Dota 2
News
New EternaLEnVy roster drama erupts over TI10 qualifiers
Steven Rondina
When it comes to Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao, a new team means a new cast of characters for another dramatic roster breakup. The latest such drama is currently underway with Black N Yellow. EternaLEnVy took to social media to accuse Black N Yellow’s Daniel “zero” Yun of effectively dissolving the team out of spite rather than letting former members attempt to qualify for The International. This will effectively leave all five …
Dota 2
Arkosh Gaming promoted in DPC, mason leaks players’ identities
Steven Rondina
Arkosh Gaming is no longer just a meme team. The anonymous, black metal-themed squad secured a spot in the upper division of the North American Dota Pro Circuit league with a win over 5ManMidas. The team finished with a 6-1 record in the league to lock in a second-place finish in the season. This will see Arkosh Gaming move up to the upper division alongside D2 Hustlers to replace SADBOYS …
Dota 2
Dota 2 pro rage quits out of key match before WePlay AniMajor
Steven Rondina
No matter what the stakes are in a game, Dota 2 players are capable of rage quitting. The latest demonstration of this came during the final match of the Dota PIT South American Dota Pro Circuit league. In the final match of the regular season, NoPing e-sports was taking on beastcoast. After punting a team fight and losing Roshan, NoPing’s Jose Leonardo “Panda” Padilla Hernandez put out a “GG” call …
Dota 2
10 new teams added to Dota 2 Supporter’s Club
William Davis
Dota 2 fans can now support ten more Dota Pro Circuit squads via the new Supporter’s Club System. The added teams include such fan favorites as Thunder Predator, PSG.LGD, and Vikin.gg. This is the third round of additions, bringing the total number of available banners to 36. The new collection features teams from China, South America, Western Europe, and Southeast Asia. The majority of new additions are competing in their …
Dota 2
Alliance locks 1st in DPC league, spot in next Dota 2 major
Steven Rondina
Alliance is still in the thick of its biggest controversy to date, but that isn’t hurting the team’s competitive performance. The embattled organization has secured first-place in the Dota Pro Circuit’s top European league, DreamLeague Season 15. Alliance defeated Hellbear Smashers to secure a 6-1 record on the season, completing its games in the league and mathematically securing a first-place finish with a week still remaining in the competition. ???? …
Dota 2
ppd says OG stopped scrims over Alliance cheating controversy
Steven Rondina
Alliance was cleared of any wrongdoing for its alleged cheating in the Dota Pro Circuit, but that doesn’t mean that things are just going back to normal. Alliance coach Peter “ppd” Dager did a personal stream on Twitch recently and discussed the controversy surrounding his shot-calling for the team during games in DreamLeague Season 15. Though he wasn’t bombastic or confrontational in his answers, he did let slip that there …
Dota 2
Alliance allegedly tried to get casters fired from DreamLeague
Steven Rondina
Alliance has already had a rough week but things haven’t really cooled down for the team since. During a recent installment of the Side Pull Podcast, Dota 2 caster Austin “Capitalist” Walsh stated that Alliance management had issued a complaint to ESL and DreamHack regarding the broadcast team. In particular, the team allegedly set its sights on himself and Jorien “Sheever” van der Heijden for a recent interview with Linus …
News
Valve changes DPC rules after Alliance cheating allegations
Steven Rondina
After a whirlwind of controversy, more information has come out in regards to cheating allegations against Alliance in DreamLeague Season 15. ESL and DreamHack released simultaneous statements noting that Alliance was not cheating by having trial coach Peter “ppd” Dager on-call with the team for its game against Brame. However, the tournament organizers noted that Valve was forcing a mid-season rule change in the Dota Pro Circuit leagues to prevent …
TI10 date & location confirmed, but is the Battle Pass canceled?
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
UPDATE: Valve has confirmed a new date and location for The International 2021 after previous plans to host the event in Stockholm fell through. Find out everything here. Finally. More than one year removed from the indefinite postponement of The International 10, Valve has confirmed a new date for the event. Wykrhm Reddy announced the news on Twitter: The International 10 is back on the menu. Mark your calendars. #TI10 #Dota2 …
Alliance & ppd accused of cheating during Dota Pro Circuit match
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Update: DreamHack issued a statement on cheating allegations against Alliance. Details can be found here. One of the hottest questions in Dota 2 right now is one that’s very difficult to answer. Did Alliance cheat during an official Dota Pro Circuit match? Alliance recently released a vlog that included footage of the team’s game against Brame during DreamLeague Season 15. While this isn’t unusual for Alliance, eyebrows were raised on …
Valve brags as fans wonder where TI10 Battle Pass money has gone
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Valve gave a lengthy discussion on the topic of video game community management, and the publisher’s view on the matter varies wildly from how its fans do. A longtime member of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive development team did a talk on the Steamworks Development YouTube channel. The topic was how Valve’s development teams decide on actions to take with their games and the cues it takes from its players. The …
Dota 2 pro caught stream sniping during official DPC match
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
A Dota 2 may have been caught cheating red-handed. On Wednesday in the DreamLeague Season 15 lower division, an official Dota Pro Circuit league, Chicken Fighters faced off against Ghost frogs. During the match, a Reddit user spotted Chicken Fighters support player Andreas Per “Xibbe” Ragnemalm in the official broadcast’s Twitch chat. There’s little question that this player is the real Xibbe. The Twitch account in question links out to …
A set of unusual Dota 2 couriers has sold for over $200,000
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota 2 items have plummeted in value over the last 18 months, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still some unique items getting moved for huge sums of money. A set of rare unusual Dota 2 couriers were sold for a whopping $200,000 in cryptocurrency. The transaction was spotted in blockchains by a Redditor who also identified the specific couriers being sold. It is unknown who the buyer is …
What did Valve do with $40 million from the TI10 Battle Pass?
