to check out our dedicated Dota 2 section.

Bizarre Dota 2 base race leads to nailbiter ESL One ending The final match of a Dota 2 series between beastcoast and Wind and Rain at the ESL One Hamburg tournament was an hour-long slobberknocker with a wild ending. The best games in titles like League of Legends and Dota 2 are the games that snowball slowly over time before turning into an avalanche of chaos. On the stage of the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany, two teams went to war in the first round of the lower bracket of ESL One. Their final map was an absolute classic, and came down to a bizarre base race between the two teams. Even the official Dota 2 account for ESL couldn’t believe it. HOW THE **** DID @beastcoast PULL THAT OFF??? What an INSANE base race against @WindandRaingg! GG! :fire::fire::fire: :tv: https://t.co/RUTJQiyOsP pic.twitter.com/FOuPnCQvmw — ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) October 25, 2019 Beastcoast had just won a massive teamfight late in the match, and were knocking on the door of the Wind and Rain base. As the players where whittling down the Radiant fountain, Wind and Rain’s AI-controlled minions – better known as creeps – were trying to win the game for their team while most of their players were still waiting to resurrect. But humans beat computers this time, as the Beastcoast players melted down the Wind and Rain Fountain’s health to zero just seconds before their own base would have been depleted by creeps. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as a base race, and occurs at the end of matches when both teams abandon the typical battles within lanes and jungles and opt to race each other to see who can destroy the base and end the match first. The chaotic end to the third game was the perfect way to finish the series, described by desk host Paul ‘RedEye’ Chaloner as “one of the most exciting series since The International.” RedEye also said video of the epic series is worth grabbing if you’re a big fan of Dota. One of the most exciting series (game 1 and 3 in particular) since TI between @beastcoast and @WindandRaingg Grab the vod when it comes out, epic series. GG both > — Redeye (@PaulChaloner) October 25, 2019 Beastcoast, a Peruvian roster that competed at the International 2019 as INFAMOUS and finished 7th/8th in Shanghai, took the series 2-1 when the bizarre base race was settled. Wind and Rain, a European underdog who stood in when Invictus Gaming pulled out of the tournament, was sent home. Beast won those two games in their series despite trailing for the majority of each match, and advances to play Vici Gaming, who they would have faced at TI9 had they won their series against the legendary Team Secret.

Dota Underlords update 213 patch notes: New ranked system, visual upgrades, more L: ValveThe latest update to Dota Underlords, #213, introduces a new ranked system, a new casual mode, and a visual upgrade for a variety of heroes. Dota Underlords is Valve’s official Dota-based autobattler, the genre popularized by Dota 2 mod Auto Chess that has now been released as a standalone game. The latest major update features a variety of changes, both to the game’s hero and item balance as well as some system updates, such as the changes to the ranked play system. Players can now see rank as a number that moves up and down based on results, and their rank changes solely based on the player’s placement in each game, without taking into account the rank of other players. The patch also introduces a new casual multiplayer mode that allows players to play multiplayer games, either solo or with friends, without having their rank affected by the results. Casual mode still uses rank to create fair games, however. Valve recently revealed the new, community-created character models for the two-star and three-star versions of a variety of heroes, and these are also arriving in the 213 update. To help minimize the impact of randomness, particularly in the early stages of the game, Valve have also introduced a free reroll whenever a player loses a round against another player. This is intended as a means of immediately balancing the scales somewhat, and therefore cannot be stacked and saved up for multiple rerolls in later rounds. As usual, the update also brings a variety of balance changes to heroes and items, as well as introducing four new items. The full patch notes for the update can be read below. Dota Underlords update 213 full patch notes Head to Head Players are now paired off to fight directly against each other, and both take part in the same shared combat. – When an odd number of players are present one of the players fights a clone of an actual player. – Leaderboard now pairs off players when they’re in head-to-head combat. – New Ranked System Rank is now a number you can see that moves up and down in a predictable way. – Rank change is based solely on where you finish in a Ranked match and does not depend on your opponents’ Rank. – Any time you reach the next minor Rank, we also grant bonus rank points. – Just like before, once you obtain a major Rank, it’s locked in and you cannot drop below it – More details and breakdown of rank thresholds here. – New Casual Multiplayer Mode: Play multiplayer games without affecting your Rank. – You will be matched against opponents of your same skill level. – You can queue up solo or with friends. – This is where you experiment with new builds, or complete those elusive challenges. – Daily Challenges and Achievements can be earned in Casual Multiplayer matches. – Ranked Multiplayer Mode Updates: Your Rank (Enforcer I, Upstart III, etc) is used to find opponents. – Play Ranked matches solo or in a party, see this blog post for details about party ranked. – New players will need to unlock ranked mode by playing 5 casual games. (Don’t worry, accounts with at least one Multiplayer game will be grandfathered in.) – Daily Challenges and Achievements can be earned in Ranked Multiplayer matches. – Achievements Complete achievements to earn Proto Pass XP – Complete an entire tier of achievements to unlock equippable Banner Sigils (i.e. complete all three 1-star Economy achievements to unlock the piggy sigil) – Added 2-Star and 3-Star look upgrades to the following Heroes: Abaddon – Arc Warden – Anti-Mage – Clockwerk – Doom – Dragon Knight – Drow Ranger – Gyrocopter – Kunkka – Lina – Luna – Medusa – Mirana – Phantom Assassin – Queen of Pain – Razor – Templar Assassin – Timbersaw – Tiny – Venomancer – Gameplay: Round damage eliminated for rounds 4-9. Round Damage starts at round 11, at 2 damage, and proceeds as before from then on (3 starting at round 20, 4 at round 30, etc.). – Whenever a player loses a round against another player, the loser gains a free reroll the next round. This reroll is not stackable, so use it or lose it. – General: Fixed solo games / tutorial not ending (staying on an empty board screen) when you are not connected to Steam. – Fixed Spirit Bear HP bar offset – Fixed Defeat screen sometimes not showing correct units and damage – Fixed healing-disabling items not applying in neutral waves – Clarified some alliance text – Fixed an issue where an incorrect message was sent when a Divine Rapier was stolen – Fixed an issue with players being shown to have completed their rounds on the leaderboard before that was actually true – Fixed Deadeye units not switching away from unselectable targets. – Fixed Unstoppable (now Helm of the Undying) triggering too early. – Fixed incorrect stun duration after Burrow Strike bump. – Further particle effect optimizations across all platforms. – Fixed crashes when resuming app on iOS – Several optimizations for ARM Mali GPUs – Added option (defaults to on) to automagically deploy units from your bench if you have room on the board and combat begins before you had time to do so yourself. – UI: Updated post-game screen with progress, stats, and scoreboard – Improved mobile responsiveness to touch events (dragging, scrolling, etc.) – General UI updates and polish – Spectating Fixed playing the startup animation if you start spectating or reconnect to a game after the first round – Spectators can now see the shop of players from the same party that they started the match with – Hero Changes Crystal Maiden: Maximum Health changed from (450, 900, 1800) to (550, 1100, 2000) – Gold Cost changed from 2 to 3 – Eidolon: Attack Damage Minimum changed from (40, 50) to (40, 80) – Attack Damage Maximum changed from (60, 70) to (60, 120) – Armor changed from 20 to (5, 10) – Maximum Health changed from 300 to (300, 600) – Juggernaut: Juggernaut will only cast Blade Fury when he’s surrounded by at least 2 enemies. – Lina: Gold Cost changed from 3 to 2 – Ogre Magi: Bloodlust: Self Bonus Attack Speed changed from (35, 55, 75) to (50, 90, 130) – Other Bonus Attack Speed changed from (30, 40, 50) to (30, 65, 100) – – Shadow Fiend: Attack Range changed from 4 to 3 – Requiem of Souls: Projectile Start Width changed from 125 to 128 – Projectile End Width changed from 425 to 256 – – Venomancer: Plague Ward: Number of Wards spawned changed from (1, 1, 3) to (1, 1, 1) – Maximum Health changed from (200, 200, 240) to (200, 220, 240) – Attack Damage Minimum changed from (50, 80, 120) to (50, 100, 150) – Attack Range changed from 6 to 8 – Attack Damage Maximum changed from (55, 100, 140) to (55, 110, 170) – – Witch Doctor: Paralyzing Cask: Cooldown changed from 10 to 15 – – Item Changes Alliance items have been disabled. Many of these effects have been migrated to Alliances or Equipment. The rest went back into the Underlords Vault. New Items: Helm of the Undying: Tier 2 Defensive Equipment: “+5 Armor. Equipped hero survives for an extra 4 seconds after receiving a killing blow.” – Bracers of Desperation: Tier 3 Support Equipment: “Equipped hero resets their cooldown and gets full mana when below 30% health. Attack target’s magic resistance is reduced by 30%.” – Poaching Knife: Tier 3 Offensive Equipment: “Equipped hero has a 30% chance of producing 1 gold when they kill an enemy. Attacks against units with less than 20% health crit for 200%.” – Dawning of Ristul: Tier 3 Global Item: “Healing for both crews is reduced by 50%.” – Removed Items: Cloak – Recruiter – Vicious Intent – Wicked Intent – Item Changes: Big-Time Contract Changed from “Equipped unit is Blood-bound in addition to its other types.” to “+250 Health. Equipped unit is Blood-bound in addition to its other types.” – Brooch of the Martyr Changed from “+50% Mana gained from receiving damage.” to “+50% Mana gained from receiving damage. +50% debuff resistance.” – Chainmail Bonus Armor changed from +7 to +10 – Claymore Attack Damage changed from +21 to +30 – Gloves of Haste Attack Speed changed from +20 to +25 – Hood of Defiance Tier changed from 3 to 1 – Octarine Essence Tier changed from 2 to 3 – Tranquil Boots Health Regen changed from +16 to +25 – Force Staff Now pushes melee attackers away from the equipped hero when taking damage. – Alliance changes: Elusive: Level 3 Alliance (9 heroes) – changed from “Allied Elusive units gain +75% evasion” to “All units gain +75% evasion.” – Warlock: Healing Link duration changed from 3 seconds to 2 seconds – Brawny: Changed from “All Brawny units have their Maximum HP increased by 200/500” to “All Brawny units gain +30/60 maximum HP for each kill they have.” – Savage: Changed from “Allies gain +10/25/45% Attack Damage” to “Allied Savage units apply a stackable 5/10/15 damage/s bleed on attack for 3s. Duration refreshes each attack.” – Shaman: Changed from “Enemies affected by Hexes, Silences or Stuns will generate -200% mana” to “Units attacking a Shaman have a 17% chance of being turned into a chicken and hop 4 cells in a random direction.” – Primordial: Changed from “Enemies attacking Primordial/Allied units have a 25% chance to have their attack speed slowed by 50% each attack. This effect is applied at the start of the attack and lasts for the duration of the attack.” to “Allied Primordial units spawn a rank 1/2 Eidolon on death. Eidolons are ranged Primordial units that don’t spawn Eidolons.” – Inventor: Changed from “Allied Inventors get 15/40 HP regen” to “Allied Inventors explode on death dealing 15/30% of their Max Health to all enemies 1 cell away” – Demon Hunter: In addition to the existing bonuses both levels now also have “All Demon Hunters gain 30% Pure Damage for each unique allied Demon unit.” – Assassin: Level 3 Alliance (9 heroes) – In addition to the existing bonuses level 3 now also has “All Assassins also blind enemies 1 cell away from where they land for 2 seconds (50% miss chance and 50% less mana when attacked)” –

Dota Underlords The Big Update patch notes: New Underlords & game modes Valve have announced a huge update to Dota Underlords, finally adding the mysterious Underlords to the game, a reasource called hype, and much more. Dota Underlords is Valve’s version of the popular auto-battler Dota Autochess. The game was released in June 2019 and has seen a steady stream of updates and improvements, and on October 24 Valve announced the biggest changes yet. In the new update, the Underlords will finally be stepping into the game, as well as new heroes, alliances, game modes, among other things. Fans have been ever curious about these mysterious characters and they have finally been revealed. What are the Underlords? The Underlords are primary units that players can place on the board, allowing them to use certain abilities and empower their units with talents. These new characters can use abilities through a resource called ‘Hype’, which varies depending on the Underlord, and each have over 20 different talents to choose from, giving players a variety of options. So far two Underlords have been revealed, Hobgen and Anessix, the two feature vastly different play styles and abilities, with the former being focused on fire while the latter is centered around demons. What are the duos and freestyle modes? Duos and freestyle are two new modes coming to the game with the big update. Duos mode allows players to team up with a friend and play all-new duos only matches, allowing teams to send gold and heroes to each other. Meanwhile, freestyle mode is one for creativity, meaning players can set up any board situation and see how it plays out. This is a feature that has long been requested by the community and will undoubtedly put a smile on a lot of fans’ faces. New heroes, alliances, and a jail have been added New heroes and alliances have been added, with Insects, Healers, Brute, and Champion alliances being introduced, while 12 unique new heroes enter the fray, including some fan favorites like Faceless Void, Io, and Broodmother. With so many new heroes being added, a brand new mechanic called the jail has been brought in. Every day 8 to 12 heroes will be detained and unable to be used, freshening up the game regularly. With the game having arguably died down after its initial hype, this update may be just what it needs to get back into the spotlight.

Dota Underlords streamer becomes the first player to reach 10k MMR ValveDota Underlords streamer Kim “bebe872” Kyuyeon became the first player to get past 10,000 MMR in the game during a stream on August 5. The highest rank in Dota Underlords is the “Lord of the White Spire” and only about 2,000 players have managed to reach these upper echelons. Standing atop the best players in the game is bebe872, who was the very first player to reach over 10,000 matchmaking rank (MMR) in Valve’s strategy game. It’s over 10,000! Bebe enjoyed the accomplishment live with viewers on Twitch, who also celebrated the streamer’s legendary acheivement. He used a combination of four Scrappy, three Warlock and two Demon Hunter units during the match to take him over the five-digit threshold. “No there is no limit [on MMR],” bebe said after winning the match. “We were here guys, it seems we were here. That is amazing.” Read More: Where is Dota 2’s Immortal Treasure 3? – There’s nothing like being the first one to do something, and bebe’s 10,000 MMR definitly makes him one of the world’s top Underlords players (for now, at least.) Ranked changes in the latest Underlords patch The Dota Underlords patch 213 contained changes for the game’s ranking system, that now sets Lords of the White Spire at 7600 MMR – or equal to the Big Boss V rank. The update also contains changes to gameplay and updated character models that were designed in part by the community to give units a different look at each level. Now that the 10,000 MMR horizon has been crossed we’re wondering who the next Underlords player to reach the milestone will be and who will be the next to take bebe down.

Dota Underlords “Big Update” – new alliances, characters and more Valve’s auto-battler Dota Underlords is gearing up for its official release from Beta, and the developers are releasing daily updates showcasing the newest additions. Dota Underlords is growing up right before our eyes. After a few months in beta, the Underlords team is planning for a full release very soon, and are celebrating that with a big update that they have creatively titled “The Big Update.” Starting on October 18, the development team is releasing daily updates with details of The Big Update. To be clear, the Underlords beta does not end with the patch, but the team said that it “marks the beginning of the end of the Underlords Beta.” With that, they have already announced several new alliances and characters. For those unfamiliar, alliances are groups of units who have a matching trait, and provide a bonus when played together. Certain bonuses require specific amounts of characters from a single alliance. On day one, they revealed the Healer alliance, who amplifies healing when grouped together. Joining that group and the Troll alliance is Dazzle, a tier-two unit that sends out a Shadow Wave that heals allies and hurts enemies. The Insects alliance was also revealed, with units that cause spiderlings to swarm in from the board edges, and can bite enemies to cause them to miss attacks. The additions of Weaver, Nyx Assassin, and Broodmother all bolster the new Insect alliance. On day two, they revealed the lone Champion, Legion Commander. Champions receive all alliance bonuses, and Legion Commander (also a Human) can earn a bonus by targeting and defeating the lowest health enemy on the board. Brutes were also debuted on day two, who can deal additional damage and apply a damage rebuff. Joining the Brutes alliance are new additions Lifestealer (heals while attacking) and Magnus (can empower an ally’s damage and grant them the Cleave ability). Released on June 20 this past summer, Underlords was the latest in a trio of autobattlers games inspired by the Autochess mod in Dota 2. The developers of that mod went on to form their own standalone game called Autochess, Riot jumped in with Teamfight Tactics, and Valve went ahead with Dota Underlords. Dota Underlords is also available on mobile devices, and features crossplay and the ability to start a game on PC and switch over your phone mid-game, as well as vice-versa. With the new additional alliances and heroes, Valve is putting plenty of heroes on the board that is Dota Underlords, and it’ll be interesting to see what else the team has planned for The Big Update.

Dota 2 tournament organizer explains why esport’s future is in doubt Valve / Dota ComsocA Dota 2 tournament organizer has shared their concerns about the tier 2 scene, blaming developers Valve for a lack of support for development pathways surrounding the game. Drunk_Soldier, who is mainly responsible for the upcoming amateur event Underdogs League, said they were afraid for the state of competitive Dota in a post on Reddit on September 12. According to the independent TO, Valve’s silence on lower levels of pro Dota left much to be desired, and without the developer’s support in founding a talent pathway to the top of the esports scene, the entire ecosystem is “unsustainable.” “There is such a large roadblock for aspiring players to improve enough to get to pro these days due to there being so few opportunities to make a sustainable income … and no sense of community below the tier 1 scene, dwindling our esports numbers,” Drunk_Soldier said. “The current state of amateur Dota tourneys and leagues is more grim than ever, with the suspension of NADCL, AD2L, and may other leagues. I can only think of a very, very small handful of other NA tournaments who still are trying to fight through the times.” The Underdogs League organizer revealed they will be $2,000 “out of pocket” to fund their own prize pool, mainly due to the unattractive nature of the competitions for sponsors. All of this, the disgruntled TO said, was due to Valve ignoring the lower levels of the scene. “With no communication to or from Valve, it is so hard for tournaments to get started and continue with so much unknown.” Recently, Valve proved they don’t pay attention to community-hosted events. The developers slapped their first Pro Tour Circuit qualifiers right over one of the most popular tourneys, Jake ‘SirActionSlacks’ Kanner’s twelve-team Midas Mode 2.0. It was only after a raft of community outrage that Valve realized their scheduling mistake, and moved the qualifying games to October 5-10 to avoid crossing over with Midas Mode’s already announced September 24 to October 2 timeframe. While the tier 2 and below scenes are struggling to survive under Valve’s reign, the top-level tournaments are thriving. The International 9, which saw OG become the first back-to-back champions recorded a new viewership record on Twitch due to soaring popularity. Follow all the post-TI9 player movement madness in our Dota 2 Roster Shuffle tracker.

Why are the best Dota 2 teams skipping the Chengdu major? ValveDota 2 International 2019, and thus will both the first major in China. Two-time TI champions OG are expected to skip it as well. Why are they taking such a long break, and how can they afford to do so? In less than two months, the Dota 2 Pro Circuit will be back in full force, as sixteen of the world’s best teams will descend on Chengdu, China for the MDL Chengdu major. Nearly $1 million and 15000 DPC points will be on the line, and a number of organizations will show off altered rosters, while a couple of rosters will likely be representing new organizations. But a handful of top teams that aren’t making any serious changes are skipping the first major altogether. Team Secret announced that they wouldn’t be making any changes to their roster, but also that they won’t be attending the Chengdu major, citing a need to extend time off for their players. “Considering the length of each season and impact of fatigue, we are taking these measures to ensure our team begins the DPC Circuit fresh, and sustains that energy through the season.” Read more: Top 20 highest earning Dota 2 Pro Players – Team Secret aren’t taking a vacation alone, as PSG.LGD have passed on the first major as well, as their player Xu ‘fy’ Linsen takes three months off due to eye surgery. Both teams will compete at the ONE ESPORTS Dota 2 Singapore World Pro Invitational at Singapore in December. :pencil::person_fencing: Because of all this, we will miss the first event of the new season :pensive: But we will come back soon and stronger :fist: :red_circle::large_blue_circle: #ICICESTPARIS pic.twitter.com/3pZNzYjVFI — PSG Esports (@PSGeSports) August 29, 2019 Well, because of the nature of the Dota Pro Circuit system, the teams at the top can afford to skip events and still qualify for The International 2020. At the beginning of last year’s Dota Pro Circuit, Team Liquid failed to qualify for the Kuala Lumpur major after failing in the EU closed qualifier that took place just after TI8. Despite earning no points at the first major, Team Liquid still qualified for TI9 with the fifth most DPC points, thanks to back-to-back grand finals appearances at the MDL Disneyland Paris major and the EPICENTER major. If PSG.LGD and Team Secret removed the points they earned from their first major of last year’s circuit, they still would have qualified for TI9 with a top six spot. A top six spot in the DPC isn’t even necessary to make a deep run at The International. OG didn’t attend the first major last year, still qualified for TI9, and went on to win the whole thing. Rumors are floating that OG may pass on this first major as well. With this system in place, it makes sense for teams who are at the top tier of Dota to take a longer break if they can afford it. Dota follows a tournament circuit structure that’s somewhat similar to that of CS:GO, with different tournament organizers and formats. But the Dota 2 scene has five majors over the course of a year compared to CS:GO’s two, and Dota majors have a longer playoff format because they use double elimination compared to the single elimination bracket that CS:GO uses. While fans might be disappointed that certain teams won’t attend the first major, especially the local Chinese fans given that PSG.LGD won’t be playing, it’s not the fault of the teams, they’re just playing the system to their advantage.

DotA Caster Sheever’s Segment Spurs Tears During the International Dota2 – YouTubeJorien “Sheever” van der Heijden, best known for her casting work in DotA, was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. Her journey through the illness was broadcast in a twelve-minute segment that aired during The International, DotA’s largest competitive tournament, on August 22nd. The segment documented Sheever’s story, from her initial diagnosis to her life following the news. In a touching series of interviews, Sheever’s family and boyfriend detailed the impact of the cancer on their lives, and expressed their love and support for one of DotA’s most celebrated casters. Sheever explained her diagnosis, as well, working through tears to describe the toll the illness takes on her everyday life. “I don’t notice the whole situation anymore, obviously. My hair sucks, I’m more chubby than what I used to be. But that’s all fine. But the hot flashes, they just remind me every hour that I’m not healthy.” In a panel following the segment, DotA caster David “Godz” Parker couldn’t help but show some emotion. He continued to host despite a flow of tears, working through the panel like a champ. Godz posted a series of Tweets following the panel, explaining that his youngest sister’s experience with cancer had an effect on his reaction. Sheever documents her recovery on her Twitter account, giving updates and progress reports through her website. She continues to host and commentate for the game, despite her condition. The DotA community’s support behind Sheever has been nothing short of inspiring. From care packages to supportive Tweets, Sheever has never been alone in her journey.

Dota 2’s TI 2023 prize pool could be the lowest in years after Compendium letdown ValveDota 2 has always been known for the staggering prize pool of its annual World Championship, The International. However, the prize pool for the upcoming TI 2023 could be the lowest in a very long time. The International’s prize pool has been bolstered by the community since the Compendium was first introduced ahead of TI3, with 25% of all purchases made going directly to the prize pool. Since then, The International has witnessed record-breaking prize pools, going as high as over $40 million in 2021. The following year, however, saw a massive drop as the tournament had $18.9 million on offer. As the Dota 2 scene rumbles on toward The International 2023, early projections suggest that the event could have the lowest prize pool in TI history in a decade. The International 12’s prize pool reflects Compendium disappointment The latest iteration of the Dota 2 TI Compendium was released on September 27 and has left many in the community disappointed. With this year’s Compendium being entirely focused on The International, a lot of in-game cosmetics and traditional features are absent. Valve has tried to make up for it with plenty of TI-themed rewards, as well as engaging mini-events for the tournament. Nevertheless, there aren’t a lot of players who are choosing to invest money to purchase the Compendium. Given that 25% of all Compendium sales go directly to TI’s prize pool, this lack of interest in this year’s iteration has proved to be detrimental to the prize pool’s growth. Here’s a list of how much money has gone into the TI prize pool 24 hours into the release of the Compendium in comparison with previous years: This clearly goes to show that TI’s prize pool this year might not be anywhere close to what we are used to seeing. It will be interesting to see what Valve has planned for the future of the game as well as its esports scene. Given that DPCs are also ending after TI12, the entire esports scene is headed towards a new structure and format, with invitations for TI making a return.

DOTA 2’s The International 2019 prize pool begins to build as Battle Pass now available ValveThe Battle Pass for DOTA 2’s The International 2019 is now on sale, and with it the TI prize pool has begun to build. Formerly known as the Compendium, the DOTA 2 International Battle Pass offers a range of features from a new game mode and challenges to complete to a host of new cosmetic rewards. Players can level up their Battle Pass by taking part in the upcoming Wrath of the Mo’rokai custom game, completing challenges and achievements, and even using Wagering Tokens to earn extra Battle Points from regular games. Read more: Top 20 highest earning DotA 2 pro players – As always, 25% of the proceeds from the sale of Battle Passes, including any additional purchases related to the Battle Pass as players increase their levels, will go to the prize pool of The International, adding to the $1.6 million base that Valve themselves contribute.The International is renowned in esports for its enormous prize pools. The International prize pool has become a point of pride in the DOTA community, who have so far succeeded in raising the bar every year to set a new record for the biggest prize pool given out by a single event in esports. Currently, that bar stands at $25,532,177, which was given out at The International 2018, of which winners OG received $11,234,158. The 2019 prize pool is already well on its way to topping that number, however, with the total pool standing at $8,033,907 at the time of writing, less than 48 hours after the release of the battle pass. For comparison, after the same period of time the 2018 pool stood at $6,184,703. OG won 2018’s International, taking home what is so far the largest single prize won in esports. Those who want to keep an eye on the progress of the prize pool and how it compares to previous years can do so with the prize tracker. The prize will continue to build as players purchase Battle Passes through to the event itself, which takes place August 15-25. With the enormous success of Fortnite, 2019 might be the first year that The International has a competitor as the biggest prize pool in esports, with the Fortnite World Cup offering a massive $30 million for its finals. While an exact breakdown of the distribution has not been revealed yet, however, it is believed that prize pool will be split between two distinct tournaments, the Solos and Duos competitions. It is highly likely, therefore, that The International will remain the biggest prize for a single tournament.

Dota 2’s The International 10 sets new prize pool record for esports ValveThe International 10 has set a new bar for the biggest prize pool in esports history, again, even as the Dota 2 Major’s still has a way to go before completing it’s final tally. The pinnacle of Dota 2 esports is one of the largest celebrations of the popular MOBA, and its record-setting prize pool is a big part of that. Traditionally, Valve contributes a baseline of $1,600,000 to the pot while Battle Pass (BP) purchases contribute 25% of the total pool with other in-game item sales also counted. In years past, this has routinely created scenarios in which even teams that bow out of the tournament early get a hefty amount of winnings for their trip to the Major. That trend will stay alive for the International 10, with the pot eclipsing the last benchmark of $33,330,068 as even more of the Dota 2 faithful are contributing an enormous amount for the future event. As of August 26, the International 10’s prize pool is at a staggering $34,392,282 – with $32,782,169 coming via contributions from the Dota 2 Battle Pass, according to data from the Dota 2 prize tracker. What’s most impressive is the time in which players in 2020 got the prize pool to its current mark. In 2019, the International reached its $34.3 mil prize pool in about 110 days before the event’s festivities got underway. This time, the fundraising outpaced every metric from past samples that ultimately led to where it is now: The International 10 got to the record-breaking number in only 93 days. Even from the initial launch of the Battle Pass for 2020, the Dota 2 fanbase jumped on the prospect of the new season of content. In the first day of sales, the contribution form BP sales outdid any of the previous iterations with $6.5 million compared to the prior year, that came the closest, of $5.8 million. Biggest Prize Pools in Esports The International 10 – $34,392,282 (and counting) – The International 2019 – $34,330,069 – The International 2018 – $25,532,177 – The International 2016 – $20,770,460.00 – The International 2015 – $18,429,613.05 – Fortnite World Cup Finals 2019: Solo – $15,287,500.00 – There are questions of how crowdfunding for The International will progress from here since the major has been postponed due to the current global health crisis. While TI10 has already established itself in the record books, there is uncertainty from Valve with how the tournament will be structured in terms of its Battle Pass and crowdfunding effort. What is known is that whenever it’s safely able to resume, the winning organization will be handsomely rewarded the lion’s share of the $34,392,282 (and counting) prize pool.

DOTA 2’s The International 10 achieves world record $40 million prize pool ValveThere certainly won’t be any shortage of prize money at DOTA 2’s The International in 2020, with a record-setting amount of over $40 million for the prize pool being accumulated. [jwplayer 6XbfP9ah] The pinnacle of Dota 2 esports is one of the largest celebrations of the popular MOBA, and its record-setting prize pool is a big part of that. Valve usually contributes a baseline of $1.6 million to the pot with the rest coming from player purchases. 25% of all sales for applicable in-game items purchased from the Battle Pass also go into the reward, which has just passed another impressive milestone. Close to a month after The International 10’s prize pool surpassed that of the 2019 competition’s roughly $33 million mark, it’s now surpassed the ridiculous sum of $40 million. What’s even more impressive is how quickly fans and players managed to build up to such a staggering dollar amount. In 2019, the then-record breaking sum of $34.3 million was reached in about 110 days before the event began. The International 10’s prize pool got to that record-breaking number in only 93 days, and reached the $40 million mark roughly a month later just as the Battle Pass ended. It was clear shortly after the initial launch of the Battle Pass for 2020, that we could very well be in store for another record-breaking year. On the first day of sales, the contribution from battle pass sales reached $6.5 million far above the previous first-day record of $5.8 million. Biggest Prize Pools in Esports The International 2020 – $40,000,000+ – The International 2019 – $34,330,069 – The International 2018 – $25,532,177 – The International 2016 – $20,770,460.00 – The International 2015 – $18,429,613.05 – Fortnite World Cup Finals 2019: Solo – $15,287,500.00 – As you can tell from the above graph, the $40 million in prize money far exceeds the high point it’s reached in previous years, exponentially higher than even last year’s record-setting spectacle, which was also miles ahead of previous years at basically every step of the way. Obviously, not being able to physically travel to or watch the premier live event for DOTA 2 esports did little to nothing to dampen fan’s enthusiasm, and as a result, we now officially have a new world record for the largest prize pool at an esports event in history.

Dota 2’s newest hero Snapfire announced at TI9 – Video and rumored abilities ValveIn partnership with Razer – take absolute control today Valve have announced the newest Dota 2 hero, Snapfire, through a short video at the game’s biggest event of the year, The International 2019. The International is the biggest Dota 2 event of the year and widely regarded as one of the biggest events in esports. In what is now an annual tradition, Valve have announced a new Dota 2 hero at the event, Snapfire, and while details about her still aren’t clear, there is a lot of speculation going around the community based on the reveal video. Snapfire was revealed through a short cinematic where she is seen baking cookies, before engaging in combat with Timbersaw and Batrider as they attempt to steal a basket of her freshly baked goods. She appears to be an elderly Keen Folk who is related to Timbersaw, meaning her characteristics are likely to focus around experimentation and engineering, similarly to other Keen like Timbersaw and Tinker. The newest addition to Dota 2’s roster is likely to be a support, as one of her abilities shows her throwing a cookie to Invoker, who instantly eats it and looks to speed up with renewed strength. Her other abilities seem to include summoning a very friendly looking lizard that can spit fire and burn the enemy hit over time. She is also able to ride the lizard and keep up with a rapidly escaping Batrider, possibly hinting at a speed increase, as well as fire a giant machine gun which is mounted on the reptile. Finally, Snapfire is armed with a handy shotgun that she uses to blast Timbersaw and knock him back, which could be one of her abilities, or her auto-attack. Valve have not yet confirmed any of Snapfire’s skills, stats, or a definite release date, however, she is scheduled to be released in Fall 2019, which starts on September 23, so the newest hero may not be very far away.

Dota 2’s Newbee banned from all Valve events after match-fixing scandal NewbeeChinese esports organization Newbee, and its entire Dota 2 roster, have been permanently banned from all Valve competitions, following a match-fixing controversy from May 2020. Newbee is one of China’s better-known esports organizations, particularly when it comes to Dota 2. Established in 2014, the team has accumulated over $13,000,000 in total earnings – mostly in part thanks to Dota2’s TI. Back in May, Newbee was plunged into one of the biggest controversies in Chinese esports history, after their entire roster was implicated in a match-fixing scandal. The team, consisting of Xu ‘Moogy’ Han, Yin ‘AQ’ Rui, Wen ‘Wizard’ Lipeng, Yan ‘Waixi’ Chao, and Zeng ‘Faith’ Hongda, was found to have been match-fixing in a number of competitions, including the China Dota 2 Pro League Season 2 and DPL-CDA Professional League Season 1. After the scandal came to light back in May 2020, the team was promptly banned from all events organized by ImbaTV, Mars Media, and CDA. They were also immediately disqualified from the aforementioned leagues in which the fixed matches took place. Following the revelations and tournament bans, many fans were waiting for further bans, particularly from Valve sanctioned event, as well as Perfect World. Both came in early 2021, with the news being confirmed that the organization and all 5 players implicated have been permanently banned from Valve events. That includes The International, which Newbee won back in 2014. Dota2 confirmed the bans on their official Weibo account. The following screenshot is a translation. Dota 2 insider ‘Wykrhm Reddy’ also confirmed the news on January 3, stating that the reason is match-fixing. The news did not come as a major surprise, but many fans were disappointed with the confirmation given the stardom of some players, particularly Faith and Moogy. Following on from the controversy, Newbee parted company with AQ, Wizard and Waixi in August of 2020. None of them have officially found a new roster. For the time being, Faith and Moogy remain on Newbee’s roster but, with indefinite bans pretty much across the board now, it looks like their time competing in Dota 2 is nigh on over.

