Dota 2
Dota 2
New Dota Plus update, guild rewards drop for 2020 Winter Season
Steven Rondina
Dota Plus’ seasonal rewards have reset for the winter season, but Valve gave longtime subscribers an extra bit of love this time around. The list of changes to Dota Plus for this season are largely what one would expect, with a new treasure and an additional set of rewards. There is also a new batch of emoticons and chat wheel sprays alongside some recycled chat wheel sounds from The International …
Dota 2
Dota 2 star RAMZES666 is now a Nike-sponsored athlete
Steven Rondina
Nike is continuing its esports expansion by sponsoring individual players. The athletic apparel manufacturer has tendered a partnership with Dota 2 star Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev. RAMZES666 is only the second esports player to be directly sponsored by Nike. “For me, Nike was always the №1 brand in the world, and I am very pleased that thanks to Winstrike I was introduced to the company. With Nike’s support many great athletes, …
Dota 2
Is support Invoker viable? Dota 2 pros seem to think so
Steven Rondina
You know how ranked games will often have a “hard support” Pudge that decides he needs to actually play core after 10 minutes? Well, what if that happened in a pro game? Top-tier Dota 2 doesn’t actually see that kind of unilateral audible get called, but it has increasingly seen teams recast traditional carry heroes into support roles. The benefits to this are numerous, in particular how it offers greater …
Dota 2
Ninjas in Pyjamas pulls out of Dota 2 again, releases roster
Steven Rondina
NInjas in Pyjamas is leaving Dota 2. Again. The esports organization announced that it is dropping its Dota 2 team and reevaluating its presence in the game. This is the third time where NiP has decided to pull out of Dota 2 throughout its history. “This year has taken a massive toll on what was already an unstable ecosystem. With the indefinite postponement of the DPC and The International, we …
Dota 2
Valve announces the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit return date, format
Steven Rondina
At long last, Valve has announced the return of the Dota Pro Circuit. In a short blog post, the Dota 2 publisher gave an outline on its plans to go through on an overhaul it previously discussed for the 2020-2021 season, and also suggested that a Dota 2 major may be coming sooner than expected. In a surprising turn, Valve gave a specific date for fans to look forward to. …
Dota 2
We now know when Valve is bringing the next new hero to Dota 2
Steven Rondina
After previously teasing a pair of new Dota 2 heroes, Valve has given some more concrete information. In a short blog post, Valve game some details on the next hero to be added to the game as well as when the long-awaited Dota 2 update 7.28 will finally arrive. While no exact release date was given, Valve stated in the blog post that the new Dota 2 hero will arrive …
Dota 2
Gambit Esports wins when NiP pro player abandons in EPIC League
Steven Rondina
Professional Dota 2 players are just like everyone else. Not in terms of how well they play, as obviously they’re significantly better at Dota 2 than an overwhelming majority of other players, but in that they make the same silly mistakes that pub players do. Take the EPIC League game between Ninjas in Pyjamas and Gambit Esports. The two teams are operating at a much higher level than anything the …
Dota 2
Valve employee rages, sends his Dota 2 teammate to low priority
Steven Rondina
Dota 2 has a notoriously toxic community, and it seems as though that this toxicity goes right to the very top. A strange Reddit drama was kicked up recently by a player who claimed to have received a bogus demotion to the low-priority queue. While that’s standard fare on Reddit, what makes this case unique is the fact that the individual claims to have been manually punished by an employee …
Epic League Divison 2 takes hit after 5men suddenly disbands
Fariha Bhatti
Dota 2
After nearly 5 months of playing together, Dota 2 team 5men has officially disbanded. The announcement was made by Epic Esports Entertainment, the organizer behind EPIC League and the Epicenter event series, in a Twitter post. Former team captain Rasmus “Misery” Filipsen commented on the decision: The 5MEN has gone their seperate ways. Thanks to all the people who supported us through our run. I am not going anywhere though, …
Team Secret rallies, Team Liquid falls in Dota 2 player rankings
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Big upsets happened on both ends of the Atlantic as Team Secret was eliminated from ESL One Germany in fourth place and Quincy Crew had its tournament winning streak ended by Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao’s 4FUN stack. The next round of tournaments are already underway with Epic League attracting all of Europe’s best teams while teams in the Americas are all competing in Realms Collide. Here’s the new top 10 after …
SumaiL & Just Error jump into top 10 rankings, Team Liquid slips
