Dota 2
Dota 2
Sccc, LaNm may face coronavirus isolation after return to China
Steven Rondina
StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 had some unintended consequences for its victor, Team Aster. According to a statement posted on Weibo by Guo Zhili, team manager of Aster sister squad Team Sirius, Aster’s star carry Song “Sccc” Chun and substitute coach Zhang “LaNm” Zhicheng are potentially facing multiple weeks in isolation. The team remains in Kyiv, Ukraine following its win at the event due to the cancellation of …
Dota 2
Dota Pro Circuit will return to Croatia for Dota PIT Minor 2020
Nina Forneloza
Croatia will host the next Dota Pro Circuit minor tournament. One Game Agency will bring another event to Split, Croatia. The organizer has announced the AMD SAPPHIRE DOTA PIT Minor 2020, which will take place ahead of the 2020 Epicenter Major. The tournament will be the fourth minor event of the season and is important for any team aiming for a coveted direct invite to The International 2020. Eight teams from …
Dota 2
EternaLEnVy’s Cloud9 goes winless in debut at Dota Summit 12
Steven Rondina
Fans got their first taste of the new Cloud9 Dota 2 roster and that taste was pretty darn bad. The team made its debut at Dota Summit 12 in disastrous fashion, getting eliminated from the group stage. Worse yet, the team amassed a 0-10 record along the way. Dota Summit 12 started in ugly fashion for Cloud9. Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao started the event by facing one of his former teams, …
Dota 2
ESL One LA Major reportedly canceled due to coronavirus concerns
Steven Rondina
The ESL One LA Major has been cancelled. According to esports journalist Rod Breslau, ESL has sent word to teams and broadcast talent that the event is off due to concerns over the coronavirus. –Updated at 3:45 a.m. ET on March 12, 2020– ESL has issued the following statement confirming the news on Twitter. “In light of recent travel restrictions and the evolving COVID-19 situation, ESL is postponing the ESL …
Dota 2
Team Aster wins StarLadder Minor, heads to ESL One LA Major strong
Steven Rondina
Team Aster is heading to the ESL One LA Major. The Chinese squad will maintain its spot as a steady presence at majors by taking first place in the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3. A 3-1 victory over Alliance capped a near-perfect run through the tournament for the team. Aster took command of game one early. Kee “ChYuan” Ng jumped out to a massive early lead with three …
Dota 2
Aster reaches StarLadder minor final with win over Gambit Esports
Steven Rondina
Team Aster is just one series away from qualifying for the ESL One LA Major. The Chinese squad defeated Gambit Esports in the upper bracket finals of the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3. Now in the grand finals, Aster awaits the winner of the lower bracket finals match between Gambit and Alliance. Things were rough for Gambit in game one of the series. In the first few minutes …
Dota 2
T1 signs first full Dota 2 roster, sets sights on Epicenter Major
Nina Forneloza
T1 has officially settled on a Dota 2 roster after six disastrous months in the game. T1 is finally done with trial lineups. The storied League of Legends organization is looking to build around the squad that competed under its banner in the open qualifiers to the ESL One LA Major. That team consists of the following players: Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier Muhammad “inYourdreaM” Rizky Lee “Forev” Sang-don Tri “Jhocam” Kuncoro …
Dota 2
Valve warns fans of experimental Dota 2 updates during NA peak hours
Nina Forneloza
Valve has warned fans of an upcoming series of experimental Dota 2 updates. In a recent post to Dota 2’s Steam Community page, the publisher revealed that there will be a few short-lived changes introduced to the game for data-gathering purposes. These changes are meant to serve as a test run for potential permanent tweaks to Dota 2. Before implementing the changes, the developer is looking to gather data to …
Business associates look sharp at Dota 2 Minor, get swiftly eliminated
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
Clinton “Fear” Loomis and his team, business associates, surprised fans as they wore business attire on the main stage of the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3. While other teams are looking playful at the event, Fear and company were strictly business, wearing dress shirts and ties. Fans still had fun with the look, and were quick to point out that the players looked like their office’s IT department. It was …
New Cloud9 Dota 2 debuts at The Summit 12, full team lineup revealed
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
Team Secret, Cloud9, and Thunder Predator complete the list of participating teams at Dota Summit 12. The tournament organizer announced the news on Twitter, with the full list of teams currently standing as follows: Evil Geniuses Fnatic OG Seed Team Secret Thunder Predator Cloud9 Team Secret is looking to build more momentum ahead of ESL One Los Angeles 2020. Europe’s powerhouse team were crowned champions at DreamLeague Season 13 and followed …
fy allegedly set to depart PSG.LGD amidst team’s struggles
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