Dota 2’s International 10 hits $25m prize pool after smashing record Valve[jwplayer 6XbfP9ah]The prize pool for Dota 2’s premier annual event, the International, has reached $25 million after a record-breaking period which saw the biggest one-day gain in TI history. The International 10 does not currently have a scheduled date, after the ongoing global health pandemic forced Valve to postpone it from its original August 18-23 running dates. That hasn’t stopped fans from doing what they can to make the next TI the biggest ever, as the staple event of the esport which breaks new prize pool records every year. TI9, which took place in August 2019, featured the biggest prize pool in esports history, narrowly beating the Fortnite World Cup just a few months earlier with $32m up for grabs (for comparison, the Fortnite World Cup was $30m.) It has been a source of pride for Dota players to consistently have such a huge event, and they proved that on July 2 when they reached $25m after a record-breaking day. Thanks largely in part to the extension of the Battle Pass level bundle, which was extended to end on July 2, the TI10 prize pool increased by a whopping $4m – the largest single-day gain in The International history. The $4m increase actually came on day 30, in which the prize pool rocketed from little over $16m to a huge $20m according to the official TI10 prize pool tracker. As you can tell from the graph, the current prize money available is far exceeding the point it has reached in previous years, exponentially higher than even last year’s spectacle, which stayed miles ahead of previous years at basically every step of the way. Should the trend continue as normal from here on out, we will likely see The International reach – and surpass – $35m or more by the time the event rolls around, smashing every record imaginable.

Dota 2’s 7.22e patch brings major changes ahead of The International 2019 Dota 2‘s patch 7.22e has been released by Valve, bringing changes to multiple heroes and items just a month before the start of The International 2019. Valve have announced a new balance patch with just a month to go until Dota 2’s biggest tournament of the year, TI9. The patch features changes to over 35 different heroes, as well as small item adjustments and a change to low ground miss chance. The biggest changes of the patch are various buffs and nerfs to a variety of heroes. Some of the most popular heroes have received slight nerfs or adjustments, while less popular heroes have been buffed. The community seems most saddened by yet another Dark Seer nerf – a hero that has been now nerfed four times in the last five patches. Centaur Warrunner and Ember Spirit hit with major nerfs These changes are certain to affect the picks and bans of all the professional teams. Multiple adjustments such as a vastly increased cooldown to Centaur Warrunner’s Hoof Stomp and an increase to Mirana’s intelligence and Sacred Arrow damage will make everyone think twice about which heroes are worth using. Ember Spirit also received a very impactful change, with Sleight of Fist no longer being usable while rooted. This ability was previously used to avoid damage while rooted, so this change could have a big impact on Ember Spirit’s playstyle, and could even make players avoid the hero altogether. Other popular heroes like Morphling, Ancient Apparition, Sven, and Grimstroke received slight stat reductions and ability adjustments. While this isn’t enough to make a huge difference for the hero’s playstyles, it does mean the less popular heroes will have a slightly better time dealing with them. Finally, minor item changes like a reduction of Maelstrom’s Chain Lightning damage and Stout Shield no longer stacking may slightly shake things up when it comes to hero builds, especially in the early game where Stout Shield is most prevalent. Dota 2 7.22e full patch notes GENERAL Low ground miss and miss debuff chance is now Pseudo Random – ITEMS MAELSTROM Chain Lightning damage reduced from 160 to 150 – STOUT SHIELD No longer stacks (only one chance attempt) – HEROES ABADDON CURSE OF AVERNUS Curse of Avernus initial debuff increased from 4 to 5 seconds – ANCIENT APPARITION Movement Speed reduced from 290 to 285 – TALENTS Level 25 Talent reduced from 700 AoE Cold Feet to 625 – BEASTMASTER TALENTS Level 15 Talent reduced from +40 Boar Damage to +35 – BLOODSEEKER BLOOD RITE Blood Rite cooldown reduced from 18/16/14/12 to 12 – BOUNTY HUNTER Base damage increased by 3 – CENTAUR WARRUNNER HOOF STOMP Hoof Stomp cooldown increased from 13 to 22/19/16/13 – CHEN Base damage reduced by 4 – DARK SEER ION SHELL Ion Shell damage reduced from 30/50/70/90 to 24/46/68/90 – DEATH PROPHET EXORCISM Exorcism scepter damage from 2x to 1.75x – DROW RANGER TALENTS Level 15 Talent changed from +550 Gust Distance/Knockback to +30% Gust Miss Chance – Level 15 Talent changed from +10 Agility to +14 – EMBER SPIRIT SLEIGHT OF FIST Sleight of Fist can no longer be used while rooted – ENIGMA MIDNIGHT PULSE Midnight Pulse damage reduced from 3.75/4.25/4.75/5.25% to 3.5/4/4.5/5% – GRIMSTROKE Base damage reduced by 2 – SOULBIND Soulbind no longer reduces movement speed by 10% – IO TETHER Tether heal/restore transfer reduced from 90/110/130/150% to 60/90/120/150% – JUGGERNAUT Bladefury damage reduced from 90/115/140/160 to 85/110/135/160 – LICH Base intelligence increased by 2 – SINISTER GAZE Sinister Gaze cooldown reduced from 30/27/24/21 to 24/22/20/18 – LUNA TALENTS Level 20 Talent increased from +8 All Stats to +10 – Level 20 Talent increased from +100 Lucent Beam Damage to +125 – Level 25 Talent increased from +30% Lifesteal to +35% – LYCAN Base intelligence increased by 2 – Base strength increased by 1 – SHAPESHIFT Shapeshift critical strike chance is now Pseudo Random – TALENTS Level 15 Talent increased from +10 Feral HP Regen to +13 – Level 20 Talent increased from +16% Feral Impulse Damage to +18% – MIRANA Base intelligence increased by 3 – SACRED ARROW Sacred Arrow cooldown from 17 to 18/17/16/15 – Sacred Arrow base damage increased from 50/140/230/320 to 80/160/240/320 – MORPHLING Base armor reduced by 1 – MORPH Morph scepter no longer reduces cooldowns by 35% – Morph scepter now allows ally targeting – TALENTS Level 20 Talent changed from Morph Targets Allies to +15% Cooldown Reduction – NECROPHOS HEARTSTOPPER AURA Heartstopper Aura max health lost per second increased from 0.5/1.1/1.7/2.3% to 0.6/1.2/1.8/2.4% – OGRE MAGI Intelligence gain increased from 2.3 to 2.5 – Agility gain increased from 1.6 to 1.9 – TALENTS Level 20 Talent increased from +40 Bloodlust Attack Speed to +60 – OMNIKNIGHT GUARDIAN ANGEL Guardian Angel duration reduced from 6/7/8 to 5/6.5/8 – HEAVENLY GRACE Heavenly Grace cooldown increased from 17/16/15/14 to 26/22/18/14 – ORACLE Movement Speed reduced from 300 to 295 – OUTWORLD DEVOURER SANITY’S ECLIPSE Sanity’s Eclipse mana drain reduced from 40% to 30% – TALENTS Level 15 Talent changed from +25 Movement Speed to +350 Mana – PHANTOM ASSASSIN Fixed Stifling Dagger slow lasting for 1/2/3/4 seconds instead of 1.75/2.5/3.25/4 seconds – PHANTOM LANCER SPIRIT LANCE Spirit Lance manacost reduced from 125/130/135/140 to 110/120/130/140 – TALENTS Level 15 Talent increased from +250 Health to +275 – SHADOW DEMON SOUL CATCHER Soul Catcher manacost increased from 50/70/90/110 to 80/100/120/140 – SKYWRATH MAGE Attack range increased from 600 to 625 – SLARDAR CORROSIVE HAZE Corrosive Haze cast point reduced from 0.35 to 0.3 – Corrosive Haze cast range increased from 700 to 700/800/900 – SPIRIT BREAKER CHARGE OF DARKNESS Charge of Darkness cooldown increased from 11 to 17/15/13/11 – SVEN Base strength reduced by 1 – GOD’S STRENGTH God’s Strength cooldown increased from 100 to 110 – UNDERLORD PIT OF MALICE Pit of Malice manacost reduced from 100/115/130/145 to 80/100/120/140 – Pit of Malice cooldown reduced from 30/26/22/18 to 24/22/20/18 – VENGEFUL SPIRIT Base intelligence increased by 2 – VIPER Base damage increased by 2 – TALENTS Level 10 Talent increased from +20 Attack Speed to +25 – Level 15 Talent increased from +100 Attack Range to +125 – VISAGE GRAVE CHILL Grave Chill duration from 3/4/5/6 to 6 – Grave Chill movement speed change from 32% to 17/23/29/35% – Grave Chill attack speed change from 64 to 34/46/58/70 – WEAVER Strength gain increased from 1.8 to 2.0 – WRAITH KING Skeleton health reduced from 250 to 175 – TALENTS Level 15 Talent reduced from +35 Skeletons Attack Damage to +30 – ZEUS THUNDERGOD’S WRATH Thundergod’s Wrath damage increased from 225/325/425 to 250/350/450 – Thundergod’s Wrath manacost increased from 225/325/450 to 250/350/450 –

Dota 2 player uncovers over 30 unused Windranger voice lines ValveA Dota 2 player uncovered dozens of unused lines for Windranger’s arcana voice dating back to before Valve removed the Tome of Knowledge. The Tome of Knowledge in Dota 2 constituted a purchasable item that would grant users a great deal of experience. Valve removed the item from the game, essentially replacing it with the Wisdom Runes that arrived in update 7.33. Notably, these runes grant experience boosts and can prevent games from becoming too one-sided. Interestingly enough, it seems Dota 2’s Tome of Knowledge days were hiding something far more intriguing than XP gains. Dota 2 fan finds unused Windranger Arcana voice lines In a recent Reddit thread, a user named Abyssal_D2 shared a screenshot featuring 31 unused voice lines for Windranger’s Arcana. The post claims the lines were originally written as responses centered around the Tome of Knowledge item. Some of the dialogue reads pretty cut and dry. “Sweet tome,” reads one such line. “Some radical ideas in here,” Windranger would’ve said in another piece of dialogue. However, the long list of unused responses includes a few noteworthy pieces of lore-related information, too. In one line, she comments on a “big disaster in Dark Reef.” Other bits of dialogue boast references to the Isle of Jidi, secret tunnels buried beneath Roshan’s Lair, and the Solar Throne’s influence. Of course, Dota 2 players are nothing short of intrigued by the find. But most seem especially interested in the detail regarding tunnels beneath Roshan’s lair. “Why didn’t [Valve] use [secret tunnels] instead of Roshan walking to a portal?” one person pondered. Another user asked a similar question, to which someone else responded with the explanation given in the unused voice lines – “because the entrance caved in.” Suffice it to say, Windranger Arcana’s canned Dota 2 lines are packed with lore that players probably wouldn’t mind seeing resurface in some capacity.

Dota 2 update leaks TI10 Battle Pass: All-Star match, event game, more ValveDota 2 was hit with a small update on Feb 3, mostly focusing on bug fixes and minor adjustments, however, fans have also found some interesting hidden content. Dota 2 is no stranger to tiny patches as the game is usually updated at least once a week, with small bug fixes or adjustments to non-competitive elements being the norm. Most of the time, that’s all there is to the update and players barely notice any changes. However, this time a huge set of changes have been leaked, with The International 2020’s Battle Pass contents being found hidden in the files. The International 2020 Battle Pass leaks Reddit user MSTRMN_ was the first to point out what the update has brought, highlighting the key features of the Battle Pass. So far, it is confirmed that The International 2020 Battle Pass will contain: Achievements, Wagering, Coaches’ Challenge, Event game (the game itself is unconfirmed), Tipping, Favorite team, All-Star match at TI10, Fantasy league, and predictions. The Battle Pass will likely contain more content, but many fans believe that this is the majority of it – giving everyone a sneak-peek into TI10. Other content such as a ‘creep card’ and a ‘glossary’ have also been discovered, but no details about them have been confirmed. Some players believe the creep card will be a new HUD panel for creeps, while the glossary will be a database for all things Dota. The Battle Pass itself is usually released in May, with The International taking place just a few months later in August. Unfortunately, there was no indication of a release date in this leak, but at least it is confirmed that the Battle Pass is well on the way to being ready sometime in the future, and fans will have a better idea of what to expect.

Dota 2 update 7.24b patch notes: Batrider nerfs, item changes, more ValveValve’s ever-popular MOBA Dota 2 has been hit with another update, this time focusing on balance, as many fan-favorite heroes and items have seen changes. Gameplay update 7.24b went live on Feb 26, with many of the most popular heroes and items receiving changes as the patch focuses mainly on nerfs. Of course, in classic Dota 2 style, the changes are small adjustments with no massive buffs or nerfs. Regardless, this patch will definitely still shake things up, especially at the highest levels, as popular heroes like Batrider and Puck find themselves weakened. Dota 2 update 7.24b: What’s changed? To start off, some items have seen fairly significant changes. Most notably, Desolator’s armor reduction has been reduced from seven to six, while the damage has been increased from 50 to 60, making it less powerful as an armor-penetrating tool. Meanwhile, Diffusal Blade’s mana burn has been reduced from 50 to 40 as many fans were complaining about how fast some heroes are able to completely wipe out Mana with it. Additionally, Maelstrom and Mjollnir have seen their iconic Chain Lightning effect nerfed as the bounce distance drops from 900 to 650. When it comes to heroes, quite a few of the fan-favorites have seen nerfs. Batrider has had his Flamebreak burn duration reduced by different amounts per level, while Puck’s Waning Rift has seen a significant drop in cast range, from 350 to 275. Saladar has been hit by the nerf bat the hardest as three of his skills have been changed. His Bash of the Deep damage has been reduced, the Guardian Sprint now costs 25 mana (up from 0), and his ultimate’s armor reduction has been decreased by 2 at all levels. There are a ton more changes to heroes like Snapfire, Lifestealer, IO, and more which you can check out in the full patch notes below. Dota 2 update 7.24b patch notes Items Bracer Magic resistance reduced from 5% to 4% Desolator Armor reduction reduced from 7 to 6 Damage increased from 50 to 60 Diffusal Blade Mana burnt per attack reduced from 50 to 40 Maelstrom Chain lightning bounce distance reduced from 900 to 650 Mjolnir Chain lightning bounce distance reduced from 900 to 650 HEROES Batrider Flamebreak burn duration reduced from 4/5/6/7 to 2/4/6/8 Enchantress Impetus manacost increased from 40/45/50/55 to 65 Huskar Strength gain reduced from 3.4 to 3.2 Io Overcharge regen from 0.55/0.7/0.85/1% to 0.5/0.6/0.7/0.8% Lifestealer Base attack speed reduced from 140 to 130 Base damage reduced by 3 Nyx Assassin Impale duration reduced from 1.6/2/2.4/2.8 to 1.4/1.8/2.2/2.6 Puck Waning Rift cast range reduced from 350 to 275 Slardar Bash of the Deep damage reduced from 60/115/170/225 to 50/100/150/200 Guardian Sprint now has a 25 manacost Corrosive Haze reduced from 10/15/20 to 8/13/18 Snapfire Firesnap Cookie stun duration reduced from 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 to 1.6/1.8/2/2.2 Mortimer Kisses damage reduced from 200/300/400 to 160/240/320 Timbersaw Reactive Armor bonus armor per stack reduced from 1/1.1/1.2/1.3 to 0.9/1/1.1/1.2 Tiny Grow armor reduced from 10/18/26 to 10/16/22 Toss cast range reduced from 1000/1100/1200/1300 to 850/1000/1150/1300 Void Spirit Movement speed reduced from 305 to 300

Dota 2 update 7.22f patch notes: Huge hero changes ahead of TI9 Valve has released a new update for Dota 2. Dubbed as patch 7.22f, the update brings changes to a large portion of the hero pool just a few weeks before the start of The International 2019. This new balance patch comes with just over two weeks until Dota 2’s biggest event of the year, TI9. It is a continuation of patch 7.22e, which was released on July 16, with most of the same heroes being adjusted in both updates. Popular heroes have once again been nerfed, while less popular ones have been buffed. A few heroes have received small adjustments, such as one more base intelligence, or one less armor, giving them a tiny change that may be pivotal in the early game. Drow Ranger, Lycan, and Tinker buffs A few heroes received some noticeable buffs with Drow Ranger, Lycan, and Tinker being at the top of the list. Drow Ranger received a buff to her base strength and agility, as well as a 10% increase to her gust blind. This combined with buffs from the previous patches could make her one of the strongest carries at TI9. Lycan also received buffs last patch and it didn’t stop there. The werewolf gained extra damage on his Feral Impulse and bonus regen on his Howl ability. The hero hasn’t been the most popular in the last few months, but with so many buffs recently The International may be his time to shine. Meanwhile, Tinker received some unexpected changes with his level 10 talents gaining +25 cast range and 2% spell amplification. One of his level 15 talents was completely changed, going from +15% spell lifesteal to +11 mana cost/mana loss reduction. Dark Willow and Outworld Devourer nerfs Some of the most popular heroes in the current meta have been hit with nerfs as both Dark Willow and Outworld Devourer have received substantial ability changes. Dark Willow’s ultimate, Terrorize, has had its duration reduced at ranks one and two, and its cooldown increased by 20 seconds across the board. This change mainly reduces her early game power and may see other supports take her place. Outworld Devourer has seen two of his abilities take a hit, as Astral Imprisonment’s cooldown has been increased by two seconds and Sanity’s Eclipse has received a large mana cost increase – costing as much as 125 more mana at rank 3. The full list of patch notes from Valve can be found below. Dota 2 patch 7.22f full patch notes Items AGHANIM’S SCEPTER Consuming recipe cost reduced from 2000 to 1800 – Heroes ABADDON Base attack speed increased from 115 to 120 – Base armor increased by 1 – ANCIENT APPARITION COLD FEET Cold Feet distance to travel reduced from 740 to 715 – ICE BLAST Ice Blast manacost increased from 150 to 175 – TALENTS Level 15 Talent reduced from +20 Health Regen to +15 – BEASTMASTER PRIMAL ROAR Primal Roar knockback now destroys any trees the units come into contact with – BLOODSEEKER Base movement speed increased by 5 – BOUNTY HUNTER SHURIKEN TOSS Shuriken Toss manacost reduced from 150 to 135 – BREWMASTER Base intelligence increased by 1 – CENTAUR WARRUNNER RETALIATE Retaliate damage reduced from 6/9/12/15% to 6/8/10/12% – CHAOS KNIGHT REALITY RIFT Reality Rift cooldown reduced from 20/15/10/5 to 14/11/8/5 – CHEN Base movement speed reduced by 5 – DIVINE FAVOR Divine Favor cooldown increased from 90/80/70/60 to 120/100/80/60 – CLOCKWERK HOOKSHOT Hookshot stun duration increased from 1/1.5/2 to 1.5/1.75/2 – CRYSTAL MAIDEN Base armor reduced by 1 – DARK SEER VACUUM Vacuum damage increased from 25/50/100/200 to 50/100/150/200 – DARK WILLOW TERRORIZE Terrorize duration reduced from 4 to 3.5/3.75/4 – Terrorize cooldown increased from 100/80/60 to 100/90/80 – DRAGON KNIGHT ELDER DRAGON FORM Elder Dragon Form Scepter magic resistance increased from +30% to +40% – TALENTS Level 20 Talent increased from +180 Gold/Min to +210 – DROW RANGER Base strength increased by 1 – Base agility increased by 1 – TALENTS Level 15 Talent increased from +30% Gust Blind to +40% – ELDER TITAN ECHO STOMP Echo Stomp manacost reduced from 100 to 85/90/95/100 – EMBER SPIRIT Base armor reduced by 1 – ENIGMA Base intelligence reduced by 2 – GRIMSTROKE Base damage reduced by 4 – INVOKER Base intelligence increased by 1 – COLD SNAP Cold Snap damage increased from 7->56 to 8->64 – JUGGERNAUT Base agility reduced by 2 – Base strength reduced by 1 – KEEPER OF THE LIGHT WILL-O-WISP Will-O-Wisp radius increased from 700 to 725 – LUNA Base damage increased by 2 – LYCAN FERAL IMPULSE Feral Impulse damage increased from 12/24/36/48% to 14/26/38/50% – HOWL Howl bonus regen increased from 4/8/12/16 to 6/10/14/18 – MARS Base damage reduced by 2 – GOD’S REBUKE God’s Rebuke critical strike reduced from 160/200/240/280% to 150/190/230/270% – MORPHLING WAVEFORM Waveform cast range reduced from 1000 to 700/800/900/1000 – MORPH Morph cast range reduced from 1000 to 700/850/1000 – NATURE’S PROPHET Intelligence gain increased from 3.3 to 3.5 – NECROPHOS Base intelligence increased by 1 – DEATH PULSE Death Pulse radius increased from 475 to 500 – NIGHT STALKER Base movement speed increased by 5 – OMNIKNIGHT PURIFICATION Purification cooldown increased from 14/13/12/11 to 17/15/13/11 – TALENTS Level 20 Talent reduced from +5 Mana Regen to +4 – OUTWORLD DEVOURER ASTRAL IMPRISONMENT Astral Imprisonment cooldown increased from 22/18/14/10 to 24/20/16/12 – SANITY’S ECLIPSE Sanity’s Eclipse manacost increased from 175/250/325 to 200/325/450 – PHANTOM ASSASSIN Base damage increased by 1 – TALENTS Level 10 Talent increased from +200 Health to +225 – PUDGE MEAT HOOK Meat Hook manacost reduced from 140 to 125/130/135/140 – RIKI BLINK STRIKE Blink Strike cast range increased from 500/600/700/800 to 600/700/800/900 – TALENTS Level 20 Talent reduced from +700 Blink Strike Cast Range to +600 – SKYWRATH MAGE MYSTIC FLARE Mystic Flare damage increased from 700/1150/1600 to 750/1175/1600 – SLARK Base damage reduced by 1 – TALENTS Level 20 Talent reduced from +1.25s Pounce Leash to +1s – SPIRIT BREAKER BULLDOZE Bulldoze manacost from 25/30/35/40 to 30/40/50/60 – NETHER STRIKE Nether Strike damage reduced from 120/185/250 to 100/175/250 – SVEN STORM HAMMER Storm Hammer stun duration reduced from 1.4/1.6/1.8/2 to 1.25/1.5/1.75/2 – TERRORBLADE Level 10 increased from +10% Evasion to +15% – METAMORPHOSIS Metamorphosis Scepter fear duration increased from 3 to 3.75 – TINKER TALENTS Level 10 Talent increased from +100 Cast Range to +125 – Level 10 Talent increased from +8% Spell Amplification to +10% – Level 15 Talent changed from +15% Spell Lifesteal to +11% Manacost/Manaloss Reduction – TUSK Base armor increased by 1 – UNDERLORD PIT OF MALICE Pit of Malice cooldown reduced from 24/22/20/18 to 22/20/18/16 – DARK RIFT Dark Rift cooldown reduced from 130/120/110 to 130/115/100 – VENGEFUL SPIRIT MAGIC MISSILE Magic Missile manacost reduced from 110/120/130/140 to 100/110/120/130 – VIPER TALENTS Level 25 Talent increased from +120 Damage to +160 – WEAVER Base armor increased by 1 – WRAITH KING MORTAL STRIKE Mortal Strike manacost increased from 30/45/60/75 to 50/60/70/80 – WRAITHFIRE BLAST Wraithfire Blast base damage reduced from 100 to 70/80/90/100 – ZEUS Base intelligence increased by 1 –

Dota 2’s past, present, & future: Guide-maker Torte de Lini reflects on game’s 10th anniversary Valve2023 marks the 10th anniversary of Dota 2’s global release as the game continues to dominate the MOBA charts as one of the go-to titles from the genre. Dota 2 is often regarded as one of the most challenging games to master with a virtually unknown skill ceiling. Given that the game is constantly evolving under the tutelage of IceFrog’s brilliance, discovering new features and mechanics is a regular occurrence in the MOBA. As the game approaches its 10th anniversary in July 2023, we’re taking a look at the storied past and mysterious future of Dota 2. Esteemed Dota 2 guide maker, Michael Yossef “Torte de Lini” Cohen-Palacios also joins us to share his own views and thoughts about the game. Dota 2 through the years While Dota 2 is set to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the game’s history can be traced all the way back to the early 2000s. Originally developed by Kyle “Eul” Sommer, Defense of the Ancient – or DotA – was a mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne. The mod drew inspiration from the custom map in Starcraft, Aeon of Strife. From there, the community eventually shifted to a newer mod which went on to lay the foundations of the Dota 2 pro community as we know it today. Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, who later went on to build League of Legends with Riot Games was the designer of the DotA All Stars mod. With games like League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth on the rise, IceFrog – the mysterious developer who had taken over DotA: Allstars from Guinsoo – confirmed in 2009 that he was working with Valve. The developer later confirmed in 2010 that the game will release as a closed beta in 2011. However, the big surprise came with Valve’s announcement of The International at Gamescom 2011. This tournament was Valve’s way of showing off Dota 2 before the game’s closed beta began. Additionally, Valve also announced a record-breaking prize pool of $1.6 million, which was the highest for any esports tournament at that time. Since that, The International has continuously grown to reach new heights every year, breaking its own record. The introduction of the Compendium during the third iteration of TI made this possible. Dota 2’s global release also happened a month before TI3, in July 2013. The Compendium was eventually revamped as the Battle Pass and a part of all community spending towards it would directly go to the prize pool of The International. This allowed the tournament to feature a prize pool of over $40 million in 2021, which still stands as the highest prize pool in esports tournaments. As a matter of fact, the five highest prize pools in esports have all been from The International. Despite growing steadily since its inception, the prize pool of TI saw a massive drop in 2022. After the $40.02 million prize pool of 2021, the 2022 Battle Pass saw a total figure of $18.93 million prize pool for TI11. While this may appear concerning, there were a lot of other factors at play which could have led to the drop in the prize pool. The 10th anniversary of Dota 2 2023 marks 10 years since the official release of Dota 2 in July 2013. While this journey of 10 years has seen its share of ups and downs, the game has always maintained its position as one of the most played multiplayer games. Despite Valve’s efforts of introducing games like Artifact and Dota Underlords, nothing has quite come close to the popularity of the MOBA. Speaking to Torte de Lini about how far the game and the community have come, the esteemed guide-maker said: “Back then [2011], the game didn’t have as many in-game resources to help players as they do now. Originally, there were only external sites for which you’d have to Alt+Tab in the middle of the game.” Further explaining the importance of the in-game guide system and its growth, Michael added, “At first, there were a lot of us who made guides when the system first came out. But the system wasn’t always reliable: it would sometimes glitch out your guides, or error out which eventually lead to a lot of people giving up. However, I persevered and it’s one of the reasons I gained over 525 million subscriptions, with my guides influencing 90% of all games every day.” However, he did mention how far the in-game systems have evolved since their initial launch and said, “In 2017, I had the chance to work with Valve to create a whole new guide system directly in the game, and with every new patch, it shows how much there is a need to update guides and having a system to accommodate that constant work and yeah, I am more than happy to do it.” With that being said, it remains to be seen what Valve has planned for the 10th-anniversary celebrations of Dota 2. The largest patch of the year will arrive in April, so it will be exciting to see what kind of changes are in store for Dota 2. The future of Dota 2 Ever since the early days of DotA and DotA All Stars, the community has shown a staunch affection towards the genre. While Riot’s League of Legends has gone on to become a far more popular title in the genre, Dota 2’s unique focus on the micro aspects of the game has helped it retain quite a huge part of the original DotA player base. Despite facing several lows and rumors of the game ‘dying’ surfacing on community platforms, Dota 2 continues to be one of the most played multiplayer games in the world. Talking about the community and how it continues to strive against all the challenges, Michael said, “I think we know how important Dota 2 is to Valve and how important it is to IceFrog. I can’t imagine him [IceFrog] being completely hands-off from Dota 2. I trust IceFrog and Valve to pretty much know how to go about things with respect to longevity and the survivability of the game.” Having said that, the future of Dota 2, as mysterious as it might seem right now, is definitely in good hands. Valve has successfully maintained the Counter-Strike franchise as the prime FPS title for over two decades now and it would be foolish to doubt their capability of doing the same for Dota 2. Don’t forget to check out our Dota 2 hub for all the latest news and updates about the MOBA.

Dota 2 TI9: Must-read stories from day three of the knockout stage ValveChina is on a roll, OG and EG delivered in a rematch of last year’s grudge match, and a little known South American squad is somehow still kicking after day three of The International. Three down, three to go. Only three days of Dota 2 action remain in this year’s International in Shanghai. During day three, two more teams were sent home, while two teams advanced to the upper bracket finals, thus guaranteeing at least a third place finish. Homecrowd advantage The Shanghai crowd has a great chance to be extra loud on Sunday, as three Chinese teams are still in the running to life the Aegis at home. PSG.LGD has looked near unstoppable in Shanghai, as they didn’t lose a single series during the group stage (five wins, three draws) and haven’t lost a single game during playoffs. On day three they faced their fellow countrymen in Vici Gaming in the upper bracket. PSG.LGD patiently bide their time before delivering the final blow to end the Semifinal vs Vici Gaming with a 2-0. LGD will next square off against the winner of OG vs Evil Geniuses, while Vici Gaming fall to the Lower Bracket. #TI9 pic.twitter.com/S3i7cxu2r1 — The International (@dota2ti) August 22, 2019 PSG.LGD have mastered the art of slow momentum, building a lead slowly over a game, and have excelled at putting Wang ‘Ame’ Chunyu into a great position to carry the team late in matches. Vici drops to the lower bracket and awaits the winner of Team Secret and Mineski, while Royal Never Give Up will face Team Liquid. RNG are certainly a surprise to still see in the tournament, aided by what has now become the traditional Virtus.Pro TI collapse. Read more: How to watch The International 2019 – All three Chinese teams will certainly have the crowd support going forward. OG vs EG: the rematch While the Chinese crowd didn’t want to see two of their favorites against each other in the upper bracket, everyone certainly was looking forward to the other upper bracket match: OG vs Evil Geniuses in a repeat of last year’s upper bracket second round. And oh baby these two did not disappoint. Evil Geniuses looked dead set on revenge early on, not letting OG out of the gates to begin the series, and wrapping up game one in just half an hour. OG came out firing in game two with their own quick pace, taking control early and never letting go. Like last year, we were headed to a game three. Arteezy tried as hard as possible but Mega Creeps and pressure are too much. They call the GG!#TI9 #DreamOG pic.twitter.com/N5BfbZfm6S— OG @ #TI9 :flag-cn: (@OGesports) August 22, 2019 EG took an early lead, but allowed OG to stay alive and take the lead back around the 15 minute mark, and OG would ride on the shoulders of an unstoppable Anathan ‘ana’ Pham to carry them into the upper bracket finals against PSG.LGD. Make yourself Infamous, kid OG made it clear that they are no longer a Cinderella team, they’re contenders. But another unlikely team has risen up in its place, Infamous. Infamous certainly has had their backs against the wall in the bracket, starting in the lower bracket and facing a beloved Chinese team in Keen Gaming, then against a team playing for a well known Chinese organization in Newbee. Infamous top 8 #TI9! How far can they go!? GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA— Sheever (@SheeverGaming) August 22, 2019 Against Newbee, Infamous let Hector Antonio “K1” Rodriguez go to work on Wraith King, as he was a dominant force in the game one and game three victories that sent the South American squad to the next round. With a guaranteed top eight finish, Infamous has secured the best placing at an International by a South American squad ever. They face a daunting task in Team Secret on day four.