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The International 10 was previously set to shatter the record for largest single-event prize pool in esports history, entirely thanks to contributions made by players through the TI10 Battle Pass. So where did all of that money go? TI10 was delayed, but the delay was effectively a year long. Given how the TI Battle Pass has generated over $100 million in revenue for Valve in recent years, there’s no way …
MinD_ContRoL surges, Alliance rebounds in Dota 2 rankings
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The ONE Esports Singapore major shook up the Dota 2 player rankings in a big way, and the weird start to the second cycle of the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit cycle has only kept things moving. With Team Secret off to a dull 2-2 start, Invictus Gaming struggling in its post-major return, AS Monaco Gambit winless, and TNC Predator looking to be back in top form, there is a lot …
Is the 2021 The International Battle Pass set to launch soon?
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota 2’s The International Battle Pass is one of the game’s biggest highlights each year, and it might be coming back in the near future. While the 2020 installment of The International Battle Pass came out later than usual, the battle pass has traditionally come out in early May. That means that the 2021 The International Battle Pass could be coming out in the next few weeks. The TI9 Battle …
SumaiL wins in his return to pro Dota 2 with Team Liquid
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Syed “SumaiL” Hassan is back in action, and so far it doesn’t look like he ever left. The former Evil Geniuses star played his first professional match in over five months, joining Team Liquid for DreamLeague Season 15 as a stand-in for Samuel “Boxi” Svahn. In his Team Liquid debut, SumaiL put forward a solid performance as the team’s mid laner and helped the team take the 2-1 series victory …
Accusations fly that Riot Games tried to sabotage Dota 2 esports
Steven Rondina
News
There has always been a rivalry between Dota 2 and League of Legends, but according to recently resurfaced reports, that battle was at one point played out between the two games’ rival publishers. During a podcast discussing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, esports journalist Richard Lewis discussed some of the history between Riot Games and Valve. According to Lewis, League of Legends publisher Riot Games made aggressive maneuvers to try and undercut …
These are the five best heroes to rank up in Dota 2 patch 7.29
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota 2 update 7.29 is two weeks old now and the sample size of games is large enough to start identifying the game’s best heroes in this latest patch. Puck remains very powerful despite getting some modest nerfs in the original 7.29 patch, but past him things have really been shaken up. In each lane, there are some fresh faces that are revolutionizing the game and enjoying the limelight like …
DOTA: Dragon’s Blood Book 2 confirmed, Valve-Netflix deal grows
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
DOTA: Dragon’s Blood hasn’t been forgotten. At least not by the people who made it. The Dota 2-themed animated series that blew up among fans has been officially renewed for a second season. The news was announced on the official Dota 2 Twitter account: Book 2 is coming! The second season of DOTA: Dragon’s Blood is in the works. While you wait, revisit the story of the tournament that started …
Few games have proven to have the resilient popularity enjoyed by Dota 2. The multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA for short, has been among the biggest and most successful projects released by gaming giant Valve, and it continues to enjoy great popularity to this day.
That popularity has endured despite a great number of changes that have been made to both the game itself and to the communities surrounding it. The competitive title’s history reaches all the way back to another game created and published by another developer, but with Valve now leading the way, Dota 2 seems primed to last well into the future.
From Blizzard to Valve, Dota 2 continues to evolve
While know today as one of Valve’s key game properties, Dota 2 has its origins in a real-time strategy game developed and published by famed video game company Blizzard. One of the franchises that keyed Blizzard’s success and reputational growth in the games industry is WarCraft, which today is best-known for the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft.
But prior to the success of World of Warcraft, the high-fantasy franchise was experienced through a series of RTS games. The third main title in that series, WarCraft 3, provided players not only with a great experience right out of the box, but also with the opportunity to heavily modify the game and its functions, and to play modified versions of the experience as custom games online with other players.
The most popular of these custom game modes was arguably Defense of the Ancients, or DotA for short. This custom game mode saw two teams of players face off against each other with strong individual champion characters, as opposed to building out complex home bases and developing broad armies of diverse units.
It was an entirely different way to play the game, and it proved so popular that would eventually give birth to an entirely new genre of video games: the MOBA genre.
The continuation of the original DotA became Dota 2, a project developed under the guidance of famed developer and publisher Valve. Flush with success from online marketplace Steam and its own franchises including Half-Life and Portal, Valve was more than willing to invest in this new and innovative game type.
The International sets Dota 2 apart
While there have been many other competitive games created and released since, including other popular MOBAs such as Riot Games’ League of Legends, Dota 2 has stood apart for remaining true to its roots and for massive competitive events like The International. First held in 2011 for the purpose of bringing together disparate competitive teams from all around the world with more than $1 million on the line, the esports tournament quickly grew into the biggest such event of each calendar year.
One of the main drivers behind that immense growth was the upwards trajectory of the tournament’s prize pool. Partially funded by Dota 2 players and esports fans, the prize pool for The International began increasing in 2013 and eventually ballooned to a massive total of over $40 million by the time 2021 rolled around. For the groups of players and coaches who climbed this mountain and won its top prize, it was a truly life-changing event.
For varied reasons, Valve eventually soured on running the event itself and on the idea of having so much money filtered into one specific event. Prize winnings were dropped significantly in 2022, and even further for the 2023 and 2024 events. But despite the prizes on hand no longer being quite so astronomical, The International still boasts a prize in the low millions, and it remains the biggest event on the Dota 2 competitive calendar and arguably on the greater esports calendar across all games.
