Dota 2
Dota 2
SumaiL joins former Virtus.pro stars in new team Just Error
Fariha Bhatti
Weeks of rumors regarding a new Dota 2 super team have finally been confirmed. Epic Esports Events has revealed the lineup featuring of Just Error, a new team comprised of some of the CIS region’s most credentialed players and North American Dota 2 star Syed “SumaiL” Hassan. The team’s roster includes the following players: Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev Alexey “Solo” Berezin Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan Bakyt “Zayac” Emilzhanov …
Dota 2
European qualifiers for IESF World Championship about to kick off
William Davis
European Qualifiers for IESF World Championship about to kick off The International Esports Federation (IESF), which is based in the South Korean city of Busan, is on a quest to search for the strongest nation in Dota 2. Teams from all over the world will compete in the third IESF World Championship for the international crown that will be awarded at the event’s grand finals. The European Qualifiers are right …
Dota 2
EternaLEnVy’s Team Zero shocks Quincy Crew, wins Dota Summit 13
Steven Rondina
Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao pulled off his biggest tournament win in a long while. Playing in Dota Summit 13 Americas, EternaLEnVy’s Team Zero scored a shock first-place finish in the event by defeating Quincy Crew in the grand finals. This victory is worth $42,000 and is arguably EternaLEnVy’s best tournament performance since 2018, when he left Fnatic to become a journeyman. The series opened very well for Team Zero, as game …
Dota 2
RAMZES666 benched by Evil Geniuses, is Virtus.pro return possible?
Steven Rondina
After weeks of silence and inactivity, Evil Geniuses is finally making major changes. The organization has announced the deactivation of off laner Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev from its Dota 2 roster. No announcement was made regarding his replacement, or whether other changes are set to take place for Evil Geniuses. With the removal of RAMZES666, Evil Geniuses has the following Dota 2 players signed: Tal “Fly” Aizik Artour “Arteezy” Babaev Andreas …
This is how long it takes to earn every Diretide 2020 reward
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Surprise, surprise. A massive Dota 2 event has arrived, and fans are not happy with it. Diretide 2020 is currently underway and Dota 2 players are saying that there are just too many items and too few ways to obtain them. The sheer number of rewards is so great, it would require a Dota 2 player to dedicate hundreds of hours to playing just to earn all of the skins …
Former VP.Prodigy team becomes the official Virtus.pro roster
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The VP.Prodigy team is no more, but there’s a good reason why. The Virtus.pro organization has announced that the developmental squad has been promoted to being the main Virtus.pro Dota 2 team. This follows VP.Prodigy finalizing a new roster, made up of the following players: Egor “epileptick1d” Grigorenko Danil “gpk” Skutin Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin Vitalie “Save-” Melnic Illias “illias” Ganeev “We launched VP.Prodigy roster with one main goal, to give …
Team Liquid rockets up Dota 2 rankings after ESL One Germany
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
ESL One Germany left fans stunned on multiple fronts. Team Secret’s first-place streak was broken after six months of untouchable dominance, Team Liquid’s roster looked elite for the first time in years, and mudgolems continues to exceed expectations. That, alongside a return to action in China, has made for an interesting two-week stretch in Dota 2. Here are the updated rankings: Unsurprisingly, the biggest in the rankings was the biggest …
Puppey, YapzOr fall as Team Liquid rises in Dota 2 player rankings
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
After a lull during the roster shuffle period, Dota 2 competitions are back in full swing. Europe had all its top teams competing at ESL One Germany, China is back with the CDA-FDC Pro Championship, and Dota Summit 13 has both Southeast Asia and the Americas back in action. That has made for some major shifts over the last two weeks, with every spot outside the top three changing. Here …
VP.Prodigy finalizes new team with Gambit’s gpk, Na’Vi’s illias
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
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 …
Diretide increases Dota 2 player count for first time in months
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
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 …
Team Liquid wins first event since 2018 at ESL One Germany
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
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 …
Team Secret’s epic win streak broken with ESL One Germany loss
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
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 …
Diretide returns with new Halloween skins and game mode
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota 2 snuck its Halloween event in just before time ran out. Diretide, one of the original Dota 2 limited-time events, has returned for the first time since 2013. The Halloween game mode has arrived just two days before the holiday, but is robust enough to make up for it. The reveal was made with a trailer that features a good bit of tongue-in-cheek comedy about the history of the …
mudgolems sweep Team Secret in ESL One Germany playoffs
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Team Secret has absorbed an absolutely shocking loss. The world’s best Dota 2 squad has landed in the lower bracket of the ESL One Germany playoffs. While that’s surprising on its own, more surprising is the fact that this loss came from the newly-formed mudgolems team. The kicker is that this came in a relatively convincing 2-0 fashion. The first game was a slow but lopsided win for mudgolems. Despite …
New $500,000 Dota 2 league announced by Epicenter organizer
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Epic Esports Events is set to expand its presence in esports even further. The tournament organizer behind the Epicenter event series is launching a new European and CIS league named the Epic League. The event will run from November 3 to December 13, and boasts a substantial $500,000 prize pool. Epic Esports Events announced eight competitors for the event, including the following teams: Team Secret Alliance Team Liquid Virtus.pro Natus …
Monkey King can turn into Roshan, and 4 Zoomers shows us how
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
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 …
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.
Dota 2
Dota 2
Dota 2
Dota 2