Team Spirit dominates Dota 2’s The International 2023: Final results ValveDOTA 2’s TI 2023 event has now reached its end with Team Spirit obliterating Gaimin Gladiators 3-0 in the Grand Final. If you missed any of the action, we’ve got you covered here with a full recap of how it all unfolded. The International 2023 brought 20 of the world’s best Dota 2 teams together for one final round after a long Dota Pro Circuit season with three tours, each leading to a Major event. Ultimately, only one team could stand tall when all was said and done. Team Spirit stormed their way through the Main Event before wiping the floor with Gaimin Gladiators in the Grand Final to etch their spot in the history books. The twelfth edition of The International took place in Seattle, close to Valve’s headquarters. It was the first TI held in North America since 2018 and marked the event’s return to Seattle, which hosted every edition between 2012 and 2017. Last year’s event in Singapore saw Tundra Esports crowned the world champion after beating Team Secret in the grand final. Tundra took home over $8.5 million, almost half of the event’s $18,930,775 prize pool. Below you can find everything you need to know to catch up on The International 2023. Dota 2’s The International 2023: Final Placements Dota 2’s The International 2023: Schedule and results Day 5: October 28 Day 6: October 29 You can view past DOTA 2 The International 2023 results below: Day 1: October 20 Day 2: October 21 Day 3: October 22 Day 4: October 27 Phase 1 Group A Group B Group C Group D Day 1: October 12 Day 2: October 13 Phase 2 (Seeding matches) Day 1: October 14 Day 2: October 15 Group Stage (October 12-15): Playoffs (October 20-22) Dota 2’s The International 2023: Prize pool In a June 19 announcement, Valve revealed that it will move away from the traditional Battle Pass system, which has been a huge part of the success of TI as it has been used to fund the prize pool of these events. Instead, Valve will continue along the path that started with the New Frontiers update. Cosmetic content will become secondary as Valve will focus on rolling out “a variety of exciting updates” that will keep the community interested. “Most Dota players never buy a Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it,” Valve acknowledged. After months of waiting, Valve finally released the Compendium on September 27, and, as many had predicted, the Dota 2 community wasn’t pleased, with many publicly expressing their disappointment. It is no surprise, then, that TI12 will likely feature the lowest prize pool since 2015 as players simply didn’t seem interested in purchasing the Compendium ahead of The International 2023. At the conclusion of the tournament, the TI12 prize pool stood at $3.14 million. Stream In an October 12 blog post, Valve announced all the streaming options available for TI 2023. The tournament was broadcasted on Twitch, YouTube, and SteamTV, with the main stream embedded below for your convenience. Dota 2’s The International 2023: Dates and venues The twelfth iteration of The International took place at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington. Opened in 1962 for that year’s World Fair, the multi-purpose indoor arena has a capacity of 18,300 for basketball games and 17,151 for hockey matches. On August 4, Valve announced the schedule for TI 2023, confirming that the event would kick off on October 12 with the group stage. This was two days earlier than the initial The International 2023 starting date that was announced in a May 7 blog post. The group stage and the playoffs were part of what Valve described as the Road to the International and led to the Finals Weekend over October 27-29. Group Stage: October 12-15 – Playoffs: October 20-22 (Seattle Convention Center’s Summit) – Finals Weekend: October 27-29 (Climate Pledge Arena) – Group Stage (October 12-15): Phase 1: 20 teams were split into five groups. – Teams played each other once in a BO2 match. – Bottom team from each group was eliminated. – Phase 2: 16 teams play a head-to-head match to determine playoff seeding. – Top 2 teams get paired with either the 3rd or the 4th placed team from the opposite group (A/B and C/D). – Playoffs (October 20-29): 16 teams play in a double-elimination bracket. – 8 teams begin in the upper bracket, 8 in the lower bracket. – All matches (except the grand final) are BO3 – Grand final is BO5 – Dota 2’s The International 2023: Teams and rosters A total of 12 teams will receive a direct invitation to TI12 based on their Dota Pro Circuit rankings. The remaining eight teams will come through the regional qualifiers that will be held across the globe. Note: Tundra has announced that Saksa is taking “an extended break” due to health issues. He will be replaced by Topson. Invited Teams: Qualified Teams:

Dota 2 TI10 winner Collapse denies claims he abandoned pregnant girlfriend Instagram: @meowwramMagomed ‘Collapse’ Khalilov, a Dota 2 player who won The International 10 with Team Spirit, has denied claims he cheated on and abandoned his pregnant girlfriend after her allegations went viral. In October 2021, Collapse played a pivotal role in helping Team Spirit with The International 10 — a feat that earned him a slice of the $18 million prize. However, in February 2022, he’s found himself embroiled in drama. First, his ex-girlfriend Mari accused him of being physical with her. “We were fine until he won The International 10,” she said. “Then he drastically changed, became cold, and we started fighting more. He became aggressive during arguments and even pushed me.” She also claimed he cheated on her and abandoned her while she was pregnant. “I did not expect that he is someone who would cheat on me and leave while knowing I am pregnant. At this point, we decided to part.” View this post on Instagram After the allegations went viral, Collapse moved to deny them all. Not only did he claim he never hurt or cheated on her, but he also claimed that he wanted to break up with her several months prior. He also said that the messages were taken out of context. Moreover, Collapse insisted they’d agreed to have an abortion, which she allegedly lied about. Despite everything that happened between them, he said that he hasn’t abandoned them and will still care for the child. https://twitter.com/EllanarkJesus/status/1489981070158315521?s=20&t=f59FcyWy61h_-sSYCInJzg Team Spirit’s manager, Dmitry ‘Korb3n’ Belov, spoke about the situation with Cyber.Sports.RU. “I know the situation inside and out,” he said. “I saw all the proof. I’m on Magomed’s side without any hesitation. In contrast, Mari refuted Collapse’s claims. She insisted he behaved aggressively towards her, claimed he already had a new girlfriend the day after they broke up, and that she had complications with the abortion.

Dota 2’s The International 10 delayed until “likely” 2021 ValveDota 2’s TI10, set to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August, will be delayed until “likely” 2021, although no dates have been locked in as of yet. Dota 2 fans will have to wait another few months for The International this year. The multi-million dollar tournament has been delayed indefinitely, although it’s “likely” the date will be pushed back into 2021. The Battle Pass, alongside other rewards associated with the event, have also been postponed. In an announcement on April 30, Valve noted that it was almost impossible to commit to their August date given the current global situation. Read more: How will Dota 2’s Regional Leagues work? – “We have been exploring various date possibilities, but it’s likely that the event will need to happen in 2021,” they said. “We don’t expect to have enough confidence to communicate firm dates in the near future.” Alongside The International being delayed, items like the Battle Pass (formerly known as the Compendium) will also be released at a later date. “With our team working from home and things taking longer to complete, the release date of the Battle Pass will be at least a couple of weeks later than usual.” The International isn’t the only major Dota 2 tournament currently affected. The Dota Pro Circuit will be undergoing a restructure after all in-person events had been canceled. While some tournaments made the jump online, some had to be canceled entirely. Valve has made a contingency plan for the Fall 2020 season — which was expected to be the first under the new regional leagues system — which will be revealed at a later date. The International 9, held in Shanghai, China, was won by European squad OG. The defending TI champions won over $15 million after they took down Team Liquid (now Nigma) 3-1 in the grand final. TI10 was set to be held on August 18 to 23, with 18 of the world’s best Dota 2 teams taking part. It is the tournament’s first foray into Europe since 2011, after being held in North America for 7 years and Asia once since TI1.

Dota 2’s new hero The Ringmaster: TI reveal, abilities, release window & more ValveIt’s rare Dota 2 gets new heroes these days, so new reveals are often events in and of themselves. The Ringmaster was revealed in spectacular fashion at TI 12, leaving fans to speculate about what his sadistic moveset will be. Here’s everything we know about him so far. Though details on The Ringmaster are sparse at this time, it’s hard not to be excited with how The Ringmaster, Dota 2’s next hero, was introduced at TI 2023. An unsuspecting Axe was wandering through the forest when he fell victim to one of The Ringmaster’s traps, one that saw him getting sucked into an iron maiden. Here’s everything we know about The Ringmaster so far: The Ringmaster Dota 2 TI 12 reveal On the last day of competition at TI 12, The Ringmaster was shown off just before matches for the day kicked off. Fans feel as if the devs behind Dota 2 really stepped it up with this reveal, bringing out one of the most hype teaser trailers they’ve ever done for a new hero. Though details are sparse at this time, the hero has already generated a great deal of buzz within the community. Does The Ringmaster have a release date? At this time, there’s only a release window for this hero, and it’s a loose one at that. At the end of the trailer a brief message gives players a time in which they can expect him to be released: “No hero is safe: 2024.” Granted, 2024 is a very loose timeframe, and it’s not yet clear whether that’ll be in the first or second half of the year. Considering we didn’t get any actual gameplay for this hero, it’s safe to assume he’s a ways out. The Ringmaster’s Dota 2 abilities At this point, we only know what we can wean from The Ringmaster’s reveal. It’s a safe assumption that he’ll be designed around some level of deception or deceit, a character that’s meant to trick and trap players in some way, shape, or form. It isn’t yet clear, however, if his traps can be placed and operate independently, or if they’re just straightforward abilities that he can use in combat. While his identity is very distinct and players like him already, we truthfully don’t know much about what he’ll be capable of when he finally releases.

Dota 2: The International 9 main event bracket confirmed ValveThe main event bracket for Dota 2’s The International 9 has been revealed, throwing up some quite a few tasty matchups. The International 9 kicked off on August 15, as 18 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world descended on Shanghai, China for the game’s showpiece event. With over $33 million on the line, action has already been fierce – with talented teams like Chaos Esports Club and Ninjas in Pyjamas already crashing out. Neither Chaos nor NiP were able to win a series, instead, splitting three each and only gaining three points in the process. Their eliminations have helped set up an incredibly intriguing double-elimination main event bracket which will unfold in front of a live crowd after a two-day player break. As many fans expected, PSG.LGD, Team Secret, Virtus.Pro, and OG helped themselves all to upper bracket spots – yet, they will be largely separated. 2018 runners up PSG.LGD will take on Virtus.Pro, Team Secret will face off against Evil Geniuses, and OG will do battle with Newbee – the former Forward Gaming roster. In the other upper-bracket match-up, ViCi Gaming will play TNC Predator in an All-Southeast Asian match-up that will see a fan favorite squad hurtling into the lower bracket and one game away from going home. In said lower bracket, teams who struggled in the groups but managed to stave off elimination have another chance to progress through the ranks and claim some incredible prize money. Fnatic have been tasked with taking on the traditionally strong Team Liquid, Mineski will face off against Natus Vincere, Infamous will do battle with Keen Gaming, and the ever-popular Alliance will throw down with Royal Never Give up. It may be difficult for any lower bracket team hoping to make a fairytale run considering the strength of this year’s upper bracket but with this being The International, anything can, and usually does happen. The conclusion of TI9 begins on August 20, and will run until a team cements their place in history and lifts the Aegis of Champions on August 25.

Dota 2: The International 2019 surpasses Fortnite World Cup’s mega prize pool Epic GamesThe prize pool for Dota 2’s The International 2019 has finally surpassed the Fortnite World Cup’s $30 million and is continuing to grow. The International, which is now in its ninth installment, is the showpiece event of the competitive Dota calendar – as 18 teams battle it out over 10 days to try and claim the Aegis of Champions. Each and every year, the prize pool for the event has continued to rise thanks to fans crowdfunding through the in-game battle pass – earning cosmetics and unlocking brand new game modes with their cash. Despite have their record seemingly snatched away from them by Fortnite, and being under pressure to respond, the Dota 2 community has finally taken back their record with an eye-watering amount. On July 21, at around 12 AM PST, Dota finally eclipsed the absurd $30 million mark by a few thousand dollars. At the time of writing, the prize pool for The International 9 stands at $30,017,526 according to the Dota 2 prize pool tracking website and looks set to continue its growth upon previous International events, never mind solely the World Cup. As it stands, The International 9 is already $5 million ahead of last year’s record-breaking 25.5 million total. It took fans a touch over 105 days to raise that amount but they’ve already been able to hit $30 million in just over 74 days. 600Yet, with 35 days left until crowdfunding concludes, the prize pool could very well continue to surge to new levels. Valve has yet to release the highly-anticipated Immortals Treasure III – which will be filled with plenty of legendary cosmetics – and fans will likely still want to splash out in the hopes of grabbing the new skins. With the Fortnite World Cup fast approaching on July 26, Epic Games will be disappointed that they won’t be able to boast about having the large esports prize pool for long. For now, thanks to the incredible support for their game shown by Dota fans, they hold the record once again.

Dota 2’s The International 2019 closing in on Fortnite World Cup’s $30 million prize pool L: Valve, R: Epic GamesThe prize pool for DotA 2’s The International 2019 is on pace to once again smash last year’s total and looks like it could be gunning to surpass the Fortnite World Cup’s $30 million prize. Since the advent of the crowd-sourced prize pool for The International in 2013, DotA 2’s biggest event has been renowned for offering the largest prize in esports by a significant margin. Every year, the DotA 2 community comes together to break the previous record, contributing to the prize pool by buying and levelling up the Battlepass. In 2019, however, for the first time another event looks set to offer more money in a single event, with the Fortnite World Cup, the finals of which are set to take place on July 26-28, boasting an unbelievable $30 million prize pool. There are some caveats to the comparison – for the Fortnite World Cup, the prize will actually be split between two separate tournaments, a solos competition and a duos competition, meaning that for a single tournament The International still holds the record regardless of 2019’s eventual pool. The first-place prize in The International also dwarfs that of the Fortnite World Cup, with 2018 winners OG awarded 44% of the total pool, an enormous $11,234,158 compared to the World Cup’s $3 million, although the International’s prize is split between more players and therefore may offer less per person than victory in the Fortnite World Cup’s solo tournament will. It seems DotA fans aren’t happy to let the Fortnite World Cup lead by any possible metric, however, as the prize pool for this year’s International is currently smashing the pace set by 2018’s crowdfunding efforts. At the time of writing, the total prize pool for The International 2019 sits at $23,001,400. For comparison, at the same point in the process for 2018, the prize pool was nearly $5 million less at around $18 million. The prize pool will also continue to build right up until the conclusion of the event, meaning the DotA 2 community is only around half way through the time they have to keep adding to the pot. While trends from previous years suggest the growth should slow down significantly from here on out, it certainly looks like The International 2019 will not only top its previous record once again, but do so by an enormous amount.

Dota 2: The International 2019 prize pool surpasses $25m in record-breaking pace The prize pool for DOTA 2’s annual The International tournament has surpassed the $25 million mark with 46 days still to go until the main event gets underway. Previously known as The International Compendium, the DOTA 2 battle pass has provided the perfect platform for fans to get behind their favorite game and support the expansive competitive scene. In recent years, prize pools have soared above other esports titles as fans are given new skins, items, and even chances to play new games by attaining certain levels within the battle pass. Now though, the support for the 2019 installment of The International has jumped right above any of its predecessors. On June 30, the prize pool for The International 9 broke the $25 million mark, with less than half a million to go before eclipsing last year’s total – which also broke the previously held record for the biggest payout ever. To put its incredible backing into context, The International 8 took 104 days to raise $25 million – where the prize pool rose to its final total after a few more days – compared to TI 9’s super-fast 53 days. Yet, it’s growth hasn’t been spawned from a crazy influx of new content that has prompted players to dig into their wallets. The TI9 battle pass got off to a hot start, breaking the record for the most prize money raised on release day. Despite already breaking the prize pool record from previous International’s, fans are still waiting for Valve to release new plenty of new content which could propel the total above the $30 million set for the Fortnite World Cup. One of the most anticipated releases, the annual Immortal Treasure II cosmetic pack, has also yet to drop. Speculation suggests that it may become available at the start of July but that is unconfirmed. Players are also expecting the imminent release of the Wrath of Moro’Kai custom game mode that should allow them to rack up additional battle points. The mode will only be available to battle pass owners so those players who are holding out for its release may soon have to shell out.

The International 2019 set to eclipse Fortnite World Cup’s insane prize pool Valve/Epic GamesThe prize pool for Dota’s 2019 installment ofFortnite World Cup’s humongous $30 million layout, and it looks like it could be set to surpass it. The International is the annual showpiece event for Dota 2. 18 teams from around the world spend a full year doing their best to rack up Dota Pro Circuit points in the hope of competing in front of the most raucous crowd of the season for the biggest prize pool around. In recent years, winning teams have walked away with over $11 million as fans have raised more than $25 million in prizes, after Valve releases its yearly battle pass – which is full of cosmetics and rewards. It has stayed ahead of the competition in prize pool records, but Fortnite has it under pressure. However, Dota fans are rallying to get their game of choice on top. At the time of writing, July 15, the prize pool for The International 9 stands at $28,922,369 according to the Dota 2 Prize Pool Tracker website. It’s already surpassed the previous record from The International 8, which was set at just a touch over $25.5 million. Of course, the current number of nearly $29 million puts its just over $1 million short of the Fortnite World Cup, which closes off with its finals on July 26 – just around four weeks before crowdfunding for The International wraps up. With 30 days to go, at the time of writing, Dota 2 is well on course to smash the record-breaking amount set by the battle royale title. Read More: Top 20 highest earning Dota 2 Pro Players – Valve has yet to release their third installment of the Immortal Treasure cosmetic series, which has been known to provide major boosts to the prize pool in previous years. While fans are unsure when the developers will release the money-spinning items, they’ll be sure to plunge even further into their bank accounts in order to try and secure those legendary cosmetics. Unless Epic Games turns around and gives their prize pool a further jolt, it appears as if Dota will likely retain its crown as the top dog.

Dota 2 The International 11: Tundra crowned Champions after dominating Team Secret Twitter: TundraEsportDota 2’s International 11 has now concluded, with the relentless Tundra Esports team crowned champions on October 30, having breezed past Team Secret in the Grand Finals. Southeast Asian Dota 2 fans are in for a treat as The International makes its way over to the region for the first time in history. The International 11 is set to be the biggest Dota 2 championship in the game’s fabled esports history. With the Arlington Major concluding on August 14, the first 12 teams that get a direct invite to the Group Stage of TI11 have been confirmed. Additionally, the regional qualifiers have confirmed the six teams making their way to Singapore for the championship. The last two teams competing in the Group Stage came from the Last Chance Qualifiers. Keep reading to find out everything there is to know about the biggest Dota 2 championship of the year. Contents TI11 Dota 2 2022: Schedule The International 11 will feature four different stages apart from the Regional Qualifiers that concluded in September. The tournament featured a Last Chance Qualifier for the 12 invited teams from Regional Qualifiers. Out of these 12 teams, only two made it through to the group stage of the championship. The Last Chance Qualifiers were held from October 8 to 12. The group stage of The International 11 began on October 15, with 20 teams fighting it out for 16 spots in the playoffs. That precedes the real action, which will unfold in the finals where the last four teams will battle it out to lift the Aegis of Champions. Below you can find the complete schedule: Last Chance Qualifiers: October 8-12 – Group Stage: October 15-18 – Main Event: October 20-23 – Finals: October 29-30 – The International 11 Dota 2 2022: Results Finals: Day 1: October 29 Day 2: October 30 Main Event: October 20-23 Day 1: October 20 Day 2: October 21 Day 3: October 22 Day 4: October 23 Group Stage: October 15-18 Group A Group B Day 1: October 15 Day 2: October 16 Day 3: October 17 Day 4: October 18 The International 11 Dota 2 2022: Final Standings After three weeks of continuous top-tier Dota 2, we eventually have the final standings of The International 11. Although the prize pool of this iteration didn’t match up to the past few TIs, the teams still had a whopping $18,930,775 pool to fight for. The International 11 Dota 2 2022: Venue Once the group stage concluded, the final 16 teams headed onto the main stage to play in front of a crowd for the first time in a very long time. The playoffs were held at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre. However, there was a change in venue for the finals, which were held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on October 29 and 30. The International 11 Dota 2 2022: Prize Pool The prize pool of The International is always determined based on Battle Pass sales in Dota 2. Given that the Battle Pass for TI11 was released at a later period than usual, the prize pool finally amounted to a total of $18,930,775. However, considering the past record of TI’s prize pools, this year’s total seems rather underwhelming when compared to last year’s $40 million figure. TI11 Dota 2 2022: How to watch The International 11 was streamed live on the official dota2ti Twitch channel, which we have embedded below. Additionally, all the matches were also streamed live on Steam TV as well as the in-game watch menu. Don’t worry in case you missed out on the live games, you can always catch them later on YouTube VODs. The International 11 Dota 2 2022: Qualified teams A total of 12 teams received a direct invitation to The International 11 based on their Dota Pro Circuit rankings. Six more teams came through the Regional Qualifiers, while the last two teams for the group stage earned their qualification via the Last Chance Qualifiers. Invited Teams: Qualified Teams: So there you have it. That’s all the information available for The International 11. We will make sure to update this page when more details are revealed, so make sure to bookmark this page and check back for regular updates.

Team Spirit win The International 10 Grand Final: Final placements & recap Team SpiritThe 2021 iteration of Dota 2’s premier tournament, The International 10, is officially in the books, and Team Spirit’s amazing run will definitely be one to remember. Here’s everything you need to know about the tournament, including scores, final placements, and more. Team Spirit caps off legendary run with 3-2 Grand Final win over PSG.LGD – PSG.LGD fell 0-2 down in the Grand Final, before taking Game 3 and 4 to make it 2-2 – Team Spirit’s lower bracket miracle run takes them to the Grand Final after eliminating Invictus Gaming and Team Secret – The International 10 was more than just the final tournament of the Dota Pro Circuit 2021. Despite no fans being present, it still had teams competing live for one of the biggest and most prestigious esports events on the calendar. 18 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world, 12 of which qualified through the Dota Pro Circuit, and six who earned a place through Regional Qualifiers, put it all on the line for a chance to win their share of the $40,018,195 prize pool – the biggest in esports history. In the end though it would be Team Spirit taking home the top prize of $18,208,300 after a fantastic and unexpected run through the lower bracket to Grand Final, all after playing their Group Stage matches from a hotel kitchen. Here’s everything you need to know about what went down at the event, including Group scores, playoff results, and more. JUMP TO SECTION TI 10 Groups, Recap & Results The schedule for TI 10 was released on October 6, with 18 teams starting in the group stage. The top four teams from both groups advanced to the upper bracket of the main event, while the teams ranked fifth through eighth went to the lower bracket. The bottom-placed sides were eliminated. Eventual winners Spirit started out in the upper bracket, but fell down after losing to Invictus 2-1. However they would go on to take down Fnatic, defending champs OG, and Virtus.pro to set up a Round 5 showdown with Invictus, where they would get their revenge 2-0. After falling down 0-1 against Team Secret in the lower bracket Final, Spirit would do it again and win to consecutive games to set up the Grand final against PSG.LGD. What a Grand Final it was too, back and forth the whole way, PSG seemed to have it in the bag before Spirit absolutely turned it on during the final match, wrapping things up with a thrilling 3-2 win. The Chinese team were heavy favorites headed into things, but once the dust has all settled the TI trophy will be headed back to eastern Europe after a decade. Ti10: Final placements Overall placements Group Stage (October 7 to October 10) Group A Group B Day 1: October 7 Day 2: October 8 Day 3: October 9 Day 4: October 10 Main Event (October 12 — October 17) Day 1: October 12 Day 2: October 13 Day 3: October 14 Day 4: October 15 Day 5: October 16 Day 6: October 17 All teams qualified for Dota 2 The International 10 The Dota Pro Circuit 2021 wrapped up with the conclusion of the WePlay Animajor in June 2021. But although the top 12 teams in the season qualified for The International 10 then and there, many other teams still had to slog it out in the Regional Qualifiers for a chance to fill the remaining six spots. Those matches wrapped up on July 10, which means the 18 teams competed in The International 10 were all locked in.

Dota 2 The International 10: Dates, $40+ million prize pool, LAN venue ValveThe International 10 has been rescheduled and moved to a new venue as Dota 2 teams will now compete in Bucharest for the Aegis of Champions – and the largest prize pool in esports history. Originally set for Stockholm, Sweden in August 2020, TI 10 had to be delayed after the global health crisis effectively closed LANs around the world. However, as the situation develops and regions start to reopen, Valve have announced new details for The International. With April’s Singapore Major in the books, the world’s strongest teams like Invictus Gaming, Evil Geniuses, PSG.LGD, and more will look forward to the highest pay cut of the eye-watering prize pool. For fans that have fallen behind in the esport, there’s plenty of time to catch up with the International 10 starting later this year. The International 10 dates and schedule The biggest Dota 2 event on the calendar year is back, with Valve giving fans a chance to catch the action live when it kicks off October 7 – 17. Teams and matchups have yet to be determined, but we already know when to expect the different TI10 stages. Group Stage: October 7 – 10 – Main Stage: October 12 – 16 – Grand Finals: October 17 – TI 10 Prize Pool Valve has historically set the benchmark for largest prize pools in esports history, and TI 10 is no exception. Along with contributions from the game’s Battle Pass, TI 10’s prize pool has easily surpassed every other year’s mark. Come October, Dota 2 players will compete for the lion’s share of $40,018,195. The breakdown per placing has yet to be confirmed, but we’ll know more the closer we get to Bucharest. The International 10 LAN venue and tickets Valve have moved the International 10 to Bucharest, Romania in the country’s biggest stadium: the Arena Nationala. The stadium can seat 55,634 people and ticket information will be released at a later date. For people who can’t make the trip, the event will surely be streamed as the action unfolds. Stay tuned to Dexerto for more info on TI 10 when Valve announces new details in the future.

Dota 2 teams slam “Hunger Games” room conditions for $40m The International 10 Valve/Team SpiritThe International is the premier DOTA 2 tournament on the calendar, but some teams with fewer DPC points aren’t happy with their accommodations. DOTA 2 fans have been looking forward to The International 10 finally going down after the event was postponed in 2020 due to ongoing global health concerns. The good news is that the 2021 tournament in Bucharest will be offline, and has one of the biggest prize pools in esports, at just over $40 million. The bad news, however, is that Valve recently announced fans wouldn’t be able to attend, and now it seems the setup for some squads will have them not only pit them against other teams but the environment itself. https://twitter.com/Team__Spirit/status/1445037012449439749?s=20 On Twitter, Team Spirit manager Dmitry ‘Korb3n’ Belov took a video tour of the org’s practice room where they will be playing their group stage matches from. “Team Spirit here with our own Hunger Games,” Belov said before taking viewers into the compact accommodations. “Just see how close the players are sitting. But you can get food anytime. There is a microwave and so on, we are playing at the kitchen.” Spirit Support player Miroslaw ‘Miroslaw’ Kolpakov said he felt like he was back playing in his college dorm, rather than a multi-million dollar premier tournament. “I’m feeling like I’m at home, I’m feeling like I’m in my uni five years ago,” he joked. “There’s no free space, just like in my old dorm. Exactly the same kitchen, but without the microwave. But they care about us, and got us a microwave.” The Russian esports org qualified for TI 10 through the Eastern Europe Qualifier and claimed, after posting the video, that the quality practice rooms were apparently distributed based on DOTA Pro Circuit points. Valve has not yet confirmed that’s the case with The International 10. However, if we take a look at a Virtus.Pro, a team that qualified #3 through DPC points, they do seem to have a bit more space. It’s not a penthouse suite by any means, but the VP players aren’t as crushed together as Team Spirit. Virtus.Pro has not yet publicly complained about their setup, either. .@virtuspro шлют привет из тренировочной комнаты! 👀#Dota2 #Maincast #TI10 pic.twitter.com/6MjUhpbEvO — Dota 2 Maincast (@dota2mc) October 4, 2021 “The most important thing is that some other teams got good practice rooms,” Korb3n explained. “But, the rooms are distributed by DPC points, teams that are at the bottom of the DPC rankings all got rooms like this one.” While the room is far from ideal, Team Spirit seems to be willing to give Valve a break considering the setbacks the tournament has seen this year. Belov said he would be “waiting for next year, and hoping it would be better.” If the rooms were given out based on points, they might not be the only ones either.

BetBoom player disqualified from Dota 2 Bali Major after watching Twitch stream during match Image via BetBoomDota 2’s Bali Major is engulfed in drama after BetBoom’s Offlaner Pure was caught watching a Twitch stream during his team’s match against Tundra Esports. On July 5, 2023, there was an official match between BetBoom and Tundra Esports in the upper bracket quarter-finals of Dota 2’s Bali Major. During that series, Tundra called a pause to report an issue to the tournament officials. While the match was paused, BetBoom’s Offlaner Ivan ‘Pure’ Moskalenko alt-tabbed his game and switched to the Twitch stream of Aleksandr ‘Nix’ Levin momentarily. This is against the DPC rules, which state that “players are prohibited from watching any broadcasts while they are currently competing in an official match.” The rulebook also states that only Steam, Dota 2, and Teamspeak can be open during a LAN event game. Pure disqualified from Bali Major after incident Pure’s actions had some serious consequences as BetBoom’s 2-0 victory against Tundra was overturned, the tournament officials announced on July 6’s pre-show. The Russian team now faces elimination from the Bali Major as it is playing in the lower bracket. The loss may also end up costing BetBoom a spot at The International 2023. With the victory against Tundra, the team was already qualified for the showpiece event based on DPC points. Shortly before the match against Azure Ray began, Bali Major host Neal ‘Tsunami’ Khandheria announced that Pure had been “disqualified, not just from the series, but for the rest of the event”. With Roman ‘Resolut1on’ Fomynok, a two-time TI finalist, filling in, BetBoom lost to Azure Ray 2-1 and are out of the Bali Major in 9th-12th place. They can still earn an invite to TI, depending on the results of Quest Esports and Team Aster, the only two other teams who can qualify for the event based on DPC points. BetBoom respond to disqualification In a statement posted on VK, BetBoom acknowledged that Pure violated the tournament’s rules but insisted that “there was no malicious intent” from the player. “We would like to stress that the incident could not have had a serious impact on the almost two-hour match – it happened in the ninth minute,” BetBoom noted. The Russian organization added that it does not agree with the severity of the punishment. It has submitted an official request to Valve, which, it hopes, will analyze the case with “due care and provide an objective solution.” Bali Major organizers IO Esports highlighted the punishment for cheating in a statement posted to Twitter. According to the event’s rule 5.2.3, in case of a cheating incident, the player in question “will be disqualified, forfeit his prize money, and be banned from all competitions for a duration of normally 5 years.” The rule also states that the duration of the ban can be lower, “if significant mitigating factors are in play, but also higher, if there are aggravating circumstances.” This is not the first time that Pure has found himself in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. In April 2022, he was caught drawing the pro-Russian war symbol ‘Z’ on the minimap during a Beyond the Summit match against Mind Games. His team, Outsiders, was disqualified from the tournament, and he was dropped by the organization.

Dota 2 team faces backlash after dropping player due to mom’s terminal cancer Valve/NinjaboogieA Dota 2 team is facing massive amounts of backlash after one of their players claimed he was let go from the org due to his mother’s terminal cancer. After more than a year playing for Dota 2 Team SMG, Michael ‘ninjaboogie‘ Ross revealed on May 20 that he had been dropped from the squad. However, the reason he was let go has caused a large amount of backlash against Team SMG, as according to ninjaboogie, it was because his mother was suffering from cancer. Kicked because my mom was on her last days and they assumed it would affect my performance. I already knew for some time that this day will come. Since she had stage 4 cancer. She passed away on monday. Imagine being fired from a job because you are about to lose a loved one. — Michael “”ninjaboogie”” Ross (@ninjaboogie) May 20, 2022 On May 20, Ross claimed that he had been “kicked because my mom was on her last days and they [Team SMG] assumed it would affect my performance.” “I already knew for some time that this day will come, since she had stage 4 cancer. She passed away on Monday,” ninjaboogie explained. “Imagine being fired from a job because you are about to lose a loved one.” The pro continued to explain that his mom was admitted to the hospital on May 12, just before he was set to travel to Team SMG’s bootcamp. “I asked if I could have my flight moved, as bootcamp starts on the 20th. Midone gave me a call on the 14th asking my decision,” Ross continued. “I gave my decision the following day and was informed he wanted to talk. They had a meeting without me and informed me the were going to continue without me. ” I gave my decision the following day and was informed he wanted to talk. They had a meeting without me and informed me the were going to continue without me. pic.twitter.com/AjPsE4YfPj — Michael “”ninjaboogie”” Ross (@ninjaboogie) May 20, 2022 Team SMG also posted about ninjaboogie leaving the org on May 20 – however, they didn’t include any details as to why. Instead, their “thank you ninjaboogie” post was quickly ratioed, racking up more than 500 replies to just over 300 likes. Announcement on our Dota 2 Squad! We would like to thank @ninjaboogie for his enthusiasm, hard work, and dedication for Team SMG during our time together. Today, we part ways. Thank you Ninjaboogie. Keep Boogieing, even under gunfire 🤍🧡 pic.twitter.com/qrqMfNrBkC — Team SMG (@TeamSMGofficial) May 20, 2022 You all are cold-blooded for sure, hope you have the day you deserve. https://t.co/dZQmSXW2Xq — MJL716 (@mjlp716) May 20, 2022 Because the team thought that ninja would get affected by his mothers condition and decide to kick him, imagine losing his mother and getting fired. — VAENS (@VAENS7) May 20, 2022 Haven’t heard of this organization until this so… great first impression LMAO — ZachTheFlyMack (@ZachTheFlyMack1) May 20, 2022 It remains to be seen where ninjaboogie will end up next, but there’s no doubt Dota fans have found the alleged actions by Team SMG totally egregious.

