Dota 2
Dota 2
VP.Prodigy finalizes new team with Gambit’s gpk, Na’Vi’s illias
Steven Rondina
Virtus.pro’s secondary roster, VP.Prodigy, has completed its roster for the new season. The CIS squad has added mid laner Danil “gpk” Skutin and hard support player Illias “illias” Ganeev. The duo steps in to replace Rostislav “fn” Lozovoi and Albert “eine” Garaev, who departed the team in November. With gpk and illias, the VP.Prodigy roster stands as follows: Egor “epileptick1d” Grigorenko Danil “gpk” Skutin Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin Vitalie “Save-” Melnic …
Dota 2
Diretide increases Dota 2 player count for first time in months
Steven Rondina
Valve has rolled out some big changes to Dota 2’s player experience, and the early outlook is positive. On October 31, Dota 2 hit a concurrent player count of 723,280. While that’s not an astronomical number, it represents the highest player count seen in the game since June. Alongside this is an uptick in the average player count, the first gain in that category since April. This is an important …
Dota 2
Team Liquid wins first event since 2018 at ESL One Germany
Steven Rondina
The current Team Liquid roster pulled off its greatest tournament victory ever. Liquid has won ESL One Germany, defeating Natus Vincere in 3-1 fashion. This is the biggest win for the tight-knit team and their biggest paycheck since forming in 2017. The series initially looked ready to close in potentially record-breaking fashion. Liquid secured dominant, 30-minute victories in the first two games of the finals. Both maps saw Liquid get …
Dota 2
Team Secret’s epic win streak broken with ESL One Germany loss
Steven Rondina
For the first time since April, Team Secret has been eliminated from a Dota 2 tournament. Dota 2’s top-ranked team has been booted out of ESL One Germany. The team was handed a 2-0 defeat in the lower bracket by Team Liquid. This came after being knocked out of the upper bracket by mudgolems in another sweep. Liquid needed to manufacture a wild comeback in order to take the first …
Dota 2
Monkey King can turn into Roshan, and 4 Zoomers shows us how
Steven Rondina
Monkey King’s Mischief ability has fairly limited use from a tactical perspective. It’s something people can have a lot of fun with, though. North American pro team 4 Zoomers took Monkey King shenanigans to a new level in Dota Summit 13 while playing against Team Plasma. After killing Roshan, mid laner Nico “Gunnar” Lopez took the hero into the empty pit and used Mischief. Though people would normally expect him …
News
Plasma handed DQ loss after outburst in Dota Summit 13
Steven Rondina
Dota Summit 13’s group stage for the Americas region is facing an unfortunate change of plans. North American squad Plasma1337x has been handed a disqualification loss for its upcoming match against beastcoast. This stems from a series of seemingly racially charged posts on the team’s Twitter account. Dota is a global game full of players from diverse backgrounds. We do not tolerate such conduct, especially in direct relation to our …
Dota 2
Fake Dota 2 tournament organizers are threatening Liquipedia staff
Steven Rondina
Liquipedia has quietly been on the frontline of a major match-fixing scandal in Dota 2. The esports Wikipedia took to Reddit and issued a lengthy statement on a creeping issue across the esports scene. Alongside the constant match-fixing problems that plague Dota 2 is a recent surge of fake tournaments. Earlier this year Liquipedia became aware that some bad actors were taking advantage of Liquipedia’s Dota 2 event listing in …
Dota 2
OG and Quincy Crew rise up Dota 2 rankings while EG falls
Steven Rondina
The Dota 2 scene is a lot different than it was just a month ago. A major roster shuffle kicked off that saw a slew of top teams turned upside down. On top of that, a number of competitions kicked off to christen the new Dota 2 season. A number of former top-10 teams no longer exist, while some fresh faces have emerged to challenge established names. Catch up on …
ESL One Germany: Alliance vs. Vikin.gg betting analysis, odds
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Alliance got off to a blistering hot start in ESL One Germany and the team is looking to keep that momentum going in the playoffs. Doing so starts with a win over Vikin.gg. Vikin.gg is coming off the first prominent event victory in organization history, winning BTS Pro Series Season 3. Though this largely came at the expense of tier-two teams, Vikin.gg has proven on many occasions now that it …
Gambit Esports introduces its new Dota 2 roster
Fariha Bhatti
Dota 2
Gambit Esports is set to re-enter the Dota 2 scene with a new roster after an extended period of inactivity. The CIS organization has picked up young players with limited professional experience to play under its banner. Gambit Esports announced their re-entry in Dota 2 esports with a roster that included some unfamiliar names. We’re happy to present our new Dota 2 roster ????????????Anton «yy» Shkredov — CarryArtem «Lorenof» …
Team Secret dominates Dota 2 player rankings, eLeVeN rises up
