Dota 2
Dota 2
Garter retires from Dota 2 to start LoL career, talks Dota 2 vs. LoL
gabhernandez
A Dota 2 veteran has left the professional scene due to the lack of support for tier-two teams and the game’s inconsistent MMR system. With a career dating back to Dota 2’s inception, Ylli “garter” Ramadani has decided to leave and pursue League of Legends instead. In a TwitLonger post, he pointed out several flaws in the current pro scene. Dota 2 enthusiasts have been crying foul on Valve’s unstable …
Dota 2
EG captain Fly’s support Viper pick takes over pro Dota 2 games
Steven Rondina
Alongside Tinker and Invoker, Viper has long been used as a mid lane hero. Viper was also almost exclusively used in low ELO games. His incredibly high early game damage and punishing Corrosive Skin passive was enough to fluster inexperienced players and dominate in the mid game. He didn’t necessarily hold up once the opponents started finishing items like Black King Bar and Pipe of Insight, but ideally the game …
Dota 2
Quick guide to Dota 2 warding in the early, mid, and late game
Steven Rondina
Wards win wars in Dota 2. Dota 2 is a game of information and the team that has more of it is going to win the vast majority of the time. Because of that, knowing when and where to place wards is an incredibly valuable tool for players at all levels. It requires quite a bit of game sense to know the best locations for wards as the game progresses …
Dota 2
Dota 2 fans panic as game hits historic player count lows
Steven Rondina
Dota 2’s player base hit historic lows last month. According to Steam Charts, Dota 2’s average player count in December 2019 was just 384,179, with a peak of 685,165. Those tallies are the lowest in a calendar month since January 2014, a time that was in the middle stages of Dota 2’s initial rise to prominence. This continues what has been a bad six-month stretch for the game. 2019 was …
True Sight TI9 release date revealed, features OG and Liquid
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota 2 fans will be able to experience the grand finals of The International 2019 in a new and much anticipated way. True Sight: The International 2019 is coming, showing the backstage drama that played out during the grand finals series between OG and Team Liquid. Valve released a short trailer for the documentary, showing what fans have to look forward to. The trailer shows both teams discussing the action …
Dota 2 vs. LoL debate continues with G2 Esports CEO, OG’s Ceb
gabhernandez
Dota 2
The Dota 2 vs. League of Legends debate rages on. G2 Esports CEO Carlos Rodríguez Santiago chimed in on the discussion with a minute-long video on Twitter comparing and contrasting the two games, using cars as an analogy. He told fans that League of Legends is like BMW i8, a machine he said is “crafted by the gods.” On the other hand, Dota 2 can be compared to a 1993 …
Royal Never Give Up announces sponsorship with Kappa
Olivia Richman
Dota 2
Royal Never Give Up’s Dota 2 team has gained a title sponsorship deal with Kappa, an Italian sportswear brand. This is likely the first non-endemic sponsorship deal for an esports team signed in 2020. The Chinese esports organization revealed the news in a short post on social media site Weibo. In the translated paragraph, RNG explained that their Dota 2 team has been rebranded as Kappa.RNG Dota 2. This new name …
Dendi forms new team, wins first tournament in over two years
gabhernandez
Dota 2
Dota 2 legend Danil “Dendi” Ishutin won his first tournament in over two years. The longtime Natus Vincere mid laner has put together a new squad in Team MR and took the top prize at the Rivalry Winter Blast. Team MR placed third in the group stage and earned a spot in the lower bracket of the playoffs with a 4-4 record. MR started its run by defeating CIS squad …
Going in depth on the best ways to bet on Dota 2 matches
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Betting on esports isn’t just limited to picking which team is going to win a specific map or series. Different book makers will offer different lines on all sorts of things, offering action that offers varying levels of risk and reward. Each prominent esports title has its own set of markets, incorporating different aspects of the game in a way that can make every phase of the contest exciting. Dota …
SumaiL tops Dota 2 leaderboard at both core and support positions
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Syed “SumaiL” Hassan is sitting out of professional Dota 2 right now, but he isn’t taking any time off from playing the game. The former Evil Geniuses mid laner has clawed his way to the top of the North American Dota 2 leaderboards. As of this writing, he sits atop the rankings at both the core and support positions, beating out former teammates such as Artour “Arteezy” Babaev, Quinn “CCnC” …
These are all of the biggest esports prize pools from 2019
Olivia Richman
Dota 2
2019 has been a big year for esports, something that becomes quite evident when we look back at the prize pools for tournaments in the year. Esports events in 2019 awarded over $211 million in prize pool money, according to Esports Earnings. This is a big jump from last year, where esports teams and players earned a total of $162.7 million. In 2014, only $37.5 million was handed out at …
These are the best Dota 2 heroes to play during patch 7.23e
gabhernandez
Dota 2
Dota 2 version 7.23 has radically changed the game experience by introducing new heroes, abilities, item drops, buildings, and juke spots. As with any new patch, the Outlanders Update also empowered certain heroes and shifted the meta in ways that made established heroes more potent. Naturally, there are now several characters that stand above the rest and are the most valuable targets in drafts in both casual and professional play. …
n0tail is banned from Twitch for using a homophobic slur
Olivia Richman
Dota 2
OG’s Johan “n0tail” Sundstein has been banned from Twitch for using homophobic language. In a live stream on Christmas day, the Dota 2 star was picking his hero when he decided to inform his viewers that he should “stick to my faggot-ass summon heroes.” Soon after, the Dota 2 community noticed that his Twitch channel had the dreaded “content is unavailable” message. Many of n0tail’s fans are in agreement that …
WePlay! Esports General Producer talks about upcoming DPC Minor
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
WePlay! Esports is about to hold the first big Dota 2 tournament of the year 2020, and the esports organizer has been around in Dota 2 for a very long time now. The organizer hosted some of the largest online leagues of the game’s formative years and helped teams like Natus Vincere and Alliance build their legacies. WePlay! still does so today, giving teams like OG and Ninjas in Pyjamas …
All of the best and worst in Dota 2 in 2019
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Unless something absurd happens, Dota 2 is done for 2019. This has been an up and down year for the game at both the professional and casual levels. There were some very high highs as new teams posted some memorable performances and old favorites found new heights of success. Unfortunately, there were also some low lows brought about by a player exodus and mismanagement from developer Valve. Let’s take a …
Top talents revealed for Dota 2’s WePlay! Bukovel Minor
Steven Rondina
News
WePlay! has revealed the list of broadcast talent for January’s WePlay! Bukovel Minor, and it’s a strong one. The tournament organizer revealed the list of hosts, casters, and analysts for the event, and there are few surprises for Dota 2 fans as the event is largely comprised of familiar names. The Bukovel Minor will bring together some of the most recognizable broadcast talent in the game, as well as some …
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