Dota 2 Summer Scrub update patch notes – UI improvements, bug fixes, more ValveValve have released a major “Summer Scrub” update addressing a variety of bugs in Dota 2. The update marks Valve’s third blog post for Dota 2 in as many days, a flurry of activity for the developer ahead of the highlight of the competitive calendar, The International, which kicks off on August 15. The Summer Scrub update addresses a huge number of bugs and issues in the game, from problems affecting gameplay interactions to those that are more cosmetic in nature. In addition to bug fixes, the update also introduces some quality-of-life improvements, perhaps the most significant being a new UI for both the hero picking system and the item shop, which should make them easier to navigate, especially for new or less experienced players. 600 600Many players will be pleased to see the patch taking measures against disruptive players, including issuing a ban wave against those found exploiting matchmaking, botting, or transferring accounts, as well as giving high behavior score players more reports. The full list of changes can be read below. GENERAL Added customizable hero grid – Reduced the number of frame hitches in the game (especially in teamfights) – Some general performance improvements – Reduced input latency (the game now sends the commands to the server more quickly) – Reduced camera movement latency – Reworked the item organization in the shop (includes an option to use the old vertical alignment) – Queued commands will now show up in the HUD – Issued a ban wave for players found exploiting matchmaking, botting or transferring accounts – Added a toggle near the stash to instruct the courier to pick your items the next time it is doing a run (without changing its orders) – Using the Deliver Items hotkey on the courier will cause the courier to send any items it has to the next player if the courier no longer has any items that belong to you – Added Talent tree to the in-game and post game scoreboard – Added a tooltip to non-heroes’ level indicator that shows Gold and XP Bounties – Added alt-click alerts for which talent tree choices have been learned on a hero – Hovering over a hero’s level indicator will now show the XP range – Added a hero icon next to the in-world health bar – Added custom water effects while Morphling is morphed into another hero – Added a custom overhead effect for when heroes are deniable – Updated Troll Warlord’s Battle Trance visual effect – Fixed Dashboard player profiles not loading for players sometimes – Fixed a disconnected last pick player not causing the game to be safe to leave – Increased the maximum number of player reports from 3 to 5 – Increased the number of reports high behavior score players get – Added new overhead visual effects for Break and Mute debuffs – Hovering over a unit’s portrait now displays a range finder for their current vision range – Alt-clicking the clock to print the time now also prints whether bounty and/or power runes are spawning soon – Scan can now be alt-clicked to inform team of its cooldown state. A ctrl-click will advise the team not to use it yet. – Fixed a large number of outdated or inaccurate tooltips – Added a special tooltip presentation for Aghanim’s Scepter upgrades – Added hero icons above Tusk’s Snowball – Added hero icons above Phoenix’s Supernova with Scepter – Steam nicknames are now displayed as player names within a match – Chat no longer scrolls incorrectly when clicking a “Join Party” link – Ability ranges are now shown when hovering over enemy hero abilities (shows the values for the max level ranges) – Added an overhead silence visual for Viper’s Level 25 Nethertoxin – Added an option to bring Dota 2 to front for Ready Checks – Health bars for opponents are now red when you select an opponents unit – Added a buff to Spirit Breaker while charging that indicates the target of Charge of Darkness, which can be alt-clicked to broadcast this information to your team. – Pinging Runes now indicates in the text their location ( top or bottom ) in addition to their team in the case of a Bounty Rune (Dire/Radiant) – Fixed single target sounds playing too loudly when converted to multi-target by AoE talents. (Press the Attack, Shadow Word, Hex, etc.) – Added Leashed overhead text – Fixed pinging an enemy empty bottle saying it had a Double Damage rune. – Fixed pings on large targets sometimes being difficult to see. – Fixed buyback stinger sound not playing for the Terrorblade player when he has the Arcana – Fixed Morphling looking bald when he morphs into Kid Invoker – Fixed missing overhead tipping particles for TI9 Battle Pass tips – Fixed Sven Warcry not having a radius on hover – Fixed Necrophos Heartstopper Aura range finder display being affected by cast range bonuses – Fixed Devour’s buff being considered a debuff – Added AoE indicator for Aghanims Slark Shadow Dance – Fixed in-game rank profiles failing to load frequently – Hero Demo: Added “Level Enemy To Max” button – Hero Demo: There is no longer a 24 item limit (old behavior resulted in “Item Is Not Allowed For This Hero” message) – Fixed some cases where the cast range range-finder wouldn’t match the actual cast range (i.e. Lion’s Earth Spike with talent) – Item tooltip damage values now show their modified spell amp values if alt is pressed. – Added a visual effect on self solar crest use – Fixed killfeed message for shared bounties incorrectly stating that the entire bounty gold was rewarded to each hero – The Damage Taken and Dota Plus sidebars no longer clip into unit portraits for Meepo/Lone Druid. – Fixed Timewalk having an AoE slow particle effect (since the ability no longer slows) – Fixed post game progress sometimes appearing when viewing a previous match details – Fixed Invoker’s Cataclysms displaying high above ground if created when enemies were up in the air – Fixed incomplete error messages for Divine Favor’s targeting rules – Fixed Death Prophet and Winter Wyvern starting to fly visually when Dueled/Taunted – Fixed the range indicator for Phantom Assassin’s Blur. – Fixed Disruptor’s Glimpse displaying high above ground if the victim was up in the air when it was at the position it’s being returned to – Fixed many in-game hero and announcer subtitles not matching the audio – Fixed the hitbox for hero inspect during pregame sometimes overlapping with other features (e.g. the Guides tab) – Fixed Brewmaster’s Storm Brewling’s Cyclone sound getting stuck on in some cases (e.g. when used on Roshan) – Orchid can be found in the shop with the “silence” keyword. – Fixed Dragon Knight losing his Dragonform level color after being hexed – Fixed the Party Finder click region being too large – Added a tooltip to the Random button – Fixed Jinada not playing its animation – GAMEPLAY Fixed Elder Titan’s Natural Order and Drow Ranger’s Marksmanship armor reduction incorrectly stacking – Fixed Battle Trance losing the benefit of Troll Warlord’s level 25 talent after getting Aghanim’s Scepter – Fixed Battle Trance Scepter upgrade purging debuffs instead of buffs on enemies. – Changed Dark Seer Wall of Replica cast behavior. Now the cast target point is in the middle of the wall, instead of the end. – Fixed some illusions that are not secret having hero health bars instead of creep health bars (Conjure Image, Vengeance Aura, Dark Portrait) – Fixed teleport scrolls dropping at a hero’s location if the courier had a full inventory and a teleport scroll was dragged to its TP slot – Fixed Monkey King soldiers granting kill and last hit credit to the wrong player if that player swapped heroes with another player after entering the game – Fixed interaction between Winter’s Curse and Battle Trance. – Fixed Faceless Void getting slowed by Haste Rune inside Chronosphere – Fixed Visage Familiars being able to use Stone Form via the main hero while taunted – Fixed Io having its movement speed set to 0 if tethered to a unit that had its movement speed limited (i.e. Pangolier in his ultimate) – Fixed certain aoe abilities turning the caster around when self-cast while on the move (e.g. Surge with talent, Press the Attack with talent) – Fixed Elder Titan’s Scepter upgrade applying the magic immunity at the start of cast time instead of channeling time. – Fixed a number of bugs with the Hill Troll Priest and its heal ability. – Fixed Doom’s Infernal Blade still going off if Doom’s ability to cast it was lost during the attack animation (i.e. Silence). – Right clicking on wards that are not deniable with force right click attack will now issue a move order rather than attack – Selecting illusions now shows the gold of the player instead of 0. – Fixed clones (Monkey King, Arc Warden, and Meepo ) created while their owning player was disconnected never being able to earn gold/xp. – The small building in front of Radiant’s T4 towers is closer, so Jakiro’s Liquid Fire can spill to both T4’s in Radiant base, as it already does in Dire base – Fixed first strike of Eye of the Storm not reducing armor. – Fixed Templar Assassin’s Psionic Projection damage not increasing with levels. – Fixed Fog of War visibility bounds for Faceless Void’s Time Walk particle effect. – Fixed Fog of War visibility bounds for Huskar’s Inner Fire particle effect. – Fixed Fog of War visibility bounds for Meepo’s Poof particle effect. – Morphling and Rubick can no longer apply Ogre Magi’s Multicast passive to stolen or replicated spells. – Fixed extra Rupture charge being consumed when combined with Soulbind – Fixed Morphling Morph permanently copying item Multicast when Morphing to Rubick who had stolen a spell from Ogre Magi. – Fixed the interaction of Earth Spirit’s Rolling Boulder vs. Enigma’s Black Hole and Faceless Void’s Chronosphere. – Fixed Rubick being able to use abilities when in Supernova – Fixed Phantom Assassin’s Blur being removed by the pedestals left behind by destroyed effigies. – Fixed Winter’s Curse kill credit logic being permanently lost when Winter’s Curse is used with Soulbind – Fixed Pangolier’s scepter Shield Crash not triggering Swashbuckles when cast by Rubick – Fixed Morphling bug where if he replicated a hero that had changed its attack capability [Lone Druid, Morphling, Terrorblade], he’d get the wrong combination of attack type + attack range – Fixed Morphling losing Attribute Shift based on certain circumstances – Fixed a bug where players weren’t being given kill credit if their summoned units killed an enemy under the influence of Wraith King’s Scepter, and that summoned unit died before the wraith died. – Fixed Wukong’s Command targeting reticle not updating properly when using Tree Dance. – Fixed Morphling being able to cast Waveform with the mana of the hero being Morphed into when cast in quick succession – Fixed any items (such as gems) being movable to the courier’s or Lone Druid Bear’s TP slot. – Fixed Bloodrage counting as a buff if cast on enemy heroes. – Fixed Rubick’s Storm Element not getting Cinder Brew when Rubick had Aghanim’s Scepter. – Fixed Take Aim range bonus getting stuck if leveled up while the additional bonus range was active. – Fixed Enchantress Enchant buff not properly giving control to Enchantress on creeps that had previously been Enchanted then re-dominated by another player. – Fixed Tusk’s Snowball effect disappearing if its target’s model became invisible. – Fixed Supernova not refreshing cooldowns if Phoenix was affected by Time Dilation prior to the cast – Fixed Slardar illusions not getting river bonuses in puddles (but were getting it rivers) – Fixed Rubick not gaining the correct amount of charges when stealing Fire Remnant with Aghanim’s Scepter – Vengeful Spirit’s Vengeance Illusion is now properly selected / deselected on death and respawn. – Fixed the “Select Hero” hotkey not allowing you to select Vengeful Spirit while having a Vengeance Illusion alive. – Grimstroke’s Soulbind: Fixed secondary channelled spells not being interrupted when the source caster is interrupted or dies – Fixed Monkey King being unable to buy from certain shops while perched on a tree – Fixed Pudge’s Dismember continuing to channel when the target had broken out of the spell – Fixed Earthshaker Arcana Counter and Echo Slam relic revealing invis units – Fixed Nether Swap charges not being removed when blocked by Linken Sphere – Fixed Ancient Apparition’s Ice Blast preventing Track gold from triggering if the enemy died to shatter – Fixed Chen’s Divine Favor being able to teleport ward units (e.g. Serpent Wards) and couriers – Fixed Wind Walk not spawning skeleton archers when used by Rubick with Aghanim’s Scepter – Fixed Soulbind being able to create an invisible additional leash on a third hero in some rare cases – Fixed Tome of Knowledge interrupting non-channeling commands – Fixed Treant’s Living Armor being wasted if it was ground-targeted and the nearest friendly unit was a creep hero – Fixed Scepter upgraded Illuminate has a 10s cooldown instead of 11 – Fixed Meepo giving two kill credits if an attack killed a Meepo that had Fatal Bonds shared with one of its clones – Fixed Song of the Siren with Aghanims not affecting enemies if stolen and used by Rubick – Fixed Brewmaster’s Fire Brewling’s Immolation not being disabled by break – Fixed Grimstroke’s Dark Portrait being castable on creep heroes – Fixed Rubick disappearing after using Battle Trance inside Supernova – Fixed Aghanim’s Scepter’s ambient effect being visible on Monkey King when he’s in a Mischief disguise. – Fixed Juggernaut being able to attack creep heroes while applying Blade Fury damage to them. – Fixed extra Spirit Siphon charge being consumed when combined with Soulbind – Fixed Abaddon’s scepter Borrowed Time not working when cast by Rubick – COSMETIC ITEMS Fixed Juggernaut Jagged Honor back item skinning and flag – Fixed Ink Swell Status Effect and Illusion material for Grimstroke Paean of the Ink Dragon Set – Fixed Pugna taunt (Taunt: Check this Out) not working in Perfect World client – Fixed Axe Oglodi Big Boss Head lod0 model, also Rampant Outrage ambient FX adjustment – Fixed Pudge’s Hook of Delicacies of Butchery Hook – model placement adjusted – Fixed Doom animation updates – Fixed Tusk immortal “Whisky the Stout Artifact”, “Ice Shards” clipping the ground – Fixed Legion Commander sorting improvements on immortal “Baneful Devotion” helm and arcana “Blades of Voth Domosh” weapons – Fixed Earthshaker immortal “Bracers of the Cavern Luminar” ambient effects orientation sometimes being wrong – Fixed Spirit Breaker immortal “Iron Surge” ambient effects – Fixed Weaver immortal “Skittering Desolation” ambient effects – Fixed Dark Seer immortal “Bracers of Forlorn Precipice” & “Golden Bracers of Forlorn Precipice” “Ion Shell” effects and made changes to golden version to help read – Fixed Abaddon immortal “Mace of the Chosen” ambient effects – Fixed Bane immortal “Slumbering Terror”, “Nightmare” ability effects – Fixed Mirana immortal “Axia of Metira”, ambient effects where depth feathered is causing a visual bug – Fixed Earthshaker arcana “Planetfall” missing the inventory icon for the second style – Fixed Dragon Knight immortal “Kindred of the Iron Dragon”, dragon tail animation – Fixed Necrophos immortal items “Sullen Hollow” and “Golden Sullen Hollow” ambient particles – Fixed Drow Ranger Algis Legacy Bow effect colors – Fixed Elder Titan Shaper Relic weapon effect colors – Fixed Alchemist Radiance Sword missing an edge outline effect – Fixed Weaver Skittering Desolation having a missing effect – Fixed Faceless Void Mace of Aeon ambient effects – DOTA PLUS Fixed Invoker Hero Persona not counting relic progress – Fixed Chaos Knight Reality Rift relic not working – Fixed Night Stalker Void Slow relic not working – Fixed Brewmaster Hurl Boulder relic and challenge counting up incorrectly – Fixed Lycan Wolves Hero Damage relic counting up incorrectly – Fixed Dragon Knight Breathe Fire relic counting up incorrectly – Fixed Spirit Breaker Damage after Bulldoze not working – Fixed Debuffs Purged relic counting up incorrectly – Replaced Naga Siren Creep Tower Damage with Illusion Tower Damage relic – Replaced Naga Siren Meteor Hammer Leading to Kills with Mana Damage relic – Replaced Legion Commander Stuns Leading to Kills with Press the Attack Heals relic – Replaced Lifestealer Disjoints with Assimilate with Health Restored from Feast relic – Replaced Bounty Hunter Jinada Hits with Jinada Gold Stolen – Fixed Silencer Int Steal failing to count up after a certain time period – Fixed some challenges that dealt with kills from spells not counting for spells that generated attacks( i.e. Tidehunter Anchor Smash ) – Fixed Mars Bulwark challenge incorrectly counting up instances rather than damage amount – Fixed Bristleback Bristleback Triggered Damage challenge incorrectly counting up instances rather than damage amount – Fixed Riki’s Trick of the Trade damage challenge not counting up correctly – Fixed Omnislash damage challenge not counting up correctly – Naga Siren can no longer receive Kills after Meteor Hammer challenge – Chaos Knight can no longer receive Kills while Debuffing Armor challenge – Grimstroke can no longer receive the Halberd Duration challenge – Grimstroke, Lina, Shadow Fiend, Bloodseeker, Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit, and Templar Assassin can no longer receive “Kills while using Nullifier” challenge. – Medusa, Troll Warlord, Phantom Assassin, Gyrocopter, Juggernaut, and Vengeful Spirit can no longer recieve “Damage with Mask of Madness” challenge. – Night Stalker can no longer receive Kills on Silenced Hero challenge. – Medusa can no longer receive Deal Pure Damage challenge. – Troll Warlord can no longer receive Bash Heroes challenge. – Use Urn Charges as Hero challenge amount reduced from 16/24/32 to 12/18/24 – Frost Blast Kills / Assists challenge amount reduced from 20/40/60 to 10/20/30 – Undying Damage With Tombstone Level 3 value reduced from 6000 to 4500 – Frostbite Creep Kills reduced from 20/40/60 to 15/30/45 – Wraith King Kills reduced from 3/6/9 to 2/4/6 and timer increased to 10 from 5 – CUSTOM GAMES Fixed an issue where trying to play a specific custom game and map combination could launch the wrong map – Fixed an issue that could cause empty entries in the Arcade Open Lobbies list – Fixed a memory leak caused by CustomNetTables – Fixed a regression that caused SetCustomAttributeDerivedStatValue to not function – Fixed ModifyExperienceFilter not working in the case where it would return false – API Additions: “dota_scan_used” and “dota_glyph_used” game events are now broadcasted to the server – API Additions: Modify Experience Filters now pass in “hero_entindex_const” key for the hero gaining the experience. – API Additions – Global (Server): * CreateIllusions( hOwner, hHeroToCopy, hModifierKeys, nNumIllusions, nPadding, bScramblePosition, bFindClearSpace ) Note: See script_help2 for supported modifier keys – API Additions – Global (Client): GetLocalPlayerTeam() – API Additions – Global (Client): GetLocalPlayerID() – API Additions – CDOTABaseGameMode: SetCustomGlyphCooldown( flCooldown ) – API Additions – CDOTABaseGameMode: GetCustomGlyphCooldown() – API Additions – CDOTABaseGameMode: SetCustomBackpackSwapCooldown( flCooldown ) – API Additions – CDOTABaseGameMode: GetCustomBackpackSwapCooldown() – API Additions – CDOTABaseGameMode: SetCustomBackpackCooldownPercent( flPercent ) – API Additions – CDOTABaseGameMode: GetCustomBackpackCooldownPercent() – API Additions – CDOTA_BaseNPC: GetDisplayAttackSpeed() – API Additions – CDOTA_BaseNPC: GetCastRangeBonus() – API Additions – CDOTA_BaseNPC: GetCooldownReduction() – API Additions – CDOTA_BaseNPC: SetMaxMana( nMaxMana ) – API Additions – CDOTA_BaseNPC: IsInRangeOfShop( nShopType, bPhysicallyNear ) – API Additions – C_DOTA_BaseNPC: GetCastRangeBonus() – API Additions – C_DOTA_BaseNPC: GetCooldownReduction() – API Additions – CDOTA_Ability_Lua: OnAbilityPinged( nPlayerID, bCtrlHeld ) – API Additions – CDOTA_Ability_Lua: ResetToggleOnRespawn() – API Additions – CDOTABaseAbility: SetStealable( bStealable ) Note: Some abilities in the base game do not have mutable stealability. – API Additions – C_DOTABaseAbility: C_DOTABaseAbility IsItem() – API Additions – CDOTA_Item: SetSecondaryCharges() – API Additions – CDOTA_Item: GetSecondaryCharges() – API Additions – CDOTA_Item: GetItemSlot() – API Additions – C_DOTA_Item: GetInitialCharges() – API Additions – C_DOTA_Item: GetCurrentCharges() – API Additions – C_DOTA_Item: GetSecondaryCharges() – API Additions – C_DOTA_Item: GetItemSlot() – API Additions – CDOTAPlayer: SetAssignedHeroEntity( hHero ) – API Additions – CDOTABuff: IsDebuff() – API Additions – CDOTABuff: IsHexDebuff() – API Additions – CDOTABuff: GetAuraOwner() – API Additions – CDOTABuff: GetSerialNumber() – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_HP_REGEN_AMPLIFY_PERCENTAGE_SOURCE – GetModifierHPRegenAmplify_PercentageSource – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_INVISIBILITY_ATTACK_BEHAVIOR_EXCEPTION – GetModifierInvisibilityAttackBehaviorException – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_ATTACK_RANGE_BONUS_PERCENTAGE – GetModifierAttackRangeBonusPercentage – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_INVISIBILITY_ATTACK_BEHAVIOR_EXCEPTION – GetModifierInvisibilityAttackBehaviorException – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_IGNORE_MOVESPEED_LIMIT – GetModifierIgnoreMovespeedLimit – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MOVESPEED_ABSOLUTE_MAX – GetModifierMoveSpeed_AbsoluteMax – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MP_RESTORE_AMPLIFY_PERCENTAGE – GetModifierMPRestoreAmplify_Percentage – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_PREATTACK_BONUS_DAMAGE_TARGET – GetModifierPreAttack_BonusDamage_Target – New linked properties: MODIFIER_PROPERTY_STATUS_RESISTANCE_CASTER GetModifierStatusResistanceCaster – New linked properties: MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_PROCESS_CLEAVE – OnProcessCleave – New linked properties: MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_PROJECTILE_OBSTRUCTION_HIT – OnProjectileObstructionHit –

How to watch Dota 2 Stockholm Major 2022: Stream, schedule, teams ESL OneAfter a break from the path to The International, the Dota Pro Circuit is back with the Stockholm Major 2022, which will see 14 teams battle it out for coveted DPC points. Here’s everything you need to know. The Stockholm Major, initially supposed to be the second DPC Lan tournament of the season, will actually be the first official Major of the 2021-22 season leading up to The International. The initial Major of the season was earlier canceled out due to the ongoing global health crisis and replaced with regional finals to distribute DPC points among the top-performing teams. However, for the first time since The International 10, official DPC Lans are back with the Stockholm Major. Here’s everything you need to need to know about the upcoming Dota 2 competition featuring 14 of the strongest teams from across the globe. Contents Stockholm Major 2022: live stream The Stockholm Major 2022 will be streamed live on the ESL_DOTA2 Twitch channel, which we have embedded below. Read More: PGL Dota 2 Arlington Major 2022 – Don’t worry in case you miss a game — you can always catch up with VODs on YouTube. Stockholm Major 2022: schedule & format The Stockholm Major will be played in two separate rounds, the group stage, and the playoffs. While 14 teams will battle it out during the group stage from May 12 to May 15, only 12 will progress into the playoffs that begin on May 16th and will run through May 22nd. The group stage will feature two groups comprising seven teams each. Every team will play against the other six teams in their group in a single round-robin best-of-two series. Following the group stage, the top four placed teams from each group will be placed in the upper bracket of the playoffs while the fifth and sixth-placed teams will be placed in the lower bracket. However, teams that finish at the bottom of the group will be eliminated before even making it onto the main stage. Stockholm Major 2022: teams As already mentioned, a total of 14 teams from across the globe have made their way over to Stockholm for the Dota 2 Major. While most of the teams qualified through their regional DPC Leagues, teams from Eastern Europe, BetBoom Team, Team Spirit, and Mind Games found themselves earning a spot through the EEU-exclusive regional qualifiers. Having said that, the Stockholm Major will bear witness to some of the greatest Dota 2 talents coming together under one roof to showcase their talents. Additionally, the massive 3,530 DPC Points up for grabs makes it even more lucrative for the teams’ journey to The International. For more on Dota 2, be sure to check out our guides for optimizing the game’s performance, and our hero tier list.

Dota 2 star SumaiL loses lawsuit against Evil Geniuses after two-year battle ValveSumail ‘SumaiL’ Hassan has lost his lawsuit against his former team Evil Geniuses in a jury trial. SumaiL sued Evil Geniuses in December 2021 over a contract the player signed with the organization in 2016 after winning The International in 2015. SumaiL was one of the best players in the world at the time he signed the contract. He later parted ways from the team in 2020. SumaiL’s lawyers claimed that EG “took advantage of a young, naïve and vulnerable” player during his time with the organization, on top of pushing “draconian obligations and forfeitures” during negotiations around his release from the Dota 2 team. Evil Geniuses wins lawsuit brought by former player After two years of legal struggle between the two sides, a jury has ruled in EG’s favor. According to a report on the trial by Richard Lewis, the jury filed the verdict to side with Evil Geniuses on March 1. The organization denied all the allegations made against it and claimed during the lawsuit that SumaiL was told to consult a lawyer before signing the contract. Additionally, the org said it did not try to push malicious terms onto the player when he was trying to leave the Dota 2 team, saying they gave him decent financial compensation and had a flexible agreement. SumaiL was paid $20,000 a month when he re-signed with EG in 2016, according to the lawsuit. In 2019, EG looked to part ways with the player after a disappointing T1 run and gave him an amendment in his player contract so he could sign with other squads. SumaiL was later given a mutual termination agreement and a stock purchase agreement that said EG would buy back his options for $1 million. EG also alleged during the suit that its then-CEO Nicole Lapointe Jameson told the player in a meeting to talk to a lawyer before signing anything. SumaiL is still an active Dota 2 pro and competes for Nigma Galaxy. The player has played at The International five times in his almost decade-long career, but he has only one championship win. His last appearance at TI was in 2021 with OG Esports.

Dota 2 star Quinn in hot water ahead of TI 2023 over ranked comments ValveVeteran North American Dota 2 player Quinn ‘Quinn’ Callahan is in hot water over comments he made over voice chat in a ranked game ahead of The International 2023. The International 2023 is about two weeks away from starting its group stage as the top Dota 2 teams from around the world are set to clash. One player in the tournament, however, has become embroiled in a recent controversy over comments made in a ranked match. Gaimin Gladiators player Quinn was called out in a Reddit thread that has thousands of upvotes for making toxic comments toward another player. The person who made the post included a video of the interaction, where Quinn can be heard telling the player to never play his character again. “I want to die whenever I play with you. Change your name and profile pic, you’re a disgrace to the human race,” Quinn said in the clip. Quinn was caught being toxic in Dota 2 match The Dota 2 pro has a history of toxic behavior throughout his time in the esport; however, he seemed to have turned a corner with his recent move to Europe with Gaimin Gladiators. Quinn addressed the situation in a lengthy apology on social media, saying that his actions were “highly unacceptable and pretty gross.” He also addressed his past toxicity and owned up to his transgressions. The player also called on the community to stop roping in Dota 2 casters, talent, and his organization who “haven’t publically disowned” him for his past actions as he claims they have tried to address his behavior in private. “Massive apology goes out to everyone I’ve hurt directly with my words and people I’ve stressed out or inadvertently hurt by virtue of them being near me. I’ll be working on myself in the future and changing things for the better. Sorry again to everyone,” Quinn said. Gaimin Gladiators and Quinn qualified for TI 2023 based on Dota Pro Circuit points thanks to their high placements in the Western European league and at major tournaments. The team placed first at the ESL One Major and the Bali Major, and followed up those performances with a top-four finish at the Riyadh Masters event. Gaimin made history with that run, becoming the first team to win every Major in a single season. TI 2023 will be Quinn’s fifth appearance at the World Championship tournament as a player. He also appeared on the event’s broadcast in 2017 as an analyst. His highest placement at the event was a top-eight finish when he played under OpTic Gaming. TI 2023 is set to start with the group stage on October 12.

Invictus Gaming wins Dota 2 Singapore Major 2021: full results & recap ONE EsportsThe Dota 2 Singapore Major is done and dusted, and Invictus Gaming came out on top after a nail-biting final series against Evil Geniuses. Here’s a quick recap of all the key events, highlights, final standings, and more. Invictus Gaming reverse-swept Evil Geniuses in the final series to win the first major of the season. – Team Secret bombed-out earlier than expected with a fourth-place finish. – Erin Jasper ‘Yopaj’ Ferrer was the breakout player of the tournament. – The first major of the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit season was a resounding success. It was the first top-tier cross-regional LAN event in over a year, and it didn’t disappoint. 18 of the best teams in the world battled it out across the Wild Card, Group Stage, and Playoffs for a chance to earn a piece of the $500,000 prize pool and up to 500 DPC points. But in the end, only one of them could reign supreme, and it was none other than Invictus Gaming. The question mark ❓ strategy worked! @invgaming are your ONE Esports #SingaporeMajor champions! 🏆 The Chinese team pulled off an insane reverse sweep against North American favorites Evil Geniuses. pic.twitter.com/8HRmuExNHt — ONE Esports (@ONEEsports) April 4, 2021 Invictus Gaming wins Singapore Major 2021: recap Invictus Gaming endured a roller-coaster ride that saw them beat Vici Gaming, Thunder Predator, Team Secret, PSG.LGD and eventually reverse-sweep Evil Geniuses in a spectacular final series. It’s not all about the winners, though. PSG.LGD returned to form with a string of stellar performances. They beat giants Virtus.Pro and Team Secret in the upper bracket but couldn’t topple Evil Geniuses and Invictus Gaming in the upper and lower bracket finals. Team Secret also bombed out of the tournament despite being the favorites to win it. They started great with a 2-0 win over Thunder Predator but dropped down to the lower bracket the following round and eventually fell short against Invictus Gaming. It’s also worth noting that Erin Jasper ‘Yopaj’ Ferrer, the mid-laner from OB Esports x Neon, was the tournament’s breakout player. His team were the underdogs in most games, but his moments of individual brilliance against Fnatic, Vici Gaming, and Team Secret were a shining light. Through the forest and the trees#NeonAscend #LogitechG #SingaporeMajor pic.twitter.com/RDWhNU9nYs — Neon Esports (@neonesportsdota) April 3, 2021

Dota 2 ranks explained: Seasonal medals, MMR distribution, & more ValveIf you want to get into ranked play in Dota 2 it can be overwhelming at first, so here’s everything you need to know about the game’s ranks, including MMR distribution, and seasonal medals. Despite now being over a decade old, Dota 2 still brings in a dedicated fanbase that continues to grow daily. Whether you’re new to the MOBA game or are a seasoned veteran, the ranked mode in Dota 2 can be very confusing at first, especially if you’re unfamiliar with how the competitive system works. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the system, we’ve compiled everything you need to know about it in this handy guide, including explaining every rank in Dota 2, exactly how the system works, and how the ranks are designated throughout the player base. So without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about Dota 2 ranks. Contents How does the ranked system work in Dota 2? – Dota 2 Ranks – Dota 2 rank distribution – Tips and tricks to boost your Dota 2 rank – How does the ranked system work in Dota 2? Calibration Dota 2’s ranked mode is only available to players who have played casual game modes such as All Pick and Turbo for more than 100 hours. This is a necessary measure to make sure that new players have familiarized themselves with the fairly difficult mechanics of the game. After that, you’ll need to play ten calibration games that are determined by a variety of factors. These factors can range from the outcome of these matches to the individual skills and knowledge you display during them. MMR and Medals Dota 2 ranks have always been determined by a player’s MMR (matchmaking rating). The premise is simple: you gain or lose MMR based on the result of your ranked matches. Although there used to be a fixed amount of MMR that you could gain or lose after every match, that concept has now been changed with the introduction of Rank Confidence. Now, you receive or lose MMR based on the average rank of your teammates as well as the opponents. This means, you can find yourself gaining more than 30 MMR after winning against higher-ranked opponents while also earning less than 20 MMR when winning against lower-ranked opponents. It still works the same way behind the scenes. However, it’s been streamlined over the years to become more in line with the rank tier systems used in other competitive games like League of Legends and Overwatch. Players receive a medal for each rank and tier they achieve. There are eight ranks in total, each of which is further split into five tiers. The ranks available in Dota 2 are: Herald – Guardian – Crusader – Archon – Legend – Ancient – Divine – Immortal – Seasons and re-calibration It also operates on a seasonal basis, meaning players will need to re-calibrate at the end of every season. Traditionally, this happens every six months. However, the current season has been prevalent for over 17 months now. The good news, though is that you have the option to re-calibrate by choice once per season. Just don’t expect any drastic differences since re-calibration is based on your existing MMR. It’s unlikely to deviate much. Additionally, with the upcoming release of update 7.31, a new ranked season might be soon upon us. Dota 2 ranks Here’s a list of all the Dota 2 ranks and their corresponding medals. We’ve also included a rough estimate of the MMR required for each rank. Dota 2 rank distribution The ranked distribution in Dota 2 is a good way to determine where you stand on a percentile basis relative to other players. According to Esports Tales, Dota 2’s ranked distribution currently looks something like this: The data suggests that the biggest chunk of Dota 2 players fall between Crusader 1 and Legend 2, and the median rank being Archon 1. Here’s a table showing the percentile of each rank. You can use it to see where you stack up. And that’s everything you need to know about Dota 2’s ranked system. Knowing all the information is one thing. However, cracking on with the grind is a different beast. But if you put in the work, you’ll be climbing ranks in no time! Tips and tricks to boost your Dota 2 rank Dota 2 features one of the highest skill-ceiling available for multiplayer games. This factors into the amount of skill and in-game prowess that players put up on display in their matches. However, there are a few tips and tricks that you can use to ensure a better experience as you grind through the ranked leaderboards. These tips and tricks include: Whenever you’re queueing for ranked games, make sure to have the Strict Solo Matchmaking feature activated in your settings. – It is better to master a few chosen heroes than have a huge hero pool with moderate understanding. – Make sure to communicate with your teammates about what is happening in the game so that all of you are on the same page. – Keeping a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) even when you’re on the verge of losing a match is extremely essential in a MOBA like Dota 2. – Watching replays of your own matches to understand the errors you made is a very good method of improving your in-game performance. – The recent addition of the Battle Report in Dota Plus is a wonderful method of keeping a track of your playstyle and recognizing your in-game strengths and weaknesses. This will massively help you improve your performance and climb through the ranked leaderboards. – For more Dota content, check out our guides below: Dota 2 hero tier list | Dota 2 Diretide 2022 release hub | Best Dota 2 options to optimize game performance | Top 20 highest earning Dota 2 players

Dota 2 pros face matchmaking hell after Valve bans smurfing ValveDota 2 Pros have found themselves under Valve’s ban hammer thanks to the company’s new hardline policy on smurfing. Smurfing is the practice of high MMR-rated players creating alternative accounts to artificially lower their MMR ranking. It’s a practice that is widely frowned upon amongst the community. Valve recently came down hard on the practice last year, banning around 90,000 accounts. While smurfing negatively affects pub games, many Dota 2 pros are unable to play outside of scrims without a smurf account. Now, some pros are waiting over an hour to find a casual game. “Are we allowed to play together outside of tournament games and team practice?” Gaiman Gladiator’s Captain, Melchior “Seleri” Hillenkamp, asked on Twitter. Tagging in Valve’s official Dota 2 account, too. Dota 2 pros are obviously among the game’s highest-rated players, which means many of them struggle to find matches in public games. As the matchmaking system is designed to place you with players of a similar skill level, Dota 2 pros are having to wait hours to find a full team and opposition with a high enough MMR. This has been causing them quite the headache if they ever want to play outside of official scrims and team practice sessions. Pro player’s smurf accounts have come under the hammer already too — including Artour “Arteezy” Babaev, whose smurf account had around 7000 hours of play. Former OG player and two-time TI winner, Anathan “ana” Pham, was the first player to comment on this predicament back in December last year. According to him, even unranked matchmaking was problematic for pros. But Valve doesn’t seem sympathetic to the problem. This means pro players who create smurf accounts or share accounts with others to play in pub games with friends or solo run the risk of getting hit with a VAC ban on their main account. This is exactly what happened to Steven “StingeR” Vargas — during his match against Thunder Awaken in the South American Qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 22 no less. While there’s no place for smurfing in Dota 2, hopefully Valve can find a place for pro players in the game outside of the tournament system soon.