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Since the debut of the WIN.gg rankings, a lot has happened. The Chinese Dota 2 scene has emerged from its shuffle and begun some intense competition through the OGA Dota PIT League and China Dota 2 Pro Cup. The Southeast Asian scene has been turned upside down as teams overhaul their rosters. The CIS region looks almost completely different now than it did a few months ago. One month removed …
Arteezy and CCnC become first NA players to join 11K MMR Club
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Artour “Arteezy” Babaev is the latest member of the 11K MMR Club. The Evil Geniuses carry player became the seventh Dota 2 player to reach 11,000 MMR. He is the first North American player to reach the mark, and the third member of Evil Geniuses to join the club. Ez quinn not getting 11k before me pic.twitter.com/Ly56bUW8rc — Artour Babaev (@Arteezy) October 18, 2020 Arteezy announced the achievement on his …
New Realms Collide event billed as South America’s biggest ever
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The South American Dota 2 scene is historically the most under-served, but Valve is looking to address this soon. Peruvian tournament organizer 4D Esports has announced a new event called Realms Collide. The tournament will be held with support from Dota 2 publisher Valve and will boast a $75,000 prize pool. The news was revealed with a unique animated trailer featuring the four elemental spirit characters. “We will be partnering …
Valve reveals plan for when next new Dota 2 heroes will launch
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
With The International 10 Battle Pass now closed, Valve has plotted out its plans for the next few months. In a post published to the official Dota 2 blog, the publisher outlined a number of its plans for the game moving forward. This includes an overhaul of Dota Plus, a new direction for the TI10 Battle Pass guild system, and a new approach to updates in Dota 2. While Valve …
Valve turned down the chance to run TI10 in Shanghai in 2020
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The indefinite postponement of The International 2020 has had a disastrous effect on the Dota 2 pro scene. But did it need to happen? With the 2020 League of Legends World Championship currently underway and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive set to return to Cologne, Germany for live events in the near future , many are wondering if The International really needed to be postponed indefinitely or if it could have been …
Evil Geniuses’ Cr1t- is the next player to join 11K MMR club
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Andreas Franck “Cr1t-” Nielsen is the latest member of Dota 2’s most illustrious club. The Evil Geniuses support player has reached 11,000 MMR. This makes him the fifth member of the 11K MMR club, joining a handful of other Dota 2 stars. Though Cr1t- hit the mark while streaming on Twitch, he confirmed the milestone on his Twitter account shortly thereafter with a screenshot showing his MMR to be 11,010. …
The Dota 2 player count has dropped for five months in a row
Fariha Bhatti
Dota 2
Dota 2 is one of the few MOBA games that have managed to cement their feet in the world of esports. Despite the game’s incredible popularity for much of the past several years, the game’s player base is going through a major fluctuation in 2020. The average player count for the game has continued to drop for five consecutive months, resulting in average player and peak player declines of around …
EternaLEnVy is getting a lot of crazy Dota 2 tattoos
Steven Rondina
News
Anybody that has followed the career of Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao knows that he loves Dota 2 more than most people love anything. Now, he’s making sure that people who don’t follow him know it, too. The North American journeyman has been chronicling his latest adventure with the game on his suddenly active Instagram. That adventure is getting a Dota 2-themed double-sleeve tattoo. EternaLEnVy is in the middle of having his …
10 years ago, Valve announced Dota 2’s development
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
It’s been 10 years since the announcement of Dota 2. On October 12, 2010, Valve revealed the development of its ground-breaking MOBA. The announcement ended speculation within the community that the famed game developer will soon offer a standalone version of the popular Warcraft 3 custom map Defense of the Ancients. 10 years ago on this day, Dota 2 was publicly announced by Valve with the first promo images and …
Team Secret CEO profanely blasts 4AM over Sylar controversy
Steven Rondina
News
Team Secret and Four Angry Men most likely won’t play each other any time soon, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t already a rivalry forming between the two teams. Secret CEO John Yao released a blistering social media post about the 4AM organization, according to AFK Gaming. In a move made to ensure controversy was whipped up, the Team Secret organization then translated the post and published it on top …
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.