A report about Xu “fy” Linsen is creating a buzz within the Dota 2 community. Since 2017, PSG.LGD is under the guidance and captaincy of Dota 2 legend fy. He is famed for being one of the best supports in the professional scene. His signature heroes are Rubick, Tusk, and Earthshaker. Fans and Dota 2 personalities called him “fy God” for his exceptional playstyle as position 4 player. But Sun …
EG, Fnatic, and OG.Seed will all play at Dota Summit 12
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
Evil Geniuses, Fnatic, and OG Seed got their golden tickets to the Loot.Bet Dota Summit 12 event. The tournament will happen between the StarLadder ImbaTV Minor and ESL One Los Angeles 2020. The scheduled event was squeezed in between the two Dota Pro Circuit events. Beyond the Summit announced the first few teams who received a direct invite to the event. EG, Fnatic, and OG Seed will participate in Loot.Bet Dota …
ESL issues statement on coronavirus fears over ESL One LA Major
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
The show will go on for Dota 2 fans at the ESL One LA Major. Despite coronavirus concerns swirling, ESL assured fans that the tournament is currently slated to continue on as planned. With less than two weeks to prepare and esports events around the world being impacted, North American Dota 2 fans had serious cause for concern. “The ESL One Los Angeles 2020 Major will happen as planned on March 20-22 …
Treasure of the Fallen Cinder arrives in latest Dota 2 update
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
Valve has kept Dota 2 fans on their toes of late with regular updates to Dota 2. The latest example of this was a major shift to the MMR system, but packaged alongside of it was a new set of cosmetic items. Treasure of the Fallen Cinder dropped yesterday, featuring new item sets for Clockwerk, Meepo, Elder Titan, Shadow Shaman, Oracle, Pangolier, Outworld Devourer, Viper, Beastmaster, Phoenix, and Wraith King. …
Fighting PandaS signed by CR4ZY ahead of next Dota 2 minor
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The Fighting PandaS have finally found themselves a sponsor. Croatian esports organization CR4ZY has announced its acquisition of the Fighting PandaS roster. The organization revealed the news in a post on its official website. “We are very excited to share that CR4ZY will be competing in Dota 2 esports going into the future, after picking up a team known as Fighting PandaS…The team acquisition also means that for the first …
OG, TNC Predator receive invitations to ESL One Birmingham 2020
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
OG and TNC Predator are among the first invitees to ESL One Birmingham 2020. ESL has started announcing the participants for the upcoming event. The tournament boasts a prize pool of $300,000. Although it is not a Dota Pro Circuit event, the ESL One event series still attracts many of the best teams in the world. Part of this is the ESL One Most Valuable Player Award, which gives top performers …
EternaLEnVy rejoins former teammates on new Cloud9 Dota 2 team
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Cloud9’s Southeast Asian Dota 2 lineup was short-lived, but fans of the brand should be very excited about the new roster. The organization has confirmed the long-rumored signing of former Fighting PandaS players Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao and Jingjun “Sneyking” Wu, while also revealing the acquisition of former Team Secret and Ninjas in Pyjamas player Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard. The news was broken on the team’s official website, with the new roster …
New MMR system removes Core and Support scores in Dota 2 update
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Valve is once again shaking up Dota 2’s ranked roles matchmaking. This time, an update brings a new MMR system that functionally gives players separate MMRs for each of the five roles included in ranked roles. “Today’s update features a change to the rank system that replaces the Core/Support separation with a single rank that uses handicaps for each of the five ranked roles, representing your relative strength playing each …
Dota Summit 12 announced for the week before ESL One LA Major
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Beyond The Summit is hosting the 12th installment of the Dota Summit event series next week. Some might be surprised by this, wondering how they missed the announcement and how it crept up so quietly. Don’t feel bad, though. Because in reality, BTS sprang this on everyone. The popular tournament organizer revealed the LOOT.BET Dota Summit 12 on March 2. The event will run from March 10 to 13. The …
Amid falling numbers, fans wonder if Dota 2 is doomed to die
Nina Forneloza
Dota 2
A viral video on YouTube claims that Dota 2 is slowly dying. It’s a subject fans have increasingly discussed given falling player counts and other worrying metrics around the popular MOBA. The video was released on the YouTube channel Elwono. Wono is a content creator who started a French Minecraft channel in 2011. He began producing Dota 2 videos in 2014 and reached 1.1 million views in just six months. …
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.