Dota 2 pro Solo threatens Epicentre Major boycott amid Ceb alleged racism row Virtus Pro Dota 2 player Alexei ‘Solo’ Berezin has threatened to boycott the upcoming Epicenter major in Russia, unless Valve speaks up about the ongoing situation with OG’s Sébastien ‘7ckngMad’ Debs. The row about 7ckngMad’s comments, who also goes by the name Ceb, kicked off on May 23 when one player posted screenshots of the OG player making allegedly racist comments towards Russian players in-game to the Dota 2 subreddit. While members of the subreddit were split about what had happened, 7ckngMad apologized for what had happened, citing the fact that he had been ‘trolled’ by a toxic player who had been antagonizing him. Despite that, the fallout has now seemingly impacted the professional scene. Hours after the Ceb drama had initially begun on May 24, pros chimed in on the situation. The most notable was Solo, who dropped a lengthy post on Russian social media site VK with his thoughts. “Russian whores who would sell their mothers for MMR. That’s not the kind of stuff you say even if you get frustrated,” started Solo – zeroing in on Ceb’s comments. “Schizophrenic animals from Russia. Third world dogs. You simply can’t say these things no matter what caused them. I am proud to be Russian and your words leave me speechless.” Yet, Solo wasn’t done there. After explaining his feelings on the situation, including the reasons why he had to speak up about it, he called on Valve to intervene. He concluded: “I won’t be participating at the upcoming Epicenter Major that will be played in my home country unless Valve openly speaks about this case and ensures consistency and transparency when it comes to treating racism in our game.” Will Valve ban Ceb? It remains to be seen if Valve will intervene in the situation like they did when Carlo ‘Kuku’ Palad was banned from the Chongqing Major back in December for comments towards Chinese players. As of now, Solo is currently the only player threatening to boycott the Major, which kicks off on June 22. With VP being a hometown favorite, going in search of qualification for the upcoming International, everyone will want Solo donning his team’s colors in Moscow.

Dota 2 pro RAMZES666 hits back at accusations of match-fixing and drug addiction EPICENTERDota 2 pro Roman ‘RAMZES666’ Kushnarev fired back at fellow player Ilya ‘Illidan’ Pivcaev, after he was accused of match-fixing and suggested he is suffering from a drug addiction problem. According to a report by CyberSport, the accusations took place during a ranked match after RAMZES666 took Ember Spirit with his first pick and then shifted his position to mid, which angered Pivtsaev. However, RAMZES666 said he did this because he had a higher rank and that if Illidan wanted the role, he would need to defeat him for it. As the tempers flared between the two and insults were exchanged with Pivcaev being called “cancer.” This prompted him to in turn accuse Kushnarev of having a drug problem. А @ramzes ну и да, чето ситуацию с роксберри и кокаиновой зависимостью вы с @dvoryrom решили видимо пропустить в том спиче что был от меня. Потому что вы оба всё прекрасно понимаете) Ситуацию с Яном в Виртуспро тоже. я хочу одного – чтобы ты малообразованный, но умеющий играть1/2 — Pivtsaev Ilya (@IllidanSTRdoto) October 27, 2021 “I am cancer, but at least I’m not a cocaine addict, what difference does it make to me,” he said, adding that it’s possible to die at just 30 years old from being addicted. Despite RAMZES666 laughing off the accusations, and believed he was only insulting him because he had criticized Illidan’s friend’s ability in the past, he was then accused of throwing matches on purpose. “There is no situation that could force me to make peace with him and begin to treat him normally,” Pivcaev said in regards to his back and forth with Kushnarev. “Because I know that this is a worm, which in any situation when he does not need someone, begins to behave with people like crap.” Дорогой Илюша! Перед тем, как высерать что-то гнилое про других людей, помни о том, что для этого нужны пруфы, а не какие-то левые слухи. Не думал, что это будет кого-то волновать, но червячки с сайберспорта и это откопали — Roman Kushnarev (@ramzes) October 27, 2021 RAMZES666, however, denied the claims, saying that the allegations require proof and that none was provided. With no love lost between the two, sparks are almost sure to fly if both men get picked up by teams and end up competing against each other in the near future.

Dota 2 pro PPD calls out “toxic” player after his old team is eliminated from TI9 ESL/Valve/EPICENTERAfter a former Virtus.pro player took to Twitter to rub salt in the wounds of his former team, Ninjas in Pyjamas captain Peter ‘ppd’ Dager took it upon himself to call out the player on his “predictable toxicity.” Most of us are past the point where we’re wishing ill will upon our exes. Unfortunately, no one told that to Ilya ‘Lil’ Ilyuk, a Dota 2 player who currently plays for Winstrike Team, and used to play for Virtus.Pro. Lil played for VP for a number of years across three different stints, and together they won a lot of tournaments and a lot of money. But Lil was kicked for the last time in February 2018, and it seems he’s still upset about it, and thoroughly enjoyed watching his old team exit from The International 2019 early. The full post does not translate very well from Russian to English, but here are some key quotes: “As you know, Virtus.pro took off from [International] today, taking 9-12th place. I am glad. And I’m glad not that someone won, but someone lost. And the fact that it all finally ended.” “The day when they kicked me was one of the worst in my life, today is one of the best.” “A year and a half ago, when I heard the news about my breakup with the team while sitting on the bootcamp, the last thing I heard was ‘We won’t win the Int with you.’ Well, without me you won’t win it either :)” Read more: How to watch The International 2019 – Clearly Lil does not handle his breakups well, which likely explains why “ex-VP/NaVi” is in his Twitter bio. From the rest of the post, it seems like he’s blaming VP for issues with other teams and for his perceived notion of being toxic. But have no fear, NiP captain and former International winner ppd jumped in to administer some extra tough love. Get over it and move on. You posting every time vp struggles is pathetic and predictable. It’s incredibly toxic and it’s no surprise that no one wants to play with you. — Peter Dager (@Peterpandam) August 21, 2019 Well, I guess that clears that up. Based on some of the reactions seen on Twitter and reddit, this isn’t the first time that Lil has placed the blame on a former team rather than take on the responsibility himself. There’s some consensus that how Virtus.Pro handled things wasn’t great, but Lil hasn’t done himself any favors since that happened. Unfortunately for him, this won’t help his image either, and apart from their woes at The International, Virtus.Pro have been doing more than just fine since kicking him, winning several premier events including two majors. What makes this extra confusing is that he apologized to some of his former teammates earlier this year: . @9pashka @Noone_dota @ramzesdoto @dotaSolo @dvoryrom @LeBronDoTa Сори, парни, был не прав. Я вел себя как ребенок, впредь буду мудрее. — Ilya Ilyuk (@LilJke) November 26, 2018 “Sorry guys, I was wrong. I acted like a child, I’ll try to be wiser in the future. I’d also like to apologize to everyone I hurt with my words. I wish you all the best.” Why go through all the effort of repairing a bridge just to burn it down again?

Dota 2 pro LastHero goes missing after being arrested by Minsk police WESGConcerns are growing as Dota 2 pro player, Oleg ‘LastHero’ Demidovich, has been reported as missing after allegedly being detained by police in the Minsk region. Ukranian organization ‘B8’ initially reported that Demidovich had been arrested in Minsk during the night of August 11. On August 12, the organization Tweeted: “We are investigating the circumstances and details related to the arrest of our player Oleg ‘LastHero’ Demidovich in Minsk last night.” Details surrounding the arrest of B8’s Offlane player remained unknown at this time. However, there have been ongoing protests in the region following the results of the recent presidential election. Мы выясняем обстоятельства и подробности, связанные с задержанием нашего игрока Олега “”LastHero”” Демидовича в Минске этой ночью. We are investigating the circumstances and details related to the arrest of our player Oleg “”LastHero”” Demidovich in Minsk last night.#b8d pic.twitter.com/QlaockcJEE — B8 Esports (@B8esportsGG) August 12, 2020 Three hours after launching their investigation, B8 shed more light on LastHero’s circumstances, with the whereabouts of the 26-year-old currently unknown. Demidovich went to a meeting with three friends in Minsk, where, according to eyewitnesses, there was no violent unrest in the area. At 7:00 PM (MSK), the group are said to have been approached by police officers and detained in a nearby station, where there was reportedly around 50 detainees being held. From this point onwards, the organization lost all contact with LastHero. However, according to the latest update, the Offlaner is being held in a preliminary detention prison in the Zhodino, Minsk region. If you have any additional information about Oleg’s exact location or condition, please let us know. dota2@b8esports.gg At the moment, all the information we know is set out below. pic.twitter.com/JOsYrfvKhd — B8 Esports (@B8esportsGG) August 12, 2020 Understandably, B8 are concerned with the safety and well-being of Demidovich, considering that one of the friends that he was detained with at the time has already been released. “There is no connection with him yet. One of the friends he was with has already been released.” People have been urged to step forward with any additional information regarding the whereabouts of LastHero by emailing: dota2@b8esports.gg We will update this post with any more information on the circumstances surrounding LastHero’s status as it becomes available.

Dota 2 pro canceL experiences insane new cheat live on stream Dota 2 pro player and Twitch streamer Mihai “canceL” Antonio was streaming his ranked play, when he came back to his computer at the start of a game and witnessed a truly remarkable cheat in effect. When you’re playing Dota 2, or any game for that matter, for an extended amount of time, sometimes it just takes something truly absurd to make you bust a gut laughing. That happened to pro player canceL while he was streaming on September 5th. canceL had just queued for a ranked match, and unbeknownst to him, something fishy was in the works. During the pick and ban phase, canceL wasn’t paying attention as the in-game chat was filled with connect and disconnect message for a Russian website that offers Dota 2 cheats. It is strongly recommended you don’t visit this website. But canceL did notice the feed right before the match started, where it listed numerous profiles with the website as the username making random hero selections. When the game loaded in, we saw what the cheater had wrought: By estimation, there are about 13 additional heroes on the Radiant side, and since the fake accounts that created all of them had disconnected, canceL had free reign to just throw them down the midlane. He would have quit, but he would have lost MMR. Another Twitch streamer, ikab, had the same thing happen to him, with someone using the exact same hack on the enemy team. But like canceL, it had the same result: with all those additional level one heroes not being properly controlled, the other team can just feast on them and get leveled up quicker. The team without the additional bots just ends up stomping the team with the cheater. And in both scenarios, the cheaters just resulted to DDOS-ing the game when they started losing. In canceL’s game specifically, they DDOS-ed after he repeatedly egged them on. canceL took the antics in stride though, laughing through the entirety of the ordeal. After the game, canceL viewed the Steam profile of the assumed cheater, and showed his stream the player’s multiple bans and profile comments calling them a cheater. Like a true community member, canceL reported the player. And to top it off, it appeared like the game didn’t show up on his recent games list, meaning it hopefully doesn’t affect his MMR. Then, like most players, it was right back to business as usual, queuing for another game of Dota.

Dota 2 pro BoBoKa to miss Singapore major after allegedly soliciting prostitution StarLadderProfessional Dota 2 player Ye ‘BoBoKa’ Zhibiao, also known as ‘Borax,’ will be missing the Singapore major after rumors surfaced that he was arrested in Shanghai for allegedly soliciting prostitution. On March 26, Team Aster announced that their support player would be missing the ONE Esports Singapore Major for “personal” reasons,” but didn’t delve further into the details. In a statement posted on the Chinese social media site Weibo, the team explained that their coach Cheng ‘Mad’ Han would be filling in for him. Earlier, it was alledged that BoBoKa had been arrested and had been soliciting prostitution – something that is very illegal in China. According to Chinese media, the rumors about the Dota pro soliciting services from prostitutes are allegedly true, but so far there hasn’t been any confirmation by the team. Team Aster further noted that despite BoBoKa’s leave for “personal reasons” he will be returning to the team following the Major. It’s unclear if the player is facing any legal consequences for his alleged actions. If true, it also would make sense that the team wouldn’t want to disclose exact reasons as they would surely leave a black mark on the organization. These rumours coming out about Team Aster’s Boboka are wild if true. According to gossip sources in China the player will miss the Singapore Major after being arrested for soliciting a prostitute. That’s got to be an esports first. pic.twitter.com/0RFUekLf71 — Richard Lewis (@RLewisReports) March 26, 2021 BoBoKa is also not the first player to miss the event due to unfortunate circumstances. Fourteen others are currently out of competition due to global pandemic and other health issues. The major, set to run from March 27 to April 4 will feature a prize pool of $500,000 USD. The wild card stage kicks off the event, followed by the group stage, eventually leading up to the double-elimination playoff round. Astor was able to qualify directly for the group stage portion. The team has since reportedly departed directly for Singapore.

Dota 2 pro 444 passes away age 25 EPICENTERBrazilian Dota2 professional player Anderson ‘444’ Santos has passed away at the age of 25. 444, also known as Bob, had been battling with complications for over a month. – Represented paiN gaming, who he featured for at two majors. – Passed away at 25 years old. – According to Santos’ sister, he passed away in an intensive care unit in Manaus, Brazil on February 6, and despite multiple resuscitation attempts, succumbed to the sickness caused by the ongoing pandemic. Fans had raised money in January to help pay for treatment, amassing R$6000. 444, also known as simply ‘Bob’ and ‘Bob444’, had most recently played for paiN Gaming, who he represented at the MDL Disneyland Paris Major and the EPICENTER Major in 2019. His biggest winnings came at DOTA Summit 10 in July 2019, where paiN finished runners up. The organization released their entire Dota2 roster in April 2020. A shortage of space in intensive care units in Brazil meant he was cared for between both hospital and at home. Globoesports reports that Santos had an infection caused by low blood oxygenation. “444 even breathed with the help of oxygen cylinders, but showed a slow improvement and was doing lung physiotherapy exercises,” the Brazilian outlet reports. On Saturday, February 6, he had difficulty breathing, could not hold out and died, despite numerous attempts at resuscitation. Tributes paid to 444 Fellow Dota pro players, analysts and casters paid tribute to 444 following news of his passing. Former teammate fHn said he was “a spectacular human being with an insanely good heart […] Dota is in mourning.” Melhor pos5 que joguei junto e que vivenciei os melhores campeonatos/viagens com e um ser humano espetacular de coração insanamente bom, Descanse em paz bobinho, o Dota está de luto. Gg pic.twitter.com/eBU1qXBy95— William Medeiros (@hFn_k3) February 6, 2021 Streamer Aedrons said also paid tribute to 444, writing, “in my memories you will continue with beautiful plays.” Infelizmente hj dia começou triste e o 444 n resistiu. Mas entre nós você se mantém presente, através do amor e da saudade que deixou no coração daqueles que amavam você. E nas minhas memórias você continuará com belas jogadas, e na minha saudade estará eternamente presente! pic.twitter.com/RKKhYiDCJY — João Hugo “Aedrons” Carvalho (@Aedronss) February 6, 2021 On January 21, 444’s sister had shared progress of the money raised for him, largely from the South American Dota community. https://twitter.com/ClauSoussa/status/1352366900844621826 On February 6, she confirmed his passing: “He had a good chat with daddy and our grandmother. Now he rests.”

Dota 2 players team up to translate Valve’s bizarre emoji patch notes ValveValve baffled Dota 2 fans with patch notes for 7.34 written entirely in emojis, leading players to work together to sort out what’s actually changing. Plenty of game developers have tried to make patch notes more fun with little jokes and Easter eggs for fans to find. However, Valve took things several steps further by releasing the latest Dota 2 patch notes entirely in emojis. Ahead of update 7.34, fans have been looking forward to seeing what changes are coming to the long-running MOBA. However, while the patch notes technically do go over the adjustments to gameplay, heroes, and more, players have had to team up to figure out what all the colorful little symbols mean for the game. Fans are working together to make sense of Dota 2 update 7.34’s patch notes In a post on the official Dota 2 website titled “Emojis in the Dark,” a mysterious individual using the name “E.W.” claims to have broken into Valve’s office and stolen the patch notes only for their copy-paste to turn the words into emojis. From there, Dota 2 fans turned to Reddit to help one another make sense of the post. When the project became too big for organize there, players created a Google Doc that, as of the time of writing this article, is 80 pages long. It didn’t take too long for fans to figure out some patterns, such as a fire and chicken emoji next to each other representing the hero Phoenix. Others have been harder to decipher. For example, those on the Google Doc (which had to be set to no editing mode presumably due to trolls) seem to still be debating whether a turtle next to a water droplet means “slow resistance.” In all likelihood, Valve’s post was intended to tease fans ahead of the actual English-language release of Dota 2 update 7.34’s patch notes in the near future. Though some fans are frustrated by what is clearly an attempt to get some attention, many on Reddit seem to genuinely be having fun working with other Dota community members to translate the bizarre post. Valve is also not alone in entertaining fans with patch notes, as the latest Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix makes some changes to genitals that have players talking.

Dota 2 players split over patch released days before The International 2023 ValveThe annual Dota 2 showcase, The International, is set to begin in a few days, and Valve has released a pre-TI patch, leaving the community with mixed feelings. Here’s everything you need to know about the latest Dota 2 patch. Valve has released a sub-patch for Dota 2, 7.34d, with only eight days left before The International 2023 kicks off. While the patch does address some of the glaring issues with the meta, there are quite a few who are skeptical about the timing of the patch. TI is undoubtedly the biggest Dota 2 championship of the year, and releasing a patch merely days before the event leaves the participants in a weird spot. Nevertheless, the patch does seem like a blessing in disguise to save the community from watching repetitive drafts featuring the same heroes getting banned or picked. Let’s dive in and check out everything there is to know about the pre-TI patch. Valve releases Dota 2 patch eight days before TI12 Understanding and adapting the Dota 2 meta at the highest level can take quite a bit of time, even for pro players and coaches. Because of this, gameplay patches are usually released weeks before major tournaments. However, Valve has surprised the community with a sub-patch only eight days prior to TI12. Although the patch isn’t the biggest, there are still quite a few balancing changes that not only affect the meta overpowered heroes but also some of the ones that had fallen out of favor. Heroes like Phantom Assassin and Sven are notably weaker than they were in 7.34c, while heroes like Weaver, Luna, and Enigma are considerably stronger. To be precise, 53 heroes have been affected by changes in patch 7.34d, along with five items and three neutral items. All of these changes will definitely take some time for the teams to fully understand and execute at TI. With only days to go before TI, all the teams will be looking to explore the changes to gain a strategic edge at the tournament, adding another layer of interest before The International 12’s group stage begins.

Dota 2 players receiving absurdly long bans after latest ranked update Valve / YeezyReseller, RedditDota 2 players have been receiving absurdly long bans from the game, some even reaching up to two decades in length, since Valve‘s release of their latest ranked matchmaking update on September 17. As the 2019/20 ranked season descends on the popular MOBA, the developers have been hard at work trying to solve a number of community issues, including players being fed up with the growing number of smurf accounts, and server concerns. One particular change they made in their ranked matchmaking update this week was targeted directly at players buying and selling accounts, using exploits to cheat in-game, and generally exhibiting toxic behavior in the ranked queues. These changes have seen a host of players cop major bans over the past 24 hours, with some even extending as far into the future as January 2038, which is the maximum amount of time able to be inputted into the system by the game programmers. Not only are most of the bans extraordinarily lengthy, but they are user-based as well. If any banned player attempts to re-join games with a ‘smurf’, they will be denied based on their now-blacklisted phone numbers associated with their accounts. For many fans, Valve’s move to remove players with low behavior scorefrom the game has been much welcomed. Many have already praised the company for their decision, and laughed at those sharing their extensive bans across social media. “Got rekt toxic son,” one player said on a thread asking about the ban, while another expressed interest in seeing all the banned player’s and their grievances shared around: “I hope someone makes a compilation of the saltiest threads. Those are always fun to look at.” There are some toxic players that have already offered up responses to Valve’s massive bans, including revealing they would be learning guitar and other hobbies now that they couldn’t play Dota. One Reddit user even took the time to create a comedic video guide to ‘solve’ the ban. The player, Meepomon, discovered in the video they had been hit with the maximum sentence, and would be unable to play until at least January 19, 2038. The video then showed them sneakily changing their PC’s date to 2039, and loading up the game without the ban. As well as the banwaves that have come from the update, the developers also confirmed they would be taking a closer look at smurf accounts, and introduced ‘role report’ system for those that did not play their designated positions in the competitive queue. Overall, the September 17 patch has been well-received – one player even commented “Thank you Jesus” on the announcement post – and suggests Dota 2 will continue to be a key priority for Valve heading into 2020 and beyond.

Dota 2 players get engaged at Berlin Major 2023 8 years after meeting in online match Twitch: ESLA Dota 2 couple just got engaged during the Berlin Major 2023 event, eight years after meeting in an online match in Valve’s popular MOBA. The 2023 Berlin Major has just wrapped up, and it has heralded some important milestones. For one, this marks three back to back to back tournament wins for Gaimin Gladiators, now with two Major trophies in their case. And it is also just as important for one particular couple who had attended the upper bracket final match between Gaimin Gladiators and 9Pandas, as they just so happened to get engaged live during the tournament. During a break between maps, commentator Neal “Tsunami” Khandheria made his way into the crowd to talk to fans on how they felt about the match so far, only to stop and interview a certain lady. Tsunami asked her what the most important thing would be for her in the event, to which she replied “[Team] Liquid winning”. And we can see her partner kneel down next to her as she answers with a mic in hand. “We met eight years ago in a pub [public lobby] and we started feeding together, and I want to keep feeding with you for the rest of my life, do you want to marry me?” he asked in his proposal, to which she immediately said yes. The then-girlfriend, now fiance, revealed in the comments of a Reddit thread about the moment that she had no idea it was going to happen, and that her fiance planned it with Tsunami and ESL behind her back. “He told me there’d be a raffle between the game and you’d have the chance to be chosen in the outer seats (he talked to Tsunami while getting something to drink) so I had to stay [in] my chair between the games,” she said. Tsunami even chimed in, saying he was nervous as he did not have an exit strategy if she said no. “When he first suggested the idea I had to ask like 6 times ‘Are you 1000% sure she’ll say yes?’. And he was right” he said. However, unfortunately for the pair who were big Team Liquid fans, they would go on to see their team get beaten by Gaimin Gladiators for a third time this year in a Grand Final. But the bright side is now they are happily engaged and have years of feeding opportunities ahead.

Dota 2 player under fire for kicking out teammate twice just before Disneyland Paris Major ESL, BeyondtheSummitUp-and-coming Dota 2 player Nico ‘Gunnar’ Lopez looked set to compete in the game’s Disneyland Paris Major, but a fellow teammate may have squandered his chances – and a possible family trip. Gunnar was attending ESL One’s Mumbai event when he was asked about his travel plans for the Paris Major, which he had already qualified for. Despite this fact, Gunnar claimed that he wouldn’t be going – much to the incredulity of the tournament’s hosts. “I won’t,” Gunnar answered. “My family will. They’re going to the Major without me.” “Wait – let me get this straight,” one caster replied. “Your family bought tickets to go to Disneyland and watch you play? And now they’re gonna be there and you’re not?” Why won’t Gunnar be going to the Disneyland Paris Major? As it so happens, Gunnar had been a member of team ‘FlyingPenguins’ before getting reportedly booted from the org by teammate Jacky ‘EternaLEnVy’ Mao in favor of Eric ‘Ryoya’ Dong. Gunnar then joined team ‘TEAM TEAM,’ who later saw the addition of EternalEnvy after ‘FlyingPenguins’ disbanded, with the group going on to qualify for the Paris Major. After qualifying for the Major, EternalEnvy kicked Gunnar from ‘TEAM TEAM’ yet again – alongside player Jason Newsham. https://www.hotspawn.com/interview-with-dota-2s-nico-gunnar-lopez-of-team-team/Dota 2’s community reacts to Gunnar’s dismissal Analyst and Dota 2 pro Kyle Freedman called the situation “mind-boggling,” as stated in a heated segment during ESL One Mumbai. “It just feels like if his team isn’t succeeding, it’s anyone’s but his fault,” Kyle said of the debacle. “…I’ve read a lot of fictional books too, but the hero of a story, they demonstrate qualities like loyalty, and honor, and faith in their friends. And I think it’s about time that a lot of you at home stop rooting for the villain.” Freedman’s statement attracted ample attention within Dota 2’s competitive scene, with commenters across the space vehemently decrying EternalEnvy’s roster decisions and claiming that he’d managed such a scheme before, after swapping Khoo ‘Ohaiyo’ Chong Xin out for Saahil ‘Universe’ Arora on team FNATIC in 2018. TEAM TEAM’s roster change comes just ten days ahead of the Paris Major, in what Gunnar called a “personal” issue – stating that Envy “doesn’t like” him.

Dota 2 player Flow passes away after cancer battle DreamHack[jwplayer 6XbfP9ah] Russian Dota 2 player Alexander ‘Flow’ Sazonov has sadly passed away after losing his two-year battle with cancer. Flow, who was considered to be a standout performer by fans of the Dota 2 amateur ranks, was an offlane player that, throughout his career, represented organizations such as Vega Squadron and Double Dimension. In 2018, while representing Double Dimension, he took a hiatus from competitive play following his cancer diagnosis at the age of 23. Despite a period of health improvements, Flow passed away on Wednesday, September 30, two and a half years after his initial diagnosis. Flow’s passing was confirmed by organization B8 esports, who posted to Twitter to offer their condolences to his family and friends. Сегодня из жизни ушел Александр ‘Flow’ Сазонов. Он мужественно сражался с болезнью и до последнего сохранял веру в лучшее. Мы выражаем соболезнования семье и друзьям Александра. Покойся с миром. pic.twitter.com/rZLZsonui3 — B8 Esports (@B8esportsGG) September 30, 2020 According to Flow’s VK fan page, he had been feeling healthy until early August when, after undergoing some tests, he learned that the cancer had come back aggressively, and he proceeded to undergo chemotherapy, then developed stomatitis throughout his course. Based on the experiences he shared on VK, it appears as though his health deteriorated throughout the chemotherapy course and, despite feeling better at times, he unfortunately passed on September 30. In the announcement on VK, his passing was confirmed, and his resilience shared with his fans. “Sasha left us this morning. He did not give up and until the very end believed that he could defeat the disease.” The Dota 2 community has paid tribute to Flow, and compassion for his family’s loss, most notably from the CIS community who have lost one of their own. Flow’s passing is a sad reminder of how short life can be, and we offer our sincerest condolences to Flow’s family, friends and fans at this difficult time.

Dota 2 analyst Nahaz explains why haters can ‘shut up forever’ after Infamous’ TI9 run Dota 2 analyst Alan ‘Nahaz’ Bester has stated that haters of South American teams can “shut up forever,” after Infamous’ stellar run at The International 9. The showpiece event of the Dota 2 competitive calendar – The International – is quickly approaching a conclusion as the field has been thinned to contain the pre-event favorites after impressive showings from other qualifiers. One of the final fairy tale runs was being made by the majority-Peruvian team Infamous, who found themselves fighting through a stacked lower bracket. They were, unfortunately, sent packing but found plenty of praise for representing their long-memed region with performances that haven’t been seen before. Infamous caught the eye of everyone with their impressive International run. While analyzing the conclusion of the lower bracket match-up between Team Secret and Infamous, Nahaz took a few moments to address anyone who still has anything bad to say about South American Dota. “I’m going to apologize in advance, everybody that’s talking about how SA doesn’t deserve at these tournaments, questioning the talent level in that region, saying why do we have guaranteed SA slots at majors – you can all now shut up forever,” Nahaz stated. “This team was amazing at this event. I’m sorry, you’re done – SA haters, you’re done.” Nahaz wasn’t the only one with that message, however, as fellow analyst Kyle ‘melonzz’ Freedman agreed that the hate was “tiresome,” and that pros who are against automatic South American qualifiers are wrong. “It’s b.s,” he said. “These guys – they had composure, they had heart. They get beaten by the tournament favorites, sure, but they gotta be proud.” While Infamous may have caught the eye with their TI9 run, it remains to be seen if any South American team can match them moving forward – and if the annual post-TI shuffle will be kind to their current line-up. The debate and memes about SA Dota may continue moving forward, especially if this run ends up being a flash in the pan, but for now, players and fans can hold their heads high.

$300,000 Dota 2 minor to be played in a surprising location Valve / WePlay!WePlay! Have announced the dates and locations for the January Dota 2 minor that will take place before the subsequent major, as part of the Dota Pro Circuit. The location they’ve chosen is one that very few people expected. As the post-The International 9 roster shuffle is wrapping up, and the concurrent short offseason is coming to a close, more and more details about upcoming DPC events are coming out. WePlay! is an esports platform and tournament organizer that’s hosted events for League of Legends, CS:GO, World of Tanks, and Dota 2. They’ve hosted Dota 2 events for a few years now, and are now getting their first crack at hosting a DPC event. For the January 2020 minor, they’ve picked a unique and unexpected locale to host the $300,000 tournament: a mountaintop ski resort. Now it’s official! Please welcome: WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020, the second Minor of the season and the first Dota 2 Pro Circuit event by WePlay! Esports! Qualifiers: December 5-6, 2019 Main Stage: January 9-12, 2020Read more: https://t.co/ciaCwmZZ1q#Dota2 #WePlay pic.twitter.com/Oabj9uY9Ox — WePlay! Esports (@WePlayEsport) October 10, 2019 In January of next year, WePlay! will host the Bukovel Minor 2020 at the Bukovel ski resort in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine. Bukovel is the largest ski resort in Eastern Europe, with 540 acres of skiable area, and a lift system that can transport 30,000 passengers per hour. The tournament participants will be playing at high elevation, roughly 3000 feet (900 meters) above sea level. The minor will consist of eight teams from six regions: North and South America, CIS, Europe, China, and Southeast Asia. 660 DPC points will be on the line, as all minors will be, as well as $300,000 and a spot at the following January major. The details and location of that major have not been announced yet. But fans will not have to wait that long for Dota Pro Circuit action. In November, The Summit will host the DOTA Summit 11 minor, and Mars Dota 2 League will host the Chengdu major. While a small handful of top tier teams will be skipping the Chengdu major, the first DPC major will still feature a highly competitive field, as several organizations such as Alliance, Evil Geniuses, and Team Liquid will be debuting new lineups. The Bukovel minor qualifiers will begin in December, and like other minors and majors in the DPC system, the tournament will follow a double-elimination bracket format after a group stage. WePlay! released an official announcement on their website on October 10, which included a delightful Dota 2-themed parody of the holiday carol “Let it Snow.” WePlay! hosted the Reshuffle Madness event in September right after TI9, a tropical paradise-themed event that is drastically different from their upcoming mountain ski resort-held tournament. :partying: Congratulations to the champion of the #ReshuffleMadness 2019 – @natusvincere! :partying: There were 5 hard games, but you completely proved that you deserve this victory! See you on WePlay! Tug of War: Mad Moon GG WP Positive Guys!#Dota2 #WePlayDota2 pic.twitter.com/khrlbpNSmm — WePlay! Esports (@WePlayEsport) September 28, 2019 In the Reddit thread announcement of the Bukovel minor, WePlay! revealed there will “soon be more” Madness series events. In that thread, they also promised to continue producing tier 2 and tier 3 Dota 2 events and said they will announce open qualifier registration as soon as possible.