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The grind of Dota 2 events without the Dota Pro Circuit continues on. Realms Collide in the Americas, Epic League in Europe, and China’s one-two punch of China Dota2 Pro Cup Season 2 and CDA-FDC Professional Championship Season 2 have been giving fans a lot of action to keep up with. That wave of events has also made for some big shifts in the rankings over the last two weeks. …
Four Angry Men leaves Dota 2, Vici Gaming transfers Eurus
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Four Angry Men had a very short stay in Dota 2, but the team it put together will continue on without it. In a double-whammy of news, Vici Gaming announced that Zhang “Eurus” Chengjun has been officially transferred to the roster of Elephant.4AM. Alongside this, the “4AM” part of the team name will be dropped, with the squad continuing on simply as Elephant. This likely marks the end of 4AM’s …
Vici Gaming pulls Eurus from Elephant.4AM, team may not survive
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Four Angry Men’s foray into Dota 2 hasn’t gone especially well, and there are no signs that things are getting better any time soon. Elephant.4AM is being forced to compete with a substitute in CDA-FDC Professional Championship Season 2. This stems from Vici Gaming pulling Zhang “Eurus” Chengjun from the lineup due to unpaid transfer fees, per VP Esports. “During the transfer period of this season, Vici Gaming did not …
Team Adroit ceases operations, releases Dota 2 roster
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
A standout Southeast Asian Dota 2 organization is closing its doors. Team Adroit has announced that it is ceasing operations just a year and a half after opening. The organization is releasing the entirety of its Dota 2 team and laying off its organizational staff. The news was announced on Facebook. “It is with a heavy heart that we share to the community that we have released our Dota 2 …
SirActionSlacks starting new NA event series with Arkosh Gaming
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Jake “SirActionSlacks” Kanner is looking to help rebuild North American Dota 2, and he’s approaching it in a unique way. Three weeks ago, a trailer for a new Dota 2 team named Arkosh Gaming dropped on YouTube with a strange parody of a song by fictional death metal band Dethklok. Fans were intrigued but uncertain what to make of the strange reveal. Now, fans have some answers. Slacks took to …
HellRaisers guts Dota 2 roster, looks to rebuild around Lil
Fariha Bhatti
Dota 2
CIS organization HellRaisers has decided to part ways with three members of its active Dota 2 roster. After a series of disappointing results, the team has benched mid-laner Arslan “xannii” Shadjanov and offlaner Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov, and released hard support Rinat “KingR” Abdullin. ???? HR Disband their Dota 2 roster! ????HellRaisers has announced a change in the line-up. Only Alexander “Nix” Levin and Ilya “lil me alone” Ilyyuk remained in …
iceiceice joins Evil Geniuses’ Dota 2 team, replacing RAMZES666
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Evil Geniuses found a surprising replacement for departing off laner Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev. The organization announced the signing of Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang. This will almost certainly mark the end of iceiceice’s time competing in Asia after over a decade of playing Dota 2 and Defense of the Ancients. The news was announced with a succinct tweet by Evil Geniuses. Our #Dota team just got a whole lot cooler …
KuroKy returns to Team Nigma for EPIC League after injury layoff
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
One of Dota 2’s biggest names is set to make his long-awaited return. Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi will be competing for Team Nigma in EPIC League. This ends a prolonged layoff for the team, which has seen coach Roman “rmN-” Paley act as a stand-in for KuroKy. KuroKy also finally updated fans regarding why he has been away from competition for so long. “I haven’t been playing with the team …
Special treatment for SumaiL’s new roster causes controversy
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
EPIC League surprised fans with the announcement of the new Dota 2 super team Just Error’s involvement. Apparently, the other teams competing in the event were also surprised. According to a number of reports, EPIC Esports Events kept details on the closed qualifier format hidden from teams. This likely stemmed from an effort to keep the announcement of Just Error’s roster a secret, something that undermined the integrity of the …
TNC fines Gabbi following sexist outburst during pub game
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
TNC Predator has a bad history when it comes to its players’ conduct outside of official competitions, and the organization is looking to head off any potential controversy in its latest incident. TNC announced that carry player Kim “Gabbi” Villafuerte has been fined by the team due to inappropriate conduct during a pub game towards a female teammate. This comes after social media posts accusing him of sexist behavior went …
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.