Gaimin Gladiators win Dota 2 Lima Major in dominant performance: Final results ValveSouth America’s first Dota 2 major has just wrapped up in Lima, with Gaimin Gladiators taking the trophy in a dominant performance against Team Liquid in the finals. Here is everything you need to know about the tournament, results, and final placements. Ever since Gaimin Gladiators Team Tickles at the start of 2022, their excellent performances in the 2022 Stockholm Major and 2022 TI forecasted a good future for the young team. And now the roster has lifted their first trophy in dominant fashion. They came into the 2023 Lima Major second place from the Western Europe division, losing out to Team Liquid. And they started off their Major campaign by topping their group in the Group Stage. They went through a flawless playoff bracket, dropping zero maps in the process. And in the process, smashed through rivaling WEU teams. Eventually winning 3-0 against Team Liquid in the Grand Finals. If you missed any of the action, we’ve got you covered with a full rundown on the results below. Contents Dota 2 Lima Major 2023: Placements Dota 2 Lima Major 2023: How to rewatch The Lima Major was streamed live on the EpulzeGaming Twitch and Youtube channel, which we have linked to a VOD below. Don’t worry in case you missed out on any of the games, you can always catch them later on YouTube VODs on the EpulzeGaming Youtube channel. Dota 2 Lima Major 2023: Schedule The Lima Major 2023 featured two parts, the group stage, followed by the playoffs. The group stage began on February 22 and ran until February 26. This stage featured 18 qualifying teams split into two groups at the end of which the top six teams from each of the groups made it into the playoffs. Similar to all DPC LAN events, the playoffs of the Lima Major featured a double-elimination bracket format with 12 teams battling it out for the championship. This stage began on February 28 and concluded with the grand finals on March 5, with Gaimin Gladiators taking the trophy against Team Liquid. Dota 2 Lima Major 2023: Results Lima Major 2023 (Playoffs): February 28-March 5 Day 1: February 28 Day 2: March 1 Day 3: March 2 Day 4: March 3 Day 5: March 4 Day 6: March 5 Lima Major 2023 (Group stage): February 22-26 Green = Qualified for playoffs’ upper bracket. Yellow = Qualified for lower bracket. Red = Eliminated. Group A Group B Day 1: February 22 Day 2: February 23 Day 3: February 24 Day 4: February 25 Day 5: February 26 Tiebreakers: The playoffs kicked off on February 28 with the 12 teams that qualify from the group stage. Dota 2 Lima Major 2023: Qualified Teams A total of 18 teams qualified for the group stage of the Lima Major. All of these teams made their way into the LAN event through their respective regional leagues. These 18 teams battled it out for a prize pool of $500,000 and a total of 1,900 DPC points. Having said that, here are all the teams that made their way into the Lima Major. So there you have it, that’s all the information available for the first Major of not only the 2022-23 DPC Season but also the first ever DPC Major to be held in South America.

Dota 2 legend Dendi hilariously steals All-star trophy from TI9 Chinese commentary team ValveIn partnership with Razer – take absolute control today Former champion and beloved fan-favorite player Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishutin left his own mark on this year’s Dota 2 International with a daring heist in the middle of the broadcast. The International doesn’t just deliver the best quality Dota 2 gameplay, it delivers the best quality comedy and meme potential in perhaps all of esports. Read more: How to watch The International 2019 – Already this year’s iteration of the tournament has delivered in spades, with the hilarious “American” Evil Geniuses skit, the antics of Kaci Aitchison and Jake ‘SirActionSlacks’ Kanner in the Shanghai crowd, Austin “Capitalist” Walsh drenching himself with his own water bottle during a hype moment, and much more. Even as the competition ramped up and new heroes were being announced, the fun and games didn’t stop. Following the surprisingly short All-Star game, Johan ‘pieliedie’ Åström took a bite of the MVP trophy, a big wedge of cheese. Following the match, the cheese made its way over to the Chinese commentary team, who were taking bites out of it to the delight of the home crowd. Little did they know that a plan was being concocted over on the English desk, and before they knew it, the heist was on: Dendi appeared out of nowhere to snag to the cheese, with a delirious Shanghai crowd cheering him on. Dairy product in hand, he weaved his way through the production setup like he was back in the jungle, and made his way back to an ecstatic English commentary desk, who led a chant of “Dendi, Dendi” to a thunderous ovation. The English commentary split the spoils of their misdeeds evenly, with each member taking a bite of the trophy as the crowd in the arena continued to cheer. Dendi is currently wanted for grand theft dairy. If you are in Mercedes-Benz Arena and you spot a beloved Ukrainian Dota player trying to hide a cheese wedge, please contact security immediately.

Dota 2 legend n0tail doesn’t rule out return to action The InternationalDota 2 icon Johan ‘n0tail’ Sundstein has benched himself from this year’s OG roster, but he doesn’t rule out a return to competitive play. If there’s one name every Dota 2 fan (or even avid esports fan) knows, it’s n0tail. The OG legend has stamped his name into the history books with back-to-back The International (TI) victories and four Major wins, marking himself as the most decorated player in the game’s esports history. He also holds the record for the most prize money won at over $7.1 million, according to Esports Earnings. Coming into 2022 off of the back of a disappointing TI10, where the squad placed seventh, n0tail has traded in competitive play for a supportive role, ultimately benching himself in order to mentor OG’s 2022 team. However, the bench may not be his home forever as the Danish icon has refused to rule out a return to action. n0tail discusses decision to bench himself Chatting to Dexerto about the team’s future, he noted that while he’s “super excited” to spend a year out of professional play and that “every day is a blessing,” he doesn’t rule out the possibility of a return to The Map. “I have my two puppies, I have so many other things going on that I’m very excited to take this year off,” he said. “They’re going to be more mature after a year and, depending on what things look like, I could always return to do whatever I want to do; whether it’s playing, coaching, or managing.” Confessing that “I’ve wanted to do this [take a year out] for a while,” he concluded that it is “playing out better that I hoped.” And yes, we did ask what type of puppies he has. “They’re mix,” he laughs. “The labrador shines through a bit, you can definitely see the lab in them, but they’re very mixed so it’s kind of hard to tell what all of it is.” So while nothing is set in stone, we may see the return of Dota’s king coming into 2023. Until then, though, he’s happy chilling with his furry friends in sunny Portugal (for a glimpse at OG’s bootcamp mansion be sure to check out n0tail’s Red Bull Unfold episode), compiling strats to help OG snatch the crown at TI 2021.

Dota 2 legend Dendi finally lands on a new roster Liquidpedia – R1CHLegendary Dota 2 midlaner and former International champion Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishuti has finally found a new roster to call home. This will be the first time in Dendi’s Dota 2 career that he’ll officially play for a team other than Natus Vincere. Ever since joining the Ukrainian organization back in 2010, he had become synonymous with the Na’Vi name in Dota. With Na’Vi, Dendi won The International in 2011 before placing second at The International 2012 and 2013. However, it was a not-so-pleasant ending to his storied career with Na’Vi. After failing to qualify for The International 2017 and 2018, Dendi’s time with the team came to an end. In September 2018, he was finally removed from the Na’Vi active roster, marking the end of an era for the Dota community. Now, after a few months of inactivity, he has a new roster and challenge ahead of him. The former International champion has joined Tigers, helping to complete the Malaysian-based organization’s roster. The team announced the move on Twitter, posting: “A long time rival to our players, now ally. Let’s welcome Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishutin as the 5th member to join the Tigers family today! Bringing the team to a full roster. Fans of Tigers, we want to share this experience with you. Meet the new members of Tigers Dota . #roartigers” A long time rival to our players, now ally. Let’s welcome Danil “”Dendi”” Ishutin as the 5th member to join the Tigers family today! Bringing the team to a full roster. Fans of Tigers, we want to share this experience with you. Meet the new members of @tigers_dota . #roartigers pic.twitter.com/w75zbAg7yZ — Tigers (@tigers_dota) January 22, 2019 Dendi joins the Mixed roster only two days after former Fnatic and Mineski midlaner Chai ‘Mushi’ Yee Fung linked up with the team. Moving forward, the Tigers roster now looks like: Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishuti – Sivatheeban ‘1437’ Sivanathapillai – Chai ‘Mushi’ Yee Fung – David ‘Moonmeander’ Tan – Kenny ‘Xepher’ Deo –

Dota 2’s 2019 Immortal Treasure III finally released ValveThe long-awaited Immortal Treasure III has finally been released for Dota 2’s The International Battle Pass 2019. The international is famed for its legendary prize pool, offering the largest prize in esports and consistently raising that bar each year. That prize pool is built by the player base, with money raised by players buying and levelling up the Battle Pass, which offers in-game events, challenges, and rewards, as well as the opportunity to contribute to one of the biggest events in esports. Among the most coveted of those rewards is the Immortal Treasure III, the top tier in a series of cosmetic items that is only released towards the end of the Battle Pass’s lifecycle. This year, Valve held back Immortal Treasure III longer than ever before – where previous years offered the Treasure after 70-73 days, this time around it wasn’t released until day 90. 600There are a total of 10 items on offer in this year’s Immortal Treasure III – six items of regular rarity, a Rare 50-level Battle Pass boost, one Very Rare item, one Ultra Rare item, and the Cosmically Rare Overgrown emblem. Immortal Treasure III 2019 Regular items Crucible of Rile – Head item with custom Berserker’s Call effect – Maraxiform’s Fate – Weapon and Summon with custom Strafe and Burning Army effects – Scythes of Sorrow – Weapon with custom Metamorphosis attack – Bloodmayne Avenger – Head item with custom Howl effect – Progenitor’s Bane – Weapon with custom Spear of Mars effect – First of the Flood – Back item with custom Guardian Sprint effect and sound – Bonus Rare Reward 50 Battle Pass Levels – Bonus Very Rare Reward Golden Crucible of Rile – Head item with custom Berserker’s Call effect – Bonus Ultra Rare Reward Sullen Rampart – Leg item with custom Ghost Shroud effect – Bonus Cosmically Rare Reward Overgrown Emblem – Global item with exclusive custom ambient hero effect – Players will receive Treasure III at Battle Pass levels 1, 140, 164, 178, 194, 206, 240, and then after every 30 levels beyond. A x3 bundle is rewarded at level 375, and a x4 bundle at 615. A look at the items in-game can be found on the Dota 2 site. The International’s status as the biggest prize in esports has long been a point of pride for the Dota 2 community, and this year it was challenged for the first time by the Fortnite World Cup, which offered a massive $30 million prize. Refusing to be outdone, Dota 2 players contributed more than ever before, resulting in the current pool already standing at $31,692,291 at the time of writing, over $6 million more than last year’s final figure. There’s still time for that number to grow, with The International 9 kicking off on August 15 and the prize pool not being finalized until it completes on August 25, and the release of Immortal Treasure III could push a last surge in contributions.

Where is Dota 2’s Immortal Treasure 3? Possible release date, timeline and more Dota 2 The InternationalPlayers have been waiting with bated breath for The Immortal Treasure 3 to be released in Dota 2. The Immortal Treasure 3 is an extremely coveted item in The International (TI) Battle Pass that normally takes some time to be released going by past years. Update, August 6, 10:14AM EST: Immortal Treasure 3 has finally been released, on August 6, on Day 90 as predicted. Read More: Dota Underlords update 213 patch notes – The Dota 2 Battle Pass is Valve’s way to increase the prize pool of The International, which is the game’s largest esports event. By offering limited time treasures and items within the Battle Pass, they can boost the prize pool and give something to fans at the same time. The International continuously provides the highest prize pool out of any esport event. In 2016, The International’s total prize pool reached $20,770,460. In 2017, it was $24,787,916. And last year, it was a whopping $25,532,177. So far, the only item revealed for Immortal Treasure 3 is Overgrown Emblem. On the Steam shop, five are currently for sale with the cheapest costing $1,059.26. Overgrown Emblem’s description reads, “Equippable by all heroes, the Overgrown Emblem imbues its chosen bearers with an exclusive emblem featuring the Aegis of Champions and custom ambient effect.” The fact people are willing to spend that kind of money should tell you how valuable these in-game items are. With so many days since the Battle Pass was released, fans are certainly hoping that the rest Immortal Treasure 3 is worth the wait.

Dota 2 icon Puppey’s perfect TI streak ends as Secret falls short in qualifiers ValveTeam Secret failed to qualify for The International 2023 after placing fourth in the Western Europe qualifier. For the first time ever, Clement ‘Puppey’ Ivanov will not compete in Dota 2’s biggest competition. Team Secret’s hopes of qualifying for TI 2023 were shattered on August 31 as they were defeated by Quest Esports in the lower bracket of the Western Europe qualifier. The defeat marks the end of Puppey’s record of playing in every TI event. He attended the first 11 editions of Dota 2’s showpiece tournament, winning the inaugural edition, held in 2011. On Twitter/X, the Estonian described 2023 as a “tough year”. After placing second at TI 2022, Secret suffered a heavy blow as Michał ‘Nisha’ Jankowski left for Team Liquid. The team struggled to hold down a place in the first division of DPC Western Europe and finished 11th–12th in DreamLeague Season 20 and 9th–12th at the Riyadh Masters. “Dota is an amazing game, but also very hard to compete in,” Puppey wrote. “Can’t win them all, you know? “I know I have lost the title of going to each TI, but maybe it was finally time to lose it. No regrets, life always changes. Peace.” Despite the setback, Puppey remains the player with the most TI appearances (11). He is followed by Shopify Rebellion’s Tal ‘Fly’ Aizik, who will compete in his tenth TI this year. The Estonian support also holds numerous other TI records, including most games played (254), most games won (146), and most grand final appearances (4). He is also the oldest player to compete at The International, having played in last year’s event at 32 years and 238 days old. Puppey has not yet announced what the future holds for him. Team Secret will start the 2024 DPC season in the second division after finishing dead last in the first division’s Tour 3. Puppey’s TI record: TI1 (NAVI): 1st place – TI2 (NAVI): 2nd place – TI3 (NAVI): 2nd place – TI4 (NAVI): 7th-8th place – TI5 (Secret): 7th-8th place – TI6 (Secret): 13th-16th place – TI7 (Secret): 9th-12th place – TI8 (Secret): 5th-6th place – TI9 (Secret): 4th place – TI10 (Secret): 3rd place – TI11 (Secret): 2nd place –

New Dota 2 hero Void Spirit announced at The International 9 – Video, Outlanders Update, more ValveIn partnership with Razer – take absolute control today Valve has announced another new hero and upcoming update for Dota 2 during The International 9 (TI9)- adding another member to the ‘spirit’ family. With The International being the showpiece event for the Dota 2 esports calendar, it’s also the perfect time for Valve to show off new content. At The International 8, fans in attendance were given keys for the long-awaited Artifact, while TI9 has already confirmed a new hero in the form of Snapfire. However, the developers haven’t finished their sweep of new content just yet, as another member of the Spirit family of heroes has been announced after years of theories and speculation. Right before the Team Liquid and Team Secret match-up, which Liquid swept to victory in, Valve used a break in the broadcast as an opportunity to show off their new trailer and swanky CGI effects. For the most part, the hero remained with their back turned to the camera – conjuring up portals and moving forward. Eventually, a figure was transported to the stage and, to the delight of the crowd, began warning ‘mortals’ about the upcoming “Great Confluence” before wielding a two-ended blade that appears to be their weapon of choice. What are Void Spirit’s abilities? Unlike Snapfire, not much was on show for Void Spirit’s potential abilities or hints at what type of character they will be in-game – leaving the watching audience to make up their ideas. However, considering that Earth Spirit, Ember Spirit, and Storm Spirit all have their own elemental Remnants and can transform into a ball for a unique movement ability. Yet, with Void Spirit conjuring up portals in a trailer, it remains to be seen as to what their Remnant and transportation ability will be. In even better news for eager Dota fans, both characters have been announced for DOTA Underlords – the popular mobile game. Just when they will grace the battlefield of either title, however, is still up in the air as no official date has been announced past the vague ‘Coming Fall 2019’ teaser.

Dota 2 hero tier list: Best meta picks in every position ValveIf you’re trying to figure out which Dota 2 heroes you should be playing right now in the current meta, we’ve got you covered with some great recommendations for every position in this tier list. Dota 2 is a complex game with many heroes — 124 to be exact. Not only do they have different skills from each other, but they can also be itemized in different ways, making them suitable for multiple roles in different scenarios. Additionally, new heroes are often added to the roster with major patches. Dota 2 is now playing on patch 7.35 and the Frostivus holiday event is underway until 11 January 2024. The latest game update, 7.35b, arrived on 21 December 2023, to bring some balance to the meta just before the holidays. Patch 7.35 has shaken things up a bit since ESL Kuala Lumpur, and a new meta is beginning to emerge for 2024. Naturally, that means it’s important for Dota 2 players to stay updated about the in-meta heroes, as well as what makes them stronger than the others. To make that process easier for you, we’ve come up with a tier list of the best Dota 2 heroes in the current meta to help you make your way through the steep Rank leaderboards. Additional reporting by Titas Khan and Eliana Bollati. Contents Dota 2 hero tier list: Best characters in each role – Best Dota 2 heroes to use in every position – Carry (Position 1) – Mid-Lane (Position 2) – Off-Lane (Position 3) – Soft Support (Position 4) – Hard Support (Position 5) – Dota 2 hero tier list: Best characters in each role Best Dota 2 heroes to use in every position With over 124 heroes to choose from in an ever-changing meta, drafting the best possible hero for your team can be a little confusing. However, the list of heroes given above will definitely help you in making smart choices during the drafting stage. Additionally, with the Valve cancelling the DPC after its 2023 season, things could look very different for the Dota 2 scene in 2024, but keeping up with the meta as it evolves through different regions and tournament circuits will be just as important to gaining MMR. Let’s dive in and check out what makes these heroes stand out from the rest of the pool right now. Carry (Position 1) Spectre Spectre continues her reign at the top of the ranks, maintaining her position as one of the most consistent carries this year. Be it her global presence from Haunt and Shadow Step or her insanely strong Spectral Dagger, it is nearly impossible for most heroes to escape Spectre on the battlefield. Additionally, Spectre’s Dispersion ability makes her extremely sustainable even against high-damage heroes. On top of all these, allows the hero to rapidly burst enemy heroes who are caught out of position. Considering all of these factors along with her current in-game win rate, Spectre can easily carry a team to victory in most scenarios. Lone Druid Lone Druid is making his way back into the meta as a very viable pick in the current patch, with over a 50% win rate in every lane. Back in patch 7.34 Lone Druid received a lot of skill reworks, most notably to his Spirit Bear, with stat improvements and its own Aghanim’s and Shards upgrades. On top of that, Spirit Link, Lone Druid’s ally-linking gives him the ability to provide a targeted ally with an attack and armor bonus, which can be a real boon when taking team fights. When used in tandem with True Form this can be absolutely devastating. Lone Druid is also able to go deep into enemy jungle and escape using Savage Roar, allowing space to escape an enemy’s gank. And if the game goes late, both Lone Druid and his bear have six item slots each — for a total of twelve items, that’s a lot of versatility. Juggernaut One of the trademark carry heroes in Dota 2 has returned to top form in the latest patch. Juggernaut is capable of snowballing games in your team’s favor from various unfavorable situations. Apart from dealing massive physical damage with his Blade Dance passive ability, Juggernaut’s Healing Ward can be an absolute game-changer in team fights. However, what makes Juggernaut so strong in the current meta is his Blade Fury and Omnislash. While Blade Fury grants magic immunity to the hero, Omnislash makes him disappear from the field of battle altogether. Nevertheless, both of these abilities deal a huge chunk of damage to enemies caught under its effect while ensuring protection for Juggernaut. Mid-Lane (Position 2) Zeus Zeus continues to be one of the strongest mid-lane heroes after the reworks and balancing changes in earlier updates, and in the current magic-focused meta, Zeus is extremely scary with his burst magic damage. Equipped with highly aggressive abilities like Arc Lightning and Lightning Bolt, he can deplete entire health pools of enemy heroes within a very short notice. Additionally, Thundergod’s Wrath is one of the strongest ultimate abilities in the game, dealing damage and revealing enemies across the entire map. On top of his aggressive tools, Zeus is now also equipped with the Heavenly Jump ability which allows him to escape from enemy heroes on his tail. Other than his basic abilities, Zeus’ Aghanim upgrades are also arguably the strongest in the game, gaining Nimbus and Static Field to accompany his already aggressive arsenal makes him extremely strong in the current meta. Viper Averaging a 53% win rate, the latest patch has brought Viper back to the mid lane. Although patch 7.35b has brought some debuffs, he still packs plenty of punch with Poison Attack, although its Aghanim’s Shard Max Stacks have decreased by one. Viper is one of Dota 2’s tanky, but to be sure to put a point into Corrosive Skin early, to help handle any manfights under the mid towers. He’ll also scale well into the mid-game as he’s capable of taking camps and farming jungle creeps with his Nethertoxin. Viper’s ultimate Viper Strike, now also applies break, so it will remove a targeted enemy hero’s passive abilities, good to dispel innate health regen against hero’s like Bristleback. Invoker Regardless of the meta, Invoker is almost always on top in mid. Carl is one of the most challenging but rewarding heroes to master in Dota 2 because unlike other heroes, he isn’t limited to four abilities. Instead, he wields ten — all of which can be activated by meshing various spell components together. Not only can he turn the tide of a team fight single-handedly by using Tornado, E.M.P, Chaos Meteor, and Defeaning Blast, but he can also solo kill enemies Cold Snap and Sun Strike while escaping with Ghost Walk. The options are endless. Off-Lane (Position 3) Abaddon Abaddon was one of Patch 7.35’s biggest winners, and although he saw a few nerfs with the latest balance patch, he is still one of the strongest heroes in the meta right now. The new item Khanda is enabling his Mist Coil to output massive amounts of damage. Plus his Aphotic Shield provides him great survivability in the laning stage before he gets his ultimate, Borrowed Time. While Curse of Avernus makes him a solid pick in the off-lane, applying slow and silence to enemies and making it easy for him to run them down. Axe 2023 has been a good year for Axe, despite having once lost his position as a notable off-laner except the iconic “CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB” moment, changes to his ultimate ability have brought him back to the limelight in the Dota 2 tier list. After the changes, Culling Blade now grants permanent bonus armor to the off-laner for each successful execution. Additionally, his Battle Hunger ability was also reworked to allow Axe to be played in a more aggressive manner. However, both Counter Helix and Berserker’s Call remain unchanged and can be used to set up plays and ganks on unsuspecting enemy heroes. Necrophos Necrophos is yet another hero who has managed to stay consistent all year, but the current magic buffs are certainly helping him stay at the top. The earlier reworks to his ultimate, Reaper Scythe, now grant permanent health and mana regen to Necrophos every time an enemy dies to his ultimate — so he can snowball very easily. Apart from that, the hero is a high-sustain hero, capable of healing his allies with Death Pulse. On top of these, Heartstopper Aura and Ghost Shroud are extremely effective team fight abilities that can swing the entire course of a match in your team’s favor. Soft Support (Position 4) Vengeful Spirit Vengeful Spirit’s win rate is sitting relatively consistent this patch at 53%. She’s always been a great initiator in the soft support role thanks to her kit — between Nether Swap and Wave of Terror she provides a lot of lock down. She’s also fantastic at enabling her team thanks to the buff from Vengeance Aura, while Magic Missile does provide her with a decent amount of harass through the early game. Solar Crest is also very useful for Venge this patch, providing more buffs for her to dole out to teammates. Warlock Most people have been sleeping on Warlock, but this magic-heavy meta is allowing him to rise to the top of the ranks. Fatal Bonds now shares damage between six enemy units up to 28% with a level 10 talent. Pairing this with Upheaval and Chaotic Offering means Warlock’s able to initiate on an entire team — setting up the fight right for his allies. While Shadow Word is the weakest tool in his kit, it does allow for some defensive plays along with Glimmer Cape and Force Staff, which should be standard items in his build. Weaver After a bit of a dip during the end of Patch 7.34’s run, Weaver has returned as a solid pick for soft support in the current meta. It’s all thanks to the level of utility offered by Shukuchi and the armor reduction along with the harassment potential of The Swarm and Geminate Attack. The Swarm can also reveal invisible units after purchasing the Aghanim’s Shard. This can save you the trouble of buying sentry wards and dust in various instances. Also, when in doubt, don’t hesitate to use his ultimate, Time Lapse, to rewind time and escape from the enemy’s traps. Hard Support (Position 5) Tiny The latest balance patch, 7.35b, was very kind to Tiny and players will be seeing a lot more of him in pubs because of it. The hero has seen buffs to his damage across all his skills. Avalanche and Toss both now cap out at 320 magical damage — great in the current meta. His innate slow resistance and armor from Grow makes him an excellent initiator. While Tree Grab is great for denying enemy creeps in the laning phase. Plus, when Tiny gets his Aghs he gets access to Tree Volley, which works similarly to Snapfire’s Ultimate, turning him into a ranged nuker before the team initiates. Jakiro The two-headed Dragon, Jakiro is a fairly versatile hard support, capable of ensuring a strong lane for their carry. The hero is equipped with various over-time nukes as well as slowing abilities that are extremely useful for setting up ganks. Apart from stunning enemies with Ice Path, Jakiro can also slow enemy heroes with the help of Dual Breath. Additionally, while Liquid Fire makes for a great tool that reduces the enemy’s attack speed, Macropyre is one of the strongest team fight abilities in the game. His Aghanim’s Shard, Liquid Frost, works perfectly in the current meta, providing a powerful debuff — enemies are slowed and dealt damage equal to 2% of their max health for the duration. Treant Protector Treant Protector has remained a strong pick as a hard support since TI12 due to the sheer brutality he offers in the laning phase. Leech Seed and Nature’s Grasp combined with his high right-click damage are the perfect harassing tools in the lane. What’s more, Living Armor provides a heal and armor to any targeted ally on the map, regardless of their position. It can also heal towers. Last but not least, his ultimate, Overgrowth, is a wonderful asset in team fights that pierces through spell immunity. That just about sums up our tier list of the best Dota 2 heroes in the current meta. There are many other candidates too. However, you can’t go wrong with the ones we’ve mentioned on this list — at least in most games. Nevertheless, it’s also important to remember that you’ll need to itemize these heroes on a case-by-case basis, too. Subsequently, you can access the best community item guides in-game by clicking on the shop and picking one on the drop-down list.

Dota 2 giants OG make change after TI 2023 heartbreak OG – Twitter/XOG have announced the signing of Ivan ‘MinD_ContRoL’ Ivanov from Nigma Galaxy on loan for the upcoming ESL Pro Tour DreamLeague Season 21. Ivan will replace Dmitry ‘DM’ Dorokhin as the offlaner on the team. One of the old guards of the professional Dota 2 scene and former TI champion, MinD_ContRoL, will join OG for the remainder of the season on loan. MinD_ContRoL will replace DM, who has been moved to the bench after the team failed to qualify for TI12 – the first time since 2015 that the organization won’t be at Dota 2’s biggest event. This won’t be Ivan’s first stint with OG, as he recently played as a stand-in for the roster at the ESL One Berlin Major. Although the team did not make it into the top four at the tournament, OG’s performance was significantly better, earning them their highest finish of the season at 5th-6th. That was also the only Major that the team qualified for during a rough season. MinD_ContRoL joins OG on loan for DreamLeague Season 21 After Nigma Galaxy’s poor run throughout the year resulted in an early end to the season, MinD_ContRoL will be looking to add another accolade to his name with OG at the upcoming DreamLeague Season 21. However, this move is expected to be a relatively short one, as it would be very unlikely for the Bulgarian to depart Nigma Galaxy. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that with MinD_ContRoL and Sebastien ‘Ceb’ Debs in positions three and four, respectively, OG can go a long way in the tournament. Additionally, DreamLeague Season 21 will be a chance for OG and MinD_ContRoL to alleviate the pain of missing out on TI12. While this will be OG’s first time missing TI, MinD_ContRoL has failed to qualify for the showcase for three years in a row, earning a runner-up medal when he was at the tournament last time, on Team Liquid. Many will be curious to see how the Nigma Galaxy offlaner performs with the rest of OG. After all, contrary to what Kuro ‘KuroKy’ Salehi Takhasomi said during the grand finals of TI9, MinD_ContRoL has to play with, and not like, Ceb.

Dota 2 giants LGD drop PSG partnership ahead of TI 2023 ValveChinese Dota 2 team LGD Gaming has announced that it is bringing an end to its partnership with French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain. The news comes only a month before The International 2023 kicks off in Seattle. In statements posted to X/Twitter and Weibo, LGD Gaming announced that the team will go back to its original name after a five-year joint effort. The reason for the termination of the partnership was not disclosed by either party. LGD entered into a partnership with Paris Saint-Germain in April 2018. During their time together, PSG.LGD cemented its status as one of the best Dota 2 squads in the world, finishing second at TI 2018 and 2021, and placing third at TI 2019. The team also won the WePlay AniMajor and Riyadh Masters 2022. “In five years, the name PSG.LGD left a mark in the history of Dota 2,” LGD wrote on Weibo. “We have won championships together but also experienced the heartache of coming so close. Today, our partnership with Paris Saint-Germain comes to an end.” PSG currently fields esports teams in League of Legends, Rocket League, FIFA, Brawl Stars, and Arena of Valor, all of which through partnerships like the one it had with LGD. In May, the French soccer club extended its League of Legends partnership with Talon Esports until 2026. That team will compete at the upcoming World Championship in South Korea. LGD Gaming is one of the 20 teams that qualified for The International 2023. The event will take place between October 12 and 29 in Seattle.

Dota 2 fans stunned by staggering ticket prices for The International 2023 ValveFollowing last year’s outcry over ticket prices, The International 2023 has once again left fans and the DOTA 2 community in disbelief with three-day passes priced at a staggering $699 plus fees. The International 2023, the premier event in the DOTA 2 calendar, has once again ignited a mix of reactions with the announcement of its ticket prices. Fans were left stunned as Valve revealed that three-day passes for the event would cost $699 plus fees, sparking a wave of disbelief and disappointment across social media platforms, particularly Reddit. Valve revealed the ticket prices on August 19, with tickets to go on sale on August 25. The event is scheduled to take place in Seattle, WA, and will now feature two phases: The Road to the International and The International. The three-day pass for The International 2023 at Climate Pledge Arena is priced at $699 plus fees, while individual tickets for The Road to the International Playoffs are priced at $99 plus fees per ticket. The community’s reaction to the ticket prices was immediate and intense, mirroring last year’s outcry. Reddit users were quick to voice their disbelief, with comments ranging from humorous to downright frustrated. “Told my wife it would be cheaper than Taylor Swift tickets… Looks like I’m going to Taylor Swift instead,” one user wrote. “$700 + fees?! That must be a typo,” another commented. Another Redditor suggested that Valve is trying to compensate for the changes in its revenue model, such as moving away from the Battle Pass system, “These prices are f***ing bonkers. It makes me think they’re trying to make up for some lost BP money with these 700 f***ing dollar tickets.” Others are simply disappointed, feeling that the prices are “wildly inflated” and more expensive than some of the top festivals in the country. As if the initial price tag wasn’t shocking enough, fans are now discovering that Ticketmaster’s additional fees are piling on the costs. A $151.45 service fee, a $16.50 facility charge, and a $5.55 order processing fee bring the total for a three-day pass to an eye-watering $880.08. Dota 2 fans were quick to express their outrage, with comments like, “For $150 I would need them to deliver the tickets to me, in Europe, dressed in a tuxedo, and then to cook me dinner.” Last year’s The International 2022 also faced criticism for its ticket pricing. Fans in the Southeast Asian region were hit with a sharp increase in ticket prices, with single-day tickets costing $63.74 and two-day Finals tickets priced at $360.73. The total cost of attending every day of the competition reached $615.70. The high prices were justified by some as a result of the event’s unique appeal and the potential need to compensate for the lack of a crowd in previous years. However, the impact on local fans and those in regions with less favorable exchange rates was undeniable. This year’s event will kick off on October 12 with the group stage, leading to the Finals Weekend scheduled for October 27-29. While the excitement for the event remains high, the steep cost of attendance has left many fans questioning their ability to participate in person.

Dota 2 fans enraged over “unreasonably expensive” Bali Major ticket prices IO EsportsSeveral Dota 2 fans have taken to social media and Reddit to express their anger over the price of the tickets for the Bali Major. IO Esports, the tournament organizer in charge of the Bali Major, confirmed on May 24 that there are only two ticket options for the three days of the tournament that will be played in front of a crowd. A standard pass is priced at $388 USD, while a premium pass, which offers access to “an exclusive afterparty”, costs $888 USD. There has been a backlash to the prices on social media and Reddit. Many have pointed out that the fact the tickets are priced in dollars means that the tournament is targeted at foreign tourists rather than local fans. The Bali Major will take place at the Ayana Estate, a luxurious five-star resort. Is the third and final Major of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit and will feature 18 of the world’s best teams, who will compete for $500,000 in prize money. According to Indonesian technology company Cermati, the minimum monthly wage in the province of Jakarta, the richest in the country, is 4.6 million Indonesian rupiah ($310 USD). When travel expenses, food and accommodation are also factored in, the total cost greatly exceeds what an average Indonesian can afford. Bali Major ticket prices anger Dota 2 fans Shortly after the tickets went on sale, a thread titled “Bali Major’s unreasonably expensive ticket tiers (and seat map)” was created on the official Dota 2 subreddit and quickly drew dozens of comments. “As an Indonesian, I f**king hate this,” one user replied, referencing the fact that the event doesn’t seem to have local fans in mind. Some users mentioned that fans will have to pay more to watch the Bali Major in person than they did for last year’s The International, the biggest event on the Dota circuit, in Singapore. Tickets for the event’s playoff stage were sold for $64 USD per day, totaling $256 for the entire phase. Watching the two-day Finals set fans back $361 USD. “Had a few friends that were interested in Bali Major as it is the closest to us in Australia but saw the ticket price and backed out,” a user wrote. “My friend went to TI in Singapore last year and his ticket was cheaper than this Major. Ridiculous.” Several users also mentioned how affordable tickets for the 2016 Manila Major were, with prices ranging from P50 ($0.90 USD) to P400 ($7.19 USD) per day. Tickets for the Bali Major quickly sold out, leaving many fans frustrated. Some reported being unable to complete their purchase and wondered whether tickets were being bought in bulk by scalpers. “Is it being scraped by a bot? It’s unavailable just four minutes after sales started,” one user wrote on Twitter. The Bali Major will be the final chance for teams to earn points toward the Dota Pro Circuit ranking, which is used to determine the teams attending The International. This year’s annual event will take place from October 10-29.

Dota 2: Evil Geniuses announce shock departure of legendary players ValveEvil Geniuses have announced a hugely surprising roster move for their Dota 2 team with the benching of Sumail ‘SumaiL’ Hassan and departure of Gustav ‘s4’ Magnusson. With The International 9 well and truly in the rearview mirror, the competitive Dota 2 community has been left on their edge of their seats waiting for the conclusion of the annual post-TI roster shuffle. We’ve already seen The International 2019’s cinderella story in INFAMOUS depart their organization, Virtus.Pro shake up their once-dominant roster, as well as Team Liquid’s legendary line-up leaving the North American organization in favor of a new project. Yet, they may have been all blown away by the significance of Evil Geniuses’ roster announcement. On September 16, EG announced that they would be benching one of the world’s best midlaners in SumaiL and were also open to transfer talks for the 20-year-old. The organization also confirmed that former OG player Gustav ‘s4’ Magnusson would be leaving the team altogether and be released into free agency. In their place, the organization announced that Abed ‘Abed’ Azel L. Yusop would take SumaiL’s roster spot while former Virtus.Pro star Roman ‘RAMZES666’ Kushnare would be replacing s4. While the team may have needed a shake-up following their 5th-6th placed showing at TI 9, not many fans or pundits would have expected them to take SumaiL out of the active roster. The 20-year-old, often referred to as King, helped propel the North American organization to The International 5 glory back in 2015. While iconic Dota players like Peter ‘ppd’ Dager and Saahil ‘UNiVeRsE’ Arora have left the team since, SumaiL has always been their cornerstone player. Just what the future holds for the Pakistani midlaner remains to be seen, but provided his asking price isn’t too high a number, it’s unlikely that he’ll be on the sidelines for very long. However, you can follow all the latest moves from the annual post-International roster shuffle with our dedicated and up-to-date live tracker. Evil Geniuses’ new Dota 2 roster will consist of: Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev – Abed ‘Abed’ Azel L. Yusop – Roman ‘RAMZES666’ Kushnarev – Andreas ‘Cr1t-‘ Nielsen – Tal ‘Fly’ Aizik –

Dota 2 Diretide 2022: Candyworks, new Arcana & more ValveDiretide is back in Dota 2 for the first time since 2020 and there are a bunch of new cosmetics and other treats to enjoy. Here’s everything you need to know about the frigid event in Dota 2. It’s been a while since the annual Battle Pass release in Dota 2, and Diretide was released on November 3 in the second part of the pass. Making its last appearance in 2020 to celebrate Halloween, this iteration of Diretide was released after the spooky season and features a wintery theme. With one exclusive Persona and one Arcana as the prime attractions of Diretide, it is safe to say that this is turning into one of the biggest in-game events in Dota 2’s history. Additionally, the recent Swag Bag release has caused thousands of players to return, hitting the game’s highest peak player count for the first time since February 2017. Having said that, here’s everything you need to know about Diretide in the game. Contents Dota 2 Diretide 2022 event duration Diretide 2022 kicked off in Dota 2 on November 3, 2022, and it will be available in the game until January 12, 2023. This means you’ll have just over two months to make the most of the event. The event is accompanied by a variety of treasures, mini-games, and much more for everyone to enjoy. Additionally, you won’t even have to purchase a second Battle Pass to enjoy Diretide as the event will continue with the ongoing pass from TI11. Those who chose to not purchase the Battle Pass initially were given a free one by Valve through the Swag Bag feature during TI11. In case you haven’t claimed yours yet, you can do so by playing 10 games of Dota 2 and accessing the Swag Bag. What is in the Dota 2 Swag Bag? The Swag Bag is a new feature for Dota 2 fans across the globe. This feature was seen for the first time as a part of the TI11 Battle Pass and could easily be considered a terrific method for Valve to bring back former players to the game. The Swag Bag provides you with three assorted gifts which you can claim as soon as you have a total of 10 matches played since the Battle Pass was released on September 1. Once you have played 10 matches, you will be able to collect all three of the rewards mentioned below: 1-month subscription to Dota Plus. – Free Level 1 Battle Pass (24 Battle Pass levels for those who already own the Battle Pass). – 1 free Arcana of your choice (you can only choose from the ones available in the Dota 2 Store). – While the Swag Bag has performed extremely well to bring former players back to the game with a free Arcana, it remains to be seen whether the monthly subscription to Dota Plus, a free Battle Pass, and Diretide will be enough to keep them around for more than 10 matches. Announcing The International 2022 Swag Bag for all active Dota customers — celebrate a joyous season of Dota by claiming your free Arcana, Battle Pass, and access to Dota Plus. https://t.co/XCjnadnXhp pic.twitter.com/TEQn94WKKb — DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) October 26, 2022 Dota 2 Diretide 2022 rewards Given that Diretide 2022 is a part of the annual Battle Pass, Valve has saved two iconic cosmetic bundles to be released with the in-game event. However, the only method for you to unlock these bundles is by upgrading your Battle Pass to the respective level of each bundle. Here’s the list of the Persona and Arcana that is scheduled to be released with Diretide 2022: Oldstorm Asylum (Razor Arcana) – Available at level 383 – Conduit of the Blue Heart (Crystal Maiden Persona) – Available at level 148 – Apart from these two, the Immortal Treasure II will also be released on November 3rd and it remains to be seen which heroes will receive new Immortal-tier cosmetics. Additionally, a lot of tiers on the Battle Pass will also unlock new chat-wheel voice lines, sprays, and loading screens with the release of the in-game event. Valve also made an announcement during The International 11 to confirm that everyone who reaches level 75 on their battle pass will receive a special Voice Pack featuring Cave Johnson from Portal 2. Leaks have also suggested that the developers could be working on a special terrain which might come as a surprise reveal along with the release of Diretide. On top of all these, Valve has also announced a custom mini-game from where you can collect Arcanas and other treasures. Keep reading to find out more about it. Unlike other years, the Battle Pass season does not end with TI this year. See you with Part 2 in just a few days. #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/KWI6L5mNzg — Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) October 30, 2022 Candyworks and Treasure Emporium With the release of Diretide, Valve has also introduced the Candyworks Treasure Emporium in Dota 2. This limited-period custom shop in the game will allow you to trade candies in exchange for exquisite cosmetics including the most coveted of Arcanas. The Candyworks Treasure Emporium features three random cosmetics at any given point in time. Having said that, you can opt for alternative cosmetics from the store either by trading items already available in the store or by using the re-roll feature – but you will only get a limited number of re-rolls every week, so make sure to use them wisely. On top of all these, Diretide has also presented a brand new Cavern Crawl map with three unique new styles for you to unlock for the existing bundles from the first half of the Battle Pass. With The International 11 concluding with Tundra Esports lifting the Aegis, it is now time for the community to enjoy Diretide in its full glory. So, there you have it, that’s all the information available for Diretide 2022 in Dota 2. If you’re looking for more news and tips for the game, check out our dedicated Dota 2 section.

Dota 2 devs explain why they’ll be turning off strict solo queues ValveStrict matchmaking is a setting that allows solo players to only queue into games against other solo players when play in ranked playlists. Players often choose to enable this kind of matchmaking to avoid loading into games with parties. In the game, parties receive bonus MMR to compensate for the coordination they receive from working together, with all skill and experience values aggregated together. This leads to many players wanting to just play with other solo-queued grinders, due to partied players sometimes having a different level of motivation to their solo teammates. Read more: C9’s Jack shares how TFT can be saved – Valve believe this choice-based separation of players entering into games alone or partied up has seen a spike in matchmaking times, as well as a reduction in the overall balance of skill in games, and are testing to see if the two are linked. “Over the next few weeks, we’ll be experimenting with toggling strict solo queue on and off, to see the impact it can have on match quality and matchmaking times,” the developers said in a post on the upcoming update. “The primary reason we initially added this feature was because there was a much larger discrepancy in motivation between players competing for solo MMR, and players competing for party MMR, resulting in a poor experience overall.” Valve has decided the discrepancy between motivation for solo and partied players is no longer as wide as it once was, and confirmed they would be taking a look at all options that create a “hard split” of matchmaking pools heading into the future. Read more: canceL experiences insane new cheat – There are plenty that have not welcomed Valve’s news, however, including Reddit user PippoPLZ, who voiced their concern in the announcement’s thread. “This sucks. I use strict solo queue because in most case when I’m solo q and are playing with other stacks they are not using in-game mics to communicate like at all. I will still test it out, but I’m afraid solo queue might just be dead for me and a lot of others going forward.” It remains to be seen if Valve’s choice will be a positive or negative one, with testing set to be undertaken in the next few weeks, but if the initial player outcry is anything to go off of, the removal of the much-used feature may not be looked upon kindly by the community. One group that will enjoy the change, however, is regular partied players. If matchmaking queues do rise, not many will complain about quicker queue times for the foreseeable future.

Dota 2 community mourns as beloved caster dies aged 26 YouTube: DotaBoyzThe Dota 2 esports community has been rocked by the tragic death of Chinese caster Mi ‘Yammers’ Hongwei at the age of 26. The community learned of Yammers’ death after he posted a suicide note on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. He gave a detailed account of the abuse he suffered for several years and revealed that he had been battling depression since his father’s death, in 2019. The news of his passing has left the Dota 2 community in shock. Yammers was regarded as one of the best Chinese casters in the scene, with an impressive résumé that included three The International appearances (2019, 2021 and 2022). At TI 9 and TI 11, he got his own chat wheel audio line: “再见了宝贝儿!”, which translates to “Goodbye, Baby!”. On the official Dota 2 subreddit, several users expressed sadness and heartbreak over Yammers’ death. Some even called on Valve and Perfect World to find a way to pay tribute to the former caster. The upcoming TI event in Seattle would be a good chance to do so after he was part of the official Chinese broadcast for the event’s previous three iterations. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, or know anyone that is, and you would like to talk to someone, please reach out and call the Suicide Prevention Helpline 1-800-273-8255 (USA) or the Samaritans 116-123 (UK).

Dota 2 community frustrated over lack of TI12 updates ValveThe International 12 is only days from kicking off, and the lack of updates surrounding the event has left the Dota 2 community frustrated. Here’s everything you need to know about the current situation. The International has always been the biggest event of the year for Dota 2. However, this year’s TI is facing a lot of turbulence, which has caused frustration and disappointment in the community. From the new structure of the Compendium to the lack of announcements regarding the broadcast talent, the schedules and match-ups, this year’s Dota 2 showcase seems a bit shabbier than previous iterations. Additionally, the release of a gameplay patch merely eight days prior to the event has left many questioning Valve’s choices. Although there have been announcements regarding the cosplay event at TI12, as well as the return of booths on the main stage, many other details remain unclear. Valve yet to reveal TI12 groups and broadcast talent The International 2023’s group stage is scheduled to begin on October 12. However, with only a week to go before the championship starts, there are plenty of things still shrouded in mystery, including the group pairings and match-ups. On top of all that, the make-up of the broadcast team, one of the most important aspects for viewers across the world, is yet to be revealed. All of this has caused quite a stir in the community, with plenty being frustrated about the situation. Considering the fact that this year marks the 10th anniversary of Dota 2’s global release, this seemingly lackluster effort for the grandest tournament that the game has to offer is quite disheartening for the community. Adding to the frustration is the fact that Valve will most likely not release ‘True Sight’ for TI 11, despite the success of the documentary series among the Dota 2 player base. Despite all the frustration and complaints from the community, we will have to wait in anticipation for Valve to make official announcements. With TI12 only days away from kicking off, these announcements should be coming any moment now.

Dota 2 community criticizes Bali Major after tournament was dogged by production issues IO EsportsThe Dota 2 community has been very critical of the Bali Major after the event was rocked by production problems, which followed co-organizers Epulze from the Lima Major. As the Bali Major 2023 wrapped up last weekend, it crowned Gaimin Gladiators as just the second three-time consecutive Major winners. Melchior ‘Seleri’ Hillenkamp’s team continues its LAN winning streak ahead of The International 2023, taking its prize money earnings since the start of the year to just under $1.3 million. However, the Bali Major may be less remembered for Gaimin Gladiator’s incredible achievement and more for the troublesome production problems that occurred throughout the event. Problems arose before the event started, as some fans felt the ticket prices for the first Major in Indonesia were “unreasonably expensive”, with the standard tickets costing $388 USD, more than the average monthly wage in Indonesia. During the latter stages of the event – the only ones where fans could watch the matches in person – spectators found themselves sitting at an outdoor stage rather than an indoor one. On paper, it’s a nice setting with Bali’s sunny weather; in practice, the sun covers up the stage screen, making it hard for fans to enjoy the games. A Reddit post on the Dota 2 subreddit showed such an example, highlighting half of the stage screen covered by sunlight, with only the shadowed parts of the screen visible. Sitting out in the hot sun, especially in a tropical climate like Bali, can also get quite uncomfortable. This has led to many fans bringing along umbrellas to cover themselves from the sunlight. These problems followed the tournament’s co-organizers, Epulze, from the previous Major it hosted earlier this year, the Lima Major, which faced its own production problems. The Lima Major started with a plethora of delays and tech pauses. During one of the games, a technical pause was called as a player booth was falling apart. Many are already comparing both Majors to the disastrous 2016 Shanghai Major, where players had their personal belongings stolen from their hotels, and even Gabe Newell publicly fired hosts and the production company in charge of the event.

Dota 2 casters threaten to boycott upcoming Major amidst Kuku controversy A whole host of top Dota 2 casters and analysts are threatening to boycott the upcoming Chongqing Major if Carlo ‘Kuku’ Palad is unable to attend. Kuku, a Filipino professional player for TNC Predator, made derogatory comments towards Chinese people during a public game in November, causing outrage in the region. His comments caused widespread offence – leading to the local government being called upon to ban him and Chinese teams stopping practices with Kuku’s squad. However, the 21-year-old has not been banned by Valve or tournament organisers Starladder and ImbaTV, but the event has reportedly been threatened with cancellation, by the government, if he attends. This has sparked protests from casters and analysts – many of who have called upon Valve to intervene. Grant ‘GrandGranT’ Harris, Henrik ‘AdmiralBulldog’ Aknberg and David ‘GoDz’ Parker have publicly stated, via Twitter, that they will boycott the event if the player is unable to attend the event. “If kuku isn’t allowed to play at the major I refuse to cast officially for the major, we all make mistakes and 1 mistake should not forbid you from playing at a tournament that potentially decides your whole career,” tweeted GrandGranT. In a set of tweets on Sunday, TNC Predator said they would be exploring their option after being told that Kuku might not be able to enter the country. The team also added that the player’s safety could not be guaranteed in Chongqing and that there is a possibility the tournament could be cancelled if he attends. However, they added that they had spoken to the tournament organisers and had been informed that neither the team or Kuku had been banned from attending. After talking to the organizers of the Chongqing Major, it was confirmed to us that the following may happen if Kuku will attend the Major: 1. He might not be able to enter the country 2. The city government will possibly cancel the tournament should he attend— TNC Predator (@TNCPredator) December 2, 2018 The Major doesn’t take place until January 19 but there are bigger ramifications for Kuku if he was to receive a ban from China. Dota’s The International 9 is being held in Shanghai, China – meaning any ban would see him possibly unable to attend Valve’s showcase tournament. If the event in Chongqing is cancelled because Kuku attends, calls for Valve to lay down a ruling – one way or the other – will likely only intensify.

Dota 2 caster has unfortunate slip-up with team name at DreamLeague S13 ESL / WePlay!The inevitable has happened — Dota 2 caster Austin ‘Capitalist’ Walsh had a massive slip-up with Team Nigma’s name at the DreamLeague Season 13 Major, instead saying the n-word live on broadcast. When Kuro ‘KuroKy’ Salehi Takhasomi announced that the former Team Liquid roster would be playing under their own Team Nigma banner, there was cause for concern about the team’s name. Its startling resemblance to the n-word led to a variety of memes being spawned, and high stakes for the casters to not slip-up. While there’s been a few close calls, at the DreamLeague Season 13 Major, a big one was unfortunately slipped by Capitalist as he was looking over the bracket. “Evil Geniuses looking a little weak in the groups, and so was Vici Gaming, but both of them managed to triumph in this upper bracket,” he said. “Moving forward, with EG taking down Team [Nigma], it’s like a huge win.” The caster immediately corrected himself after the slip-up, but it did bring out a nervous cough from his co-caster on the desk out of shot. It also wasn’t done with any malice, but that didn’t stop the community from embracing the memes. Twitch chat exploded into a flurry of TriHard and KEKW emotes as the obvious mistake didn’t get past the community’s ears. It also hit the front page of /r/livestreamfail on Reddit, with many pundits saying it was only a matter of time. “The inevitable finally happened,” mentioned user ‘Omniwar,’ while others have joked it’s all just a conspiracy from Kuroky to try and get casters tongue-tied. “With Kuro’s team name, this slip up was bound to happen at some point,” said ‘RoyalStraightFlush’. “I’m inclined to believe this is some sick trolly game by Kuroky.” Comment byu/uulnee0908 from discussion inLivestreamFail Team Nigma lost earlier in the day to Evil Geniuses in a tight 2-1 set, being knocked down to the lower bracket of the major to face off against Peruvian team Beastcoast. If they make it through the South American squad, they’ll face off against the winner of Invictus Gaming and Aster. It’s unlikely Capitalist will be reprimanded for the unintended misspeak, but he will definitely be watching himself to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Dota 2 caster Capitalist’s hilarious reaction to insane TI9 play instantly goes viral ValveDota 2 caster Austin ‘Capitalist’ Walsh had a hilarious reaction to an insane comeback in the Team Secret vs Mineski match at The International 2019. The biggest event in Dota 2, TI9, is currently underway, and just like every year at The International events, it brings some of the best Dota matches ever. Veteran caster Capitalist was lucky enough to be casting arguably the best match of the tournament so far, as Team Secret and Mineski played an incredibly close back and forth series, resulting in the caster’s hilarious reaction. Team Secret were on the cusp of making a near-impossible comeback after being down over 18,000 gold, all they had to do was destroy the enemy ancient in a 5v3 situation and they would secure one of the best comebacks of all time. Mineski weren’t done quite yet, however, and managed to make an insane defense, securing themselves the game and tying up the series 1-1. This was then Austin went absolutely wild at the commentator’s desk, he could barely contain his excitement, as he lept out of his seat and began jumping around while commentating, shaking a water bottle and spilling water all over himself. Capitalist’s excitement was highlighted by the host panel shortly after the game, who all found his reaction incredibly amusing, and immediately spread around the Dota 2 community. TI9 is set to continue at 10:40 PM ET on August 22 with three lower bracket matches, and the American commentator will likely be back again. If the games live up to expectations, fans may be treated to not only incredible Dota 2 but another hilarious Capitalist reaction.

Dota 2 bug causes players to be hit with 20 year matchmaking bans Dotabuff / RedditMultiple Dota 2 players are reporting that a bug is causing them to they receive matchmaking bans until the year 2038. The Dota gods can be quite mean to their players, but a recent bug that’s been experienced by players playing ranked Dota is especially cruel. Multiple players posted screenshots and texts to the Dota 2 subreddit showcasing their unexpected matchmaking bans, expressing dismay at how long the ban lasts for. Many of the users gave testimony of their non-toxic behavior and even provided proof by linking their DotaBuff profiles to prove their innocence. Some claimed that the near 20-year ban came after the game unexpectedly crashed, while others say it happened right after a normal ranked match. In the comments of these posts, more users reported that they too had received the same ban at the same length with zero explanation as to why they are banned. The screenshots show that the only vague reasoning provided is due to “excessive reports, failing to ready-up or abandoning.” This length of ban has been seen in Dota before, but it has been exclusively used in the recent past to try and combat smurfing, boosting, and toxicity. The players who are reporting these lengthy bans now are allegedly playing on their main accounts and demonstrating high community scores. The original DOTA mod came from the Warcraft III game in 2003, so these bans would last longer than the history of DOTA itself. By the time these bans run out, TI27 will have just finished a few months prior, which will hopefully be the first International to be held in outer space. Valve has been under pressure from Dota 2 fans recently in regards to banning, and they addressed the issue in September with a ranked matchmaking update that introduced the lengthy bans. In that update Valve issued ban waves to those falling under several categories: players with excessively low behavior scores, users buying accounts to play lower or higher ranks, players using exploits or cheats, and smurf accounts. Many players are still calling for Valve to take additional measures. There has been no response or statement from Valve on this latest ban bug, and it’s unclear for how long these seemingly misdiagnosed indefinite bans will last.

Dota 2 player’s misclick at TI9 potentially cost his team millions ValveDuring an elimination best-of-one match during the Dota 2 International, the player perspective caught the moment where a team (and their opponents) realized their mistake. Making a mistake is one thing, but doing so in front of a huge crowd of people is another. What’s worse is when that mistake affects the one game you need to win to stay in a tournament with over $30 million on the line. In the first lower bracket matchup of the main event of this year’s Dota 2 International, Royal Never Give Up took on Alliance in a best-of-one match for survival. Win one game and you’re on to the next round, and no more best-of-ones. Lose this one, and you’re out. Read more: How to watch The International 2019 – Unfortunately for Alliance, their first mistake came during the draft. As their reserve timer ran out they sought to ban Gyrocopter, but ended up picking him for themselves. The good news is that picking a hero is indeed one way to prevent the other team from using it, but the bad news is that Gyrocopter was not who Alliance wanted to round out their team. At first glance, no one on commentary seemed to notice that this was a blunder. They regarded it as an unusual pick that even might have gotten into RNG’s head, noticing one RNG player who put his hands up to his head. But if you watch the clip from the player’s perspective, you’ll see that that’s not the case at all… Yeah. So that happened. Aydin ‘iNSaNiA’ Sarkoh made the pick, and very quickly recognized that he had not banned Gyrocopter, but had instead picked it for his own team. To make matters worse, RNG immediately realized that Alliance had made a mistake, declaring “they’re goners now.” Despite the mispick, Alliance kept their cool, assuring their captain that Gyrocopter wasn’t that bad of a pick, and they could make the hero work with their team composition. “Then it’s fine, we’re good,” says one of his teammates immediately after the pick. Now, Alliance would go on to lose this game, but they were by no means “goners.” They played a close back-and-forth game against RNG and maintained a lead throughout most of it, but a devastating teamfight loss after 40 minutes brought four of their five players down, allowing RNG to push through tier 4 towers to prompt a GG call from Alliance. Despite the loss and the unfortunate mistake that preempted it, Alliance had a very strong showing during TI9, and many members of the community wish for the team to stay together going forward. And half a million dollars and a vacation in China is nothing to sneeze at for consolation.

Dota 2: August 6 matchmaking update patch notes – ranked roles and MMR changes Wykrhm Reddy / ValveA new update for Valve’s Dota 2 has been released. This patch focuses on the in-game competitive matchmaking, adding ranked roles to ranked matches and overhauling the MMR system. Dota 2 has been hit with multiple balance updates recently as the biggest tournament of the year, The International 2019 is just around the corner. However, on August 6 the game received an unexpected matchmaking update. This update is set to be one of many as Valve aim to revitalize the matchmaking system over the next year in an attempt to make the ranked game mode more enjoyable and accessible for the player base. Solo and Party MMR has been replaced with Core and Support MMR The biggest change of this patch is a complete restructure of the matchmaking system. Players will no longer have their MMR based on solo or party matches, but on the roles they choose to play. Playing as core heroes will affect core MMR, whole playing support heroes will affect support MMR. This change was added by Valve as they believe that the solo and party MMR system didn’t give players any incentives to play with a party, as solo MMR was generally more respected. Ranked roles added to ranked matches To support the new MMR system, ranked roles have been added to ranked matches. This means players can now choose roles they wish to play and will be paired with others to make a balanced team. Read More: Dota Underlords streamer reaches 10k MMR – Soft Support and Hard Support can be chosen for players aiming to raise support MMR, while Off Lane, Safe Lane, and Mid Lane are offered for core MMR. Valve have stated that these changes are experimental and will heavily rely on community feedback, which will be collected sometime after The International. Additionally, they are working on another patch that is set to come out soon, which will focus on bug fixes and quality of life additions. Full patch notes for Dota 2’s matchmaking update: A comprehensive matchmaking system is an important factor in being able to enjoy playing Dota, regardless of which hero or role you prefer. Today’s update includes some engineering changes to the core matchmaking system to allow for bigger changes and better analytical capabilities. Over the next year, we’ll be spending more time focusing on various aspects of matchmaking such as intra-team balance, player conduct, new player experience, abusive behaviors, account buying, friend and teamplay aspects, high mmr matchmaking dynamics, and other issues in an effort to make the overall experience of playing Dota more fun for players of all levels. In this blog post we decided to drill deeper into the changes in today’s update and explain our thoughts. Matchmaking involves various tradeoffs and our goal is to find the best balance between all the different factors. In order to help make progress on finding the right set of tradeoffs, today’s update includes a couple different experimental changes that will last until the end of the season. Close to the end of the season we’ll do a direct call for feedback on how the changes have worked out and use that feedback, along with data we are gathering in the meantime, to help inform the direction for the next season. We’ll also be working towards other features, such as better detection of smurfing and other abusive behaviors as the year progresses. The first of these experiments is removing the concept of separate Solo and Party MMRs. We expect this to be the most controversial component in today’s update, as we’ve heard fair criticisms of it in the past. We can’t say that we are fully confident that this will end up being a good change either, so we’ll want to wait until the end of the season when we gather feedback and data on how it has played out after players have had a chance to absorb it. There are two major aspects with this change: 1) the teamplay and social aspect and 2) the value and correctness of the MMR value. For the teamplay aspect: We think it is really crucial for you to not have a disincentive to play with your friends. The game currently overly emphasizes playing solo and establishes a strong social reward mechanism for this, which causes many players to prefer playing alone than with friends. We believe that bias has over time caused more negativity and unhappiness when playing Dota. Furthermore, Dota is a very teamplay heavy game and we want to consider that aspect a bit more strongly in the hierarchy of matchmaking values. We’ve considered other approaches to the friend and teamplay incentives, but they tended to do a poor job at making it feel actually rewarding to play with friends and only papered over the issue. For the correctness of the MMR aspect: We recognize that there is a tradeoff here on the mmr data quality if the match has solo mmr numbers with party mmr numbers, however we feel that the impact of that data noise is much smaller than even we initially considered it to be early on and generally with how it is discussed online. Most of the issues related to this we think we can solve with better algorithms. Another common case is playing with a friend who has a higher mmr than you, expecting that it will cause your mmr to go higher. While that has been at least partly true in previous matchmaking system iterations, our most recent version does a fairly good job of addressing this. We have enough data to form matches that cause you to have an even chance to win by carefully choosing the opponents that have a similar makeup. At a base level, we think mathematically we are able to have high confidence that playing with a friend will not have a material effect on your average mmr value with a properly balanced matchmaker. We’ve done some testing to make sure this is true in advance of this update, however we know it’s likely there is more work to be done here and we’ll continue working on this aspect in the background during this experimental period. Through our investigation into the topic of matchmaking volatility and how parties affect the game, we’ve noticed something that fans likely already know: players have very different comfort levels when playing core roles versus support roles. Some players perform really poorly when they play a role they are not used to, and in turn introduce a lot of volatility in the system for everyone by causing your MMR number to drift away from your actual skill level as well as causing imbalanced games. So because of that, and because of our abiding love of having multiple MMR numbers, we are adding a new concept of Core and Support MMR numbers. In order to achieve this, we need to know what role you want to play in advance of the match being formed. So for this experimental update, we are moving the Ranked Roles feature to the base Ranked matchmaking and expanding on its capabilities. Now when you matchmake, you will have the option of selecting roles from position 1 through 5 (Safe Lane Core through Hard Support), including multiple selections. So if you like playing Mid or Offlane, you can select those two, or if you like playing Hard Support and Mid, you’ll be able to do that as well. You will be matched based on either your Core or Support MMR. Each MMR type will also have its own leaderboard, and for the purposes of this short experimental period the existing rank will be applied as the initial rank for both Core and Support. If we end up keeping this feature in the future, there will be a separate calibration phase for each one. These experimental changes will remain active for the rest of this season for you to try out. Sometime after The International concludes, we’ll issue a call for community feedback to help guide the next steps in our efforts to increase matchmaking quality for everyone. We hope to have your support and patience through this experiment as well as subsequent changes towards the path of making a better overall matchmaking system. While we were initially going to release this change as part of the Summer Scrub update, the amount of significant underlying code changes required for this update introduces a lot of potential instability. So we are splitting the Summer Scrub update into two parts, this first part for a matchmaking rework, and the second part soon after for bug fixes and a few quality of life additions. We are expecting that we’ll have a lot of matchmaking related bugs to work through today, so please let us know if you run into any issues and make sure to include the matchid in your reports.

Dota 2: Arteezy demolishes Vici Gaming with insane 1v5 at TI9 L: Arteezy Twitter & EG / R: ValveEvil Geniuses player Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev absolutely destroyed Vici Gaming with a crazy 1v5 on Lifestealer. Arteezy is a veteran Dota 2 player, who boasts a very decorated career, winning countless events since he began playing professionally in 2013 and representing top teams like Evil Geniuses and Team Secret. He’s taking on The International 2019 with Evil Geniuses, and in a tough series, managed to secure a win against Vici Gaming on August 16 thanks to an incredible 1v5. EG were ahead after a strong early game against Vici but were struggling to close out the game as the Chinese team was displaying a defensive masterclass in an attempt to grind out a comeback. After 32 minutes, Vici had finally found the perfect opportunity to regain footing in the game, catching multiple EG members off guard and almost winning a fight, as they brought it down to a 1v5 against a low health Arteezy. With his back against the wall and nowhere to run Arteezy had to fight against the entire team, and it went better than he could have expected. A few quick auto attacks allowed him to finish off the low hp Tusk and Sven, before using Rage to become magic immune, allowing him to continue to chew through the team, all while healing up with every auto-attack. The Centaur Warrunner was his next target and he went down quickly thanks to a timely bash. From there it was easy pickings, as only a low health Medusa and a support Warlock remained. Just a handful of auto attacks finished off the retreating Medusa, and Arteezy moved onto his final target, who began to teleport away. One more Basher stun canceled the teleport, securing the Canadian his rampage. Arteezy completely stopped any chance of a Vici comeback and EG were able to close out the game not long after, and find themselves in the top four of their group heading into the final day of the TI9 group stage.

Dota: Dragon’s Blood Netflix trailer, plot & Season 3 release date NetflixThe highly-anticipated Netflix anime series based on Dota 2 called Dragon’s Blood is returning for a third season, and we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about it. Following news of several Netflix series based on games like Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil, and Devil May Cry, it was announced back in February 2021 that Netflix would also be getting an animated series based on Valve’s wildly popular franchise Dota. Dota 2 is a MOBA game that was originally released back in 2013, and has gone on to become one of the largest games in the world; tens of millions of viewers tune in to watch The International championship each year. The new Netflix series has been made in collaboration with Valve, while the animation has been handled by Studio MIR, a South Korean studio that previously worked on The Legend of Korra, The Boondocks, and Voltron: Legendary Defender. We’ve gathered all the information you need to know about Dota: Dragon’s Blood season three below, from trailers and plot details to a release date. Dota: Dragon’s Blood Book 3 release date The third season of Dota: Dragon’s Blood will arrive on Netflix on Thursday, August 11, 2022. Fans who are eager to see if the new anime series will do Dota justice or just wish to recap what’s happened so far can tune in to the first two seasons, which are available to stream now. Dota: Dragon’s Blood Book 3 trailer While the first two seasons of Dota: Dragon’s Blood are already on Netflix, you might want to watch the trailer for the third season to see what’s coming in the final iteration of the series. The official trailer below shows off the gorgeous anime-inspired art style featured in Dota: Dragon’s Blood, as well as some epic dragon-slaying action and a preview of Davion, Invoker, Terrorblade, and Mirana’s storylines. Dota: Dragon’s Blood plot Dragon’s Blood tells the story of Davion, a renowned Dragon Knight devoted to wiping the Scourge from the face of the world. After encountering a powerful and ancient eldwurm, Davion becomes tangled up in events far bigger than he could have ever imagined. It’s not just Davion that Dota fans can look forward to, as the series also heavily features Mirana, Terrorblade, Lina, Luna, and even Invoker. All of these characters are on secret missions of their own that will have a big impact on the Dragon Knight as well as Slyrak’s story. Titled as the the Beginning of the End, it is safe to say that all the mysteries looming about Terrorblade, Davion, Slyrak, Mirana, and the Invoker will be resolved in the final Book 3 of the series. Considering the first and second season only features eight episodes each, we can assume that Robert’s third season of Dota: Dragon’s Blood on Netflix will also feature eight episodes. “Fans will love how we’ve imagined the Dota 2 universe and woven together an epic, emotional, and adult-oriented story about some of their favorite characters,” said Ashley Edward Miller, who serves as showrunner and producer. “The cinematic animation, acting, and music are simply next level and I’m grateful to Valve for supporting our creative ambitions.” So there you have it, that’s all you need to know about Dota: Dragon’s Blood Book 3. We’ll update this page as soon as more information becomes available on the third season of Dota: Dragon’s Blood.

Dota 2 7.21b update makes major changes to heroes – Patch notes Valve has officially released the 7.21b update for Dota 2, which sees some major changes being made to key heroes – with both buffs and nerfs. The 7.21b update was released on February 16 and follows the initial 7.21 patch which introduced a new ranked play season to the game, changing the way players achieved their rank. The 7.21 update was released on January 30, less than three weeks prior to the 7.21b path – marking a extremely reduced time period in which Valve has released patches compared to those previous to the series of 7.21 updates. Where the 7.21 patch made changes to the ranking system and did bring plenty of hero changes, the biggest changes made in the 7.21b patch focuses solely on a number of key heroes who have become a key part of the game’s meta. Heroes such as Bane, Crystal Maiden, IO, and Sven have received some of the biggest changes. Bane’s strength gain and agility gain have been boosted from 2.4 to 2.6 while the Intelligence gain was reduced from 2.8 to 2.6. Crystal Maiden’s Freezing Field armor has received a significant boost, doubling it’s points from 10 to 20. However, it’s IO which has undergone the biggest overhaul. Changes have been to the character’s Tether, Spirits, Overcharge, Relocate and Talent tree. Dota 2’s 7.21b patch is now live, and you can read the full patch notes below. General * XP earned when being denied increased from 25% to 30% Items * Hand of Midas: Gold bonus reduced from 200 to 180 Heroes * Anti-Mage: Base agility increased by 2 * Bane: Strength Gain increased from 2.4 to 2.6, Agility Gain increased from 2.4 to 2.6, Intelligence gain reduced from 2.8 to 2.6 * Chaos Knight: Chaos Strike lifesteal rescaled from 40/50/60/70% to 25/40/55/70% * Crystal Maiden: Freezing Field armor increased from 10 to 20 * Dark Seer: Base armor reduced by 2, Agility gain increased from 1.2 to 1.8 * Grimstroke: Ink Swell stun duration reduced from 1.4/2.2/3.0/3.8 to 1.0/1.9/2.8/3.7 * Grimstroke: Soulbind slow reduced from 15/30/45% to 10/20/30% * IO: Tether no longer makes you unslowable * IO: Spirits no longer has a toggle cooldown * IO: Spirits min range increased from 100 to 200 * IO: Spirits rotation interval from every 2.4 seconds to 2.7 * IO: Spirits no longer does a micro animation interruption when initially casting (already has zero cast point) * IO: Overcharge damage reduction reduced from 15/20/25/30% to 5/10/15/20% * IO: Relocate mana cost increased from 100 to 175 * IO: Level 15 Talent changed from Tether Grants Scepter Bonus to +8 Health Regen * IO: Level 20 Talent changed from +16 Health Regen to Tether Grants Scepter Bonus * Juggernaut: Omnislash attack rate multiplier reduced from 1.8 to 1.7 * Keeper of the Light: Will-O-Wisp being cast a second time will follow the same tick interval as the first * Leshrac: Agility gain increased from 1.7 to 2.3 * Lich: Movement speed reduced from 305 to 295 * Lich: Sinister Gaze duration reduced from 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 to 1.3/1.7/2.1/2.5 * Lifestealer: Strength gain reduced from 3.6 to 3.2 * Lifestealer: Feast reduced from 1.75/2.5/3.25/4% to 1.5/2.25/3/3.75% * Lina: Base intelligence increased by 2 * Lycan: Base armor increased by 1 * Magnus: Strength gain reduced from 3.7 to 3.5 * Magnus: Skewer slow reduced from 25/30/35/40% to 10/20/30/40% * Magnus: Empower mana cost increased from 30/50/70/90 to 45/60/75/90 * Night Stalker: Strength gain reduced from 3.6 to 3.2 * Omniknight: Heavenly Grace duration increased from 10 to 12 * Phantom Lancer: Phantom Rush agility bonus increased from 6/14/22/30 to 9/18/27/36 * Riki: Base health regen increased by 1.5 * Shadow Fiend: Base strength increased by 1 * Shadow Fiend: Intelligence gain increased from 2.0 to 2.2 * Slark: Base armor increased by 1 * Sniper: Base strength increased by 2 * Sniper: Level 15 Talent changed from +15% Shrapnel Slow to +20% * Spectre: Base strength increased by 2 * Spectre: Level 10 Talent increased from +4 All Stats to +5 * Storm Spirit: Static Remnant mana cost reduced from 100 to 70/80/90/100 * Storm Spirit: Electric Vortex cooldown reduced from 22/20/18/16 to 16 * Sven: Great Cleave reduced from 45/60/75/90% to 30/50/70/90% * Sven: Warcry bonus speed reduced from 8/12/16/20% to 5/10/15/20% * Sven: Warcry shield base capacity reduced from 80/110/140/170 to 60/90/120/150 * Sven: God’s Strength cooldown increased from 80 to 100 * Templar Assassin: Meld debuff now stacks * Timbersaw: Base intelligence increased by 2 * Timbersaw: Whirling Death stat loss increased from 12/13/14/15% to 13/14/15/16% * Tiny: Tree Grab bonus damage reduced from 25/30/35/40% to 10/20/30/40% * Treant Protector: Living Armor damage block increased from 25/50/75/100 to 40/60/80/100 * Ursa: Base armor reduced by 2 * Ursa: Overpower cooldown increased from 10 to 16/14/12/10 * Visage: Strength reduced from 24 + 3.0 to 22 + 2.8 * Visage: Summon Familiars attack damage reduced from 30/45/60 to 20/40/60 * Warlock: Base intelligence increased by 3 * Warlock: Upheaval mana cost reduced from 100/110/120/130 to 70/90/110/130 * Weaver: Geminate attack now deals 10/20/30/40 bonus physical damage on the second hit

Dota 2 7.21 update improves on ranked play system – Patch notes Valve have officially released the 7.21 update for Dota 2, which sees the introduction of a new ranked play season, alongside some improvements to the mode. The update was released on Wednesday, January 30 and also saw some changes to Dota’s maps, alongside new items for Dota Plus subscribers. The 7.21 update comes just two months after the 7.20 update, a relatively short wait considering that there was a four month gap between the previous two patches. The biggest change in the 7.21 update comes to ranked play, which sees the start of a new competitive season bundled with some interesting changes to the mode. Player’s ranks have been reset, meaning that you will have to play 10 calibration matches to find your new rank, with Valve also choosing to tinker with those in this update. Dota 2 players will notice that the medals that are earned in competitive now have a maximum of seven stars, two more than in the previous version of ranked play. These additional stars should help to more accurately determine a player’s skill, with each rank now receiving special emoticons to match. Dota Plus subscribers will also get their hands on new sets for four characters, including Medusa, Enchantress, Monkey King and Centaur Warrunner. Dota 2’s 7.21 patch is now live, and you can read the full patch notes below. Dota 2 7.21 Patch Notes – January 29, 2019 GENERAL * Melee creeps average gold bounty reduced by 3 * Range creeps upgrade cycle gold bounty increased from +3 to +6 * Replaced the primary jungles’ ancient camps with big camps * Heroes no longer gain 25% more benefit from their primary attributes (affects attributes from both items and the hero) * All heroes’ primary attribute growth values increased by 15% * Health per strength increased from 18 to 20 * XP required to reach level 7->12 changed from 640/660/680/800/820/840 to 720/750/780/810/840/870 (the difference is +80/90/100/10/20/30 XP) * The following melee heroes now have +5 movement speed: Naga Siren, Underlord, Monkey King, Nyx Assassin, Bloodseeker, Riki * The following melee heroes now have +10 movement speed: Alchemist, Dragon Knight, Meepo * The following melee heroes now have +15 movement speed: Legion Commander, Lifestealer, Lycan, Sven, Ursa, Wraith King * Ranged heroes with 295 movement speed and above now have 5 less movement speed * Tier 2 tower armor increased from 14 to 15 * Tier 3 tower armor increased from 14 to 16 * Melee Barracks armor increased from 13 to 15 * Tower Protection armor bonus for Tier 2/3/4 increased from 3 to 4 ITEMS * Animal Courier: Flying movement speed increased from 460 to 470 * Aeon Disk: Active status resistance increased from 50% to 75% * Aeon Disk: Recipe cost reduced from 1350 to 1250 * Battle Fury: Percentage damage bonus against non-hero units changed to be a fixed amount matching Quelling Blade * Bloodstone: Bloodpact changed from 60% of current mana to 30% of max mana * Bloodthorn: Cooldown reduced from 18 to 15 * Boots of Travel: Level 2 movement speed increased from +32% to +35% * Buckler: Activated armor bonus duration on heroes reduced from 25 to 15 (carries through to Mek) * Crimson Guard: Recipe cost increased from 600 to 750 * Drum of Endurance: Passive changed from a 6% movement speed aura to +20 movement speed to yourself only * Ethereal Blade: Enemy debuff duration increased from 3 to 4 (matching duration when cast on allies) * Eul’s Scepter of Divinity: Movement speed bonus changed from +6% percentage to +20 flat * Holy Locket: Now uses Energy Booster instead of a Void Stone (provides +325 Mana) * Iron Branch: Cast range increased from 200 to 400 * Manta Style: Movement speed bonus reduced from +25 to +20 * Mask of Madness: Lifesteal increased from 15% to 20% * Mekansm: Stack limit is now tied to cooldown on cast (like Greaves and Crimson stack mechanics) * Meteor Hammer: Radius increased from 300 to 315 * Necronomicon: Last Will damage increased from 550/675/800 to 600/700/800 * Nullifier: Duration increased from 5 to 6 * Phase Boots: Recipe changed from Gloves of Haste to Blades of Attack * Phase Boots: Armor bonus increased from 5 to 6 * Phase Boots: Now gives +18 damage on melee (and +12 on range) instead of +20 attack speed * Phase Boots: Melee active speed increased from 20% to 22% * Power Treads: Recipe changed from Blades of Attack to Gloves of Haste * Power Treads: Attribute bonus reduced from 14 to 10 * Power Treads: Now gives +20 attack speed instead of +12 damage * Sange and Yasha: Movement speed bonus reduced from +35 to +30 * Solar Crest: Movement speed bonus changed from +6% percentage to +20 flat * Spirit Vessel: Damage as a percentage of current health increased from 4.5% to 5% * Spirit Vessel: Movement speed bonus changed from +6% percentage to +20 flat * Tranquil Boots: Active form movement speed increased from 24% to 26% * Tranquil Boots: Disabled form movement speed reduced from 20% to 18% * Vladmir’s Offering: No longer uses Headdress nor provides its hp regen/stats * Vladmir’s Offering: Now requires a 525 gold recipe * Wind Lace: Movement speed bonus changed from +6% percentage to +20 flat * Yasha: Movement speed bonus reduced from +25 to +20 * Yasha and Kaya: Movement speed bonus reduced from +35 to +30 HEROES * Abaddon: Curse of Avernus curse duration increased from 4 to 4.5 * Abaddon: Aphotic Shield manacost reduced from 115 to 100/105/110/115 * Alchemist: Base movement speed increased by 10 * Alchemist: Base agility increased from 16 to 22 * Alchemist: Chemical Rage base attack time improved from 1.3/1.15/1.0 to 1.2/1.1/1.0 * Alchemist: Level 10 Talent reduced from -8s Unstable Concoction to -7s * Alchemist: Level 20 Talent Concoction talent now adds the damage to the max instead of the base * Ancient Apparition: Chilling Touch damage increased from 50/85/120/155 to 50/90/130/170 * Ancient Apparition: Ice Vortex manacost reduced from 65/80/95/110 to 50/70/90/110 * Ancient Apparition: Level 25 Talent reduced from 900 AoE Cold Feet to 700 * Ancient Apparition: Level 25 Talent increased from +4% Ice Blast Kill Threshold to +5% * Anti-Mage: Fixed Counterspell providing double magic resistance when the shield is active * Arc Warden: Spark Wraith damage increased from 100/160/220/280 to 100/170/240/310 * Arc Warden: Tempest Double duration increased from 14/16/18 to 16/18/20 * Arc Warden: Level 10 Talent increased from +25 Attack Speed to +30 * Bane: Enfeeble attack speed slow increased from 40/60/80/100 to 50/75/100/125 * Bane: Enfeeble manacost reduced from 70/90/110/130 to 50/75/100/125 * Bane: Level 10 Talent increased from +6 Armor to +7 * Bane: Fiend’s Grip duration increased from 5 to 6 * Batrider: Firefly now grants a 4/7/10/13% movement speed bonus * Batrider: Firefly duration reduced from 18 to 15 * Batrider: Firefly cooldown reduced from 40 to 34 * Beastmaster: Inner Beast attack speed reduced from 15/25/35/45 to 10/20/30/40 * Beastmaster: Hawk health reduced from 300/450/600/750 to 150/200/250/300 * Beastmaster: Level 15 Talent changed from +40 Boar Damage to +65 Wild Axes Damage * Beastmaster: Level 20 Talent changed from +80 Wild Axes Damage to +50 Boar Damage * Beastmaster: Level 25 Talent increased from -15s Hawks Cooldown to -20s * Beastmaster: Level 25 Talent reduced from +30 Inner Beast Attack Speed to +25 * Bloodseeker: Base movement speed increased by 5 * Bounty Hunter: Shuriken Toss cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 * Bounty Hunter: Jinada gold steal increased from 12/18/24/30 to 12/20/28/36 * Bounty Hunter: Track critical strike damage increased from 140/160/180% to 140/170/200% * Brewmaster: Drunken Brawler critical strike reduced from 170/200/230/260% to 140/180/220/260% * Brewmaster: Cinder Brew duration reduced from 7 to 5 * Brewmaster: Cinder Brew duration is refreshed on ignition * Brewmaster: Cinder Brew ignite DPS increased from 20/25/30/35 to 20/30/40/50 * Brewmaster: Level 10 Talent reduced from +20 Damage to +15 * Bristleback: Viscous Nasal Goo manacost reduced from 25 to 12/16/20/24 * Broodmother: Level 10 Talent increased from +75 Spawn Spiderlings Damage to +125 * Broodmother: Level 15 Talent changed from +35% XP Gain to +15 Agility * Broodmother: Level 20 Talent increased from +20 Spiders Attack Damage to +30 * Broodmother: Level 25 Talent increased from +350 Spiders Health to +450 * Centaur Warrunner: Retaliate no longer gains charges while it is active * Chaos Knight: Chaos Strike cooldown reduced from 7/6/5/4 to 4 * Chaos Knight: Chaos Strike lifesteal reduced from 50/55/60/65% to 40/50/60/70% * Chaos Knight: Chaos Strike max damage increased from 160/190/220/250% to 160/195/230/265% * Chaos Knight: Reality Rift slow duration increased from 2 to 3 * Chaos Knight: Reality Rift slow reduced from 15/25/35/45% to 10/20/30/40% * Chen: Divine Favor bonus damage reduced from 10/20/40/80 to 12/24/36/48 * Chen: Divine Favor now provides double bonus damage on non-hero units * Chen: Divine Favor duration increased from 12 to 14 * Chen: Divine Favor manacost reduced from 110 to 70/80/90/100 * Chen: Hand of God heal increased from 250/400/550 to 300/450/600 * Chen: Level 15 Talent reduced from -10s Divine Favor Cooldown to -7s * Chen: Level 25 Talent reduced from +400 Hand of God Heal to +350 * Chen: Level 25 Talent increased from +4 Holy Persuasion Max Units to +5 * Clinkz: Level 15 Talent changed from +20% Evasion to +15 Strength * Clockwerk: Battery Assault cast point removed * Clockwerk: Rocket Flare manacost reduced from 50 to 35/40/45/50 * Clockwerk: Level 20 Talent changed from +20% Magic Resistance to Rocket Flare True Sight * Clockwerk: Level 25 Talent changed from Rocket Flare True Sight to +50% Magic Resistance * Crystal Maiden: Freezing Field now grants you 10 bonus armor while channeling * Crystal Maiden: Arcane Aura allied mana regen reduced from 1.2/1.7/2.2/2.7 to 1/1.5/2/2.5 * Crystal Maiden: Arcane Aura self mana regen increased from 2.4/4.4/6.4/8.4 to 2.5/4.5/6.5/8.5 * Dark Willow: Bramble Maze manacost reduced from 140/150/160/170 to 100/120/140/160 * Dark Willow: Bramble Maze cooldown reduced from 34/31/28/25 to 25 * Dazzle: Poison Touch mancost increased from 95/110/125/140 to 110/120/130/140 * Dazzle: Shadow Wave cast range reduced from 900 to 800 * Death Prophet: Base damage increased by 3 * Disruptor: Base armor increased by 1 * Doom: Scorched Earth cooldown reduced from 55/50/45/40 to 50/45/40/35 * Doom: Devour health regen from 4/8/13/18 to 3/8/13/18 * Dragon Knight: Base movement speed increased by 10 * Dragon Knight: Dragon Blood health regen increased from 4/7/10/13 to 4/8/12/16 * Dragon Knight: Elder Dragon Form frost attack slow increased from -20 to -30 * Dragon Knight: Level 20 Talent changed from 2x Dragon Blood to +25 Strength * Dragon Knight: Level 25 Talent changed from +40 Strength to 2x Dragon Blood * Drow Ranger: Level 15 Talent changed from +25 Attack Speed to +10 Agility * Earthshaker: Fissure manacost reduced from 125/140/155/170 to 110/130/150/170 * Earth Spirit: Rolling Boulder damage reduced from 100 to 70/80/90/100 * Earth Spirit: Boulder Smash slow reduced from 80% to 60% * Earth Spirit: Level 15 Talent reduced from +200 Rolling Boulder Damage to +150 * Elder Titan: Level 10 Talent reduced from +25 Movement Speed to +20 * Ember Spirit: Sleight of Fist cooldown reduced from 30/22/14/6 to 18/14/10/6 * Ember Spirit: Base damage increased by 3 * Enchantress: Enchant cooldown reduced from 55/40/25/10 to 22/18/14/10 * Enchantress: Enchant creep duration reduced from 50/60/70/80 to 26/44/62/80 * Enchantress: Enchant manacost reduced from 65 to 40/50/60/70 * Enigma: Midnight Pulse manacost rescaled from 75/95/115/135 to 50/80/110/140 * Faceless Void: Time Dilation AoE increased from 725 to 775 * Faceless Void: Level 10 Talent increased from +8 Strength to +10 * Faceless Void: Level 15 Talent changed from +300 Health to -1s Time Walk Cooldown * Grimstroke: Phantom’s Embrace rend damage reduced from 120/200/280/360 to 75/150/225/300 * Grimstroke: Ink Swell manacost increased from 90/100/110/120 to 120/130/140/150 * Grimstroke: Ink Swell movement speed reduced from 18% to 12/14/16/18% * Gyrocopter: Base strength increased from 19 to 22 * Huskar: Attack point reduced from 0.4 to 0.3 * Huskar: Berserker’s Blood max attack speed reduced from 220/260/300/340 to 160/220/280/340 * Huskar: Life Break damage and cost reduced from 34/39/44% to 32/38/44% * Huskar: Level 15 Talent reduced from +15 Burning Spears DPS to +10 * Invoker: Base damage increased by 3 * Invoker: Exort bonus damage reduced from 4->28 to 3->27 per instance * Invoker: Level 10 Talent changed from +1.25s Tornado Lift Time to -30s Ghost Walk Cooldown * Io: Temporarily removed from Captains Mode * Io: Tether now transfers health and mana even when Io is at max hp/mp * Io: Overcharge now has an 18 second cooldown and an 8 second duration. No longer has a 2 second toggle. * Io: Overcharge now costs 40/60/80/100 mana to cast. No longer cost 6% of health and mana per second. * Io: Overcharge attack speed bonus increased from 40/50/60/70 to 50/80/110/140 * Io: Overcharge damage reduction increased from 5/10/15/20% to 15/20/25/30% * Io: Relocate delay increased from 2.7/2.35/2 to 3.5/3.25/3 * Io: Relocate cooldown reduced from 130/110/90 to 90/75/60 * Io: Relocate is now cast delay again instead of channeling (being interrupted, silenced, rooted, etc will cancel the ability) * Io: Level 25 Talent changed from -60s Relocate Cooldown to -30s * Jakiro: Level 10 Talent changed from +30% XP Gain to +300 Attack Range * Jakiro: Level 15 Talent changed from +300 Attack Range to +40% XP Gain * Juggernaut: Base armor reduced by 1 * Juggernaut: Omnislash no longer allows you to teleport while using it * Juggernaut: Healing Ward movement speed reduced from 420 to 400 * Juggernaut: Omnislash cooldown increased from 130/120/110 to 130 * Juggernaut: Level 15 Talent changed from +1s Blade Fury to +50 Blade Fury Movement Speed * Keeper of the Light: Level 10 Talent changed from 8% Spell Lifesteal to +30% XP Gain * Keeper of the Light: Level 15 Talent changed from +30% XP Gain to +1 Will-O-Wisp Health Count * Kunkka: Level 25 Talent changed from -1.5s Tidebringer Cooldown to +60% Tidebringer Cleave * Legion Commander: Base movement speed increased by 15 * Legion Commander: Level 20 Talent reduced from +40 Movement Speed to +35 * Legion Commander: Level 25 Talent changed from -10s Press The Attack Cooldown to 350 AoE Press The Attack * Leshrac: Diabolic Edict increased from 9/18/27/36 to 11/22/33/44 * Leshrac: Level 25 Talent reduced from +50 Diabolic Edict Explosions to +40 * Lich: Frost Shield slow reduced from 35% to 20/25/30/35% * Lich: Chain Frost damage reduced from 300/400/500 to 250/375/500 * Lich: Level 25 Talent increased from +40% slow to +50% * Lifestealer: Base movement speed increased by 15 * Lifestealer: Base armor increased by 2 * Lifestealer: Level 15 Talent reduced from +30 Movement Speed to +25 * Lina: Base damage increased by 3 * Lion: Level 10 Talent increased from +75 Cast Range to +100 * Lion: Level 15 Talent increased from +120 Gold/Min to +150 * Lone Druid: Spirit Bear movement speed increased from 340/355/370/385 to 340/360/380/400 * Lone Druid: Spirit Bear attack damage increased from 35/50/65/80 to 35/55/75/95 * Lone Druid: Level 20 Talent changed from -0.3 Spirit Bear Attack Time to 0 Entangle Cooldown * Lone Druid: Level 25 Talent changed from 0 Entangle Cooldown to -0.5s Spirit Bear Attack Time * Luna: Level 10 Talent increased from +200 Cast Range to +300 * Lycan: Base movement speed increased by 15 * Lycan: Wolves armor reduced from 1 to 0 * Lycan: Wolves magic resistance reduced from 80% to 70% * Lycan: Wolves health increased from 230/260/290/320 to 300/350/400/450 * Lycan: Howl health regen increased from 4/6/8/10 to 4/8/12/16 * Medusa: Fixed Mystic Snake bouncing to Spell Immune enemies * Medusa: Level 10 Talent reduced from +20 Damage to +15 * Medusa: Level 15 Talent reduced from +35% Mystic Snake Mana Steal to +30% * Medusa: Level 20 Talent changed from +700 Mana to -4s Mystic Snake Cooldown * Medusa: Level 25 Talent changed from +7 Split Shot Targets to +1000 Mana * Meepo: Base movement speed increased by 10 * Mirana: Sacred Arrow movement speed increased from 857 to 950 * Monkey King: Base movement speed increased by 5 * Monkey King: Wukong’s Command attack rate improved from 1.3 to 1.2 * Morphling: Strength gain increased from 2.3 to 2.6 * Morphling: Level 15 Talent increased from +15s Morph Duration to +20s * Naga Siren: Base movement speed increased by 5 * Naga Siren: Mirror Image duration from 24 to 26 * Naga Siren: Mirror Image damage taken reduced from 475/450/425/400% to 400% * Naga Siren: Level 20 Talent increased from -5s Ensnare Cooldown to -7s * Nature’s Prophet: Using tango on a sprout tree will 2x regen (like eating a branch tree) * Nature’s Prophet: Level 20 Talent changed from -4s Sprout Cooldown to +25% Cooldown Reduction * Necrophos: Death Pulse damage increased from 100/140/180/220 to 100/150/200/250 * Necrophos: Level 15 Talent increased from +20% Ghost Shroud Slow to +30% * Night Stalker: Hunter in the Night movement speed bonus increased from 20/25/30/35 to 22/28/34/40% * Night Stalker: Removed Scepter * Night Stalker: Dark Ascension now provides full unobstructed vision, instead of only 900 range * Night Stalker: Level 15 Talent changed from +150 Cast Range to +15% Lifesteal * Nyx Assassin: Base movement speed increased by 5 * Nyx Assassin: Strength gain increased from 2.3 to 2.5 * Nyx Assassin: Level 10 Talent increased from +60 GPM to +90 * Nyx Assassin: Level 10 Talent increased from +6% Spell Amp to +8% * Ogre Magi: Fireblast cooldown reduced from 12/11/10/9 to 11/10/9/8 * Ogre Magi: Multicast 2x chance increased from 60% to 70% * Omniknight: Heavenly Grace status resistance reduced from 50/60/70/80% to 50% * Omniknight: Heavenly Grace duration increased from 8 to 10 * Omniknight: Heavenly Grace now provides 7/14/21/28 bonus strength * Omniknight: Heavenly Grace manacost increased from 75 to 80/90/100/110 * Outworld Devourer: Sanity’s Eclipse multiplier from 9/10/11 to 8/9/10 * Outworld Devourer: Level 15 Talent reduced from +30 Movement Speed to +25 * Pangolier: Base damage increased by 4 * Pangolier: Level 10 Talent changed from +20 Movement Speed to +300 Swashbuckle Slash Range * Phantom Assassin: Rearranged Level 15 Talents – +25% Cleave vs +15% Lifesteal * Phantom Assassin: Rearranged Level 20 Talents – +20% Blur Evasion vs -4 Armor Corruption * Phantom Assassin: Rearranged Level 25 Talents – +5% Coup de Grace vs Triple Strike Stifling Dagger * Phantom Lancer: Level 10 Talent increased from +10% Evasion to +15% * Phantom Lancer: Level 20 Talent increased from +4 Max Juxtapose Illusions to +5 * Phoenix: Sunray can no longer move forward while rooted * Pudge: Base damage increased by 6 * Queen of Pain: Scream of Pain manacost reduced from 95/110/125/140 to 80/100/120/140 * Queen of Pain: Shadow Strike damage per tick increased from 30/45/60/75 to 30/50/70/90 * Razor: Attack backswing reduced from 0.7 to 0.4 * Razor: Level 10 Talent increased from +200 Health to +225 * Riki: Base damage increased by 4 * Riki: Base movement speed increased by 5 * Riki: Level 20 Talent increased from +0.2 Backstab Multiplier to +0.3 * Rubick: Telekinesis lift duration reduced from 1/1.4/1.8/2.2 to 0.8/1.2/1.6/2.0 * Rubick: Level 15 Talent increased from -45 Fade Bolt Hero Attack to -60 * Sand King: Burrowstrike damage increased from 85/150/215/280 to 100/160/220/280 * Sand King: Sand Storm AoE increased from 350/450/550/650 to 425/500/575/650 * Shadow Demon: Soul Catcher manacost reduced from 110 to 50/70/90/110 * Shadow Demon: Shadow Poison manacost reduced from 50 to 35/40/45/50 * Shadow Fiend: Presence of the Dark Lord armor reduction increased from 3/4/5/6 to 4/5/6/7 * Shadow Shaman: Level 20 Talent reduced from +3s Shackles Duration to +2.5s * Silencer: Last Word cooldown reduced from 28/22/16/10 to 22/18/14/10 * Silencer: Level 10 Talent increased from +5 Armor to +6 * Skywrath Mage: Mystic Flare deals damage to creeps if no heroes are around * Slardar: Level 25 Talent reduced from +1.5s Slithereen Crush Stun to 1.25s * Slark: Pounce no longer does 30/60/90/120 damage * Sniper: Headshot now has a back knockback of 10 * Sniper: Level 15 Talent changed from +35 Shrapnel DPS to +15% Shrapnel Slow * Spectre: Strength gain increased from 2.3 to 2.5 * Spectre: Spectral Dagger movement speed increased from 8/12/16/20% to 10/14/18/22% * Spectre: Level 20 Talent reduced from +20% Spectral Dagger to +18% * Storm Spirit: Electric Vortex manacost reduced from 85 to 60/70/80/90 * Storm Spirit: Level 10 Talent changed from +20 Damage to +30 Overload Damage * Sven: Base movement speed increased by 15 * Sven: Warcry shield health changed from 110/220/330/440 to 80/110/140/170 + 1/1.5/2/2.5x your strength * Sven: Storm Hammer cooldown increased from 13 to 16/15/14/13 * Sven: Storm Hammer damage reduced from 100/175/250/325 to 80/160/240/320 * Techies: Remote Mines manacost reduced from 200/240/300 to 120/180/240 * Templar Assassin: Meld debuff is now applied before the attack damage is reduced by armor * Templar Assassin: Fixed meld bonus damage being increased by Spell Amplification * Templar Assassin: Level 10 Talent changed from +3 Psionic Traps to +15% Evasion * Templar Assassin: Level 15 Talent changed from +7 Armor to +25 Movement Speed * Terrorblade: Strength reduced from 16 + 1.7 to 15 + 1.5 * Tidehunter: Anchor Smash damage reduction from -45/50/55/60 to -30/40/50/60% * Timbersaw: Reactive Armor bonus armor reduced from 1.3/1.4/1.5/1.6 to 1/1.1/1.2/1.3 * Timbersaw: Reactive Armor bonus health regen reduced from 1/1.2/1.4/1.6 to 1/1.1/1.2/1.3 * Timbersaw: Reactive Armor max stacks increased from 5/10/15/20 to 6/12/18/24 * Timbersaw: Whirling Death tree bonus damage increased from 10/15/20/25 to 12/18/24/30 * Timbersaw: Level 20 Talent increased from +10% Cooldown Reduction to +15% * Tiny: Avalanche AoE reduced from 400 to 325/350/375/400 * Tiny: Avalanche cooldown increased from 23/20/17/14 to 26/22/18/14 * Tiny: Level 15 Talent reduced from +125 Avalanche Damage to +100 * Tiny: Level 15 Talent increased from +350 Health to +400 * Treant Protector: Living Armor damage block increased from 20/40/60/80 to 25/50/75/100 * Treant Protector: Scepter now causes Treant’s Overgrowth to deal damage instead of only Enchanted Trees * Treant Protector: Overgrowth duration increased from 3/3.75/4.5 to 3.25/4/4.75 * Treant Protector: Level 20 Talent increased from +40 Leech Seed Damage/Heal to +50 * Troll Warlord: Level 15 Talent increased from +75 Whirling Axes Damage to +90 * Troll Warlord: Level 20 Talent increased from +20% Evasion to +25% * Tusk: Tag Team slow duration reduced from 0.5 to 0.4 * Tusk: Tag Team manacost increased from 40/50/60/70 to 70 * Tusk: Tag Team cooldown increased from 15 to 24/21/18/15 * Underlord: Base movement speed increased by 5 * Undying: Level 15 Talent changed from Tombstone On Death to +30 Tombstone Zombie Damage * Undying: Level 20 Talent changed from +30 Tombstone Zombie Damage to Tombstone On Death * Ursa: Base movement speed increased by 15 * Ursa: Fury Swipes damage reduced from 10/16/22/28 to 7/14/21/28 * Vengeful Spirit: Level 20 Talent increased from -5s Magic Missle Cooldown to -6s * Venomancer: Strength gain increased from 1.9 to 2.1 * Viper: Nethertoxin AoE increased from 350 to 380 * Viper: Nethertoxin damage increased from 20/35/50/65 to 30/45/60/75 * Visage: Level 10 Talent reduced from +125 Cast Range to +100 * Visage: Level 20 Talent reduced from +60 Familiars Movement Speed to +50 * Visage: Level 20 Talent increased from +15 Soul Assumption Damage Per Charge to +20 * Warlock: Base strength increased by 2 * Warlock: Chaotic Offering attack damage increased from 75/125/175 to 100/150/200 * Warlock: Golem attack backswing reduced from 0.74 to 0.57 * Weaver: Level 10 Talent changed from +7 Strength to +75 Shukuchi Damage * Weaver: Level 15 Talent changed from +75 Shukuchi Damage to +14 Strength * Windranger: Level 15 Talent increased from +100 Attack Range to +125 * Windranger: Level 15 Talent increased from +100 Powershot Damage to +125 * Winter Wyvern: Cold Embrace base health regen increased from 15 to 14/18/22/26 * Winter Wyvern: Cold Embrace manacost changed from 75 to 50/60/70/80 * Witch Doctor: Maledict cooldown reduced from 50/40/30/20 to 30/26/22/18 * Witch Doctor: Level 10 Talent increased from +5 Armor to +6 * Wraith King: Base movement speed increased by 15 * Zeus: Reworked Static Field. Now affects enemies directly affected by your abilities. No longer has a range.