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SumaiL is suing Evil Geniuses, here’s why Dota 2
SumaiL is suing Evil Geniuses, here’s why William Davis Dota 2 legend Syed “SumaiL” Hassan left Evil Geniuses in early 2020, but he’s not quite done with the American esports juggernaut. It has been revealed that Dota 2 prodigy SumaiL has been engaged in a legal battle with Evil Geniuses since late 2021. The lawsuit is related to stock options given to the player in 2016 when he was just 17 years old. A combination of contract issues and …
Chinese Dota 2 team Knights banned for DPC matchfixing Dota 2
Chinese Dota 2 team Knights banned for DPC matchfixing William Davis Dota 2 team Knights has been banned for matchfixing, with potential throws at the highest level of the Dota Pro Circuit. Matchfixing is an unfortunately common occurrence at the lower ends of multiple esports, but throwing games for cash at a $500,000 tournament is almost unthinkable. However, the great minds at Knights, a Chinese DPC team that earned a trip to the Lima Major, did exactly that. After an investigation …
$45 million esports tournament Riyadh Masters announced Dota 2
$45 million esports tournament Riyadh Masters announced William Davis After a test run in 2022, Riyadh Masters is returning to esports with a $45 million prize pool. Saudi Arabian esports organizer Gamers8 has announced a series of tournaments in 2023 that will feature a combined total prize pool of $45 million. The event will include several esports mainstays like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 as well as less-established competitive titles like PUBG: Mobile and Rocket League. The events …
How to play Muerta, Dota 2’s newest hyper carry Dota 2
How to play Muerta, Dota 2’s newest hyper carry William Davis Tens of thousands of players are figuring out how to play Muerta, and these item and skill builds are the most successful. Muerta is a tough nut to crack for Dota 2 players. Her kit seems disjointed at first glance, but there are plenty of synergies to find between her multiple disables. She also has one of the trickiest skill shots in the game with big reward for landing it. …
“It hurts my eyes,” Dota 2 fans lament Lima Major production Dota 2
“It hurts my eyes,” Dota 2 fans lament Lima Major production William Davis The Lima Major has already encountered several production problems on its first day, and the Dota 2 community is already turning sour. The Lima Major represents several firsts for Dota 2. It is the inaugural major of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit Season. It’s also the first-ever international event to take place in South America. But sadly, it is not the first Dota 2 major to be free of flaws. …
40,000 cheaters banned from Dota 2 following massive honeypot Dota 2
40,000 cheaters banned from Dota 2 following massive honeypot William Davis Getting a notification that a cheater your reported has been banned is one of the best feelings in Dota 2. Imagine that multiplied by 40,000. Valve has initiated a massive ban wave in Dota 2 that has eliminated approximately 40,000 dishonest players from matchmaking. This is one of the biggest sweeps in the game’s history, and the secretive company has even revealed some details about how it pulled this off. …
beastcoast talks 7-0 tour, old meta, and 7.33 before Lima Major Dota 2
beastcoast talks 7-0 tour, old meta, and 7.33 before Lima Major William Davis In our exclusive interview before the Lima Major, beastcoast Dota 2 opens up on its flawless tour record, desired patch notes, and playing for $500,000 in South America. The second major of the DPC will be the first Dota Pro Circuit international event held in South America, and the chosen city is Lima, Peru. With all five beastcoast players hailing from the region, the team will enter with a major …
Dota 2 patch 7.33 and Muerta release date confirmed by Valve Dota 2
Dota 2 patch 7.33 and Muerta release date confirmed by Valve William Davis Dota 2 patch 7.33 finally has a release date, and the first pro games will start just six days later. After months upon months of waiting, Dota 2 developer Valve has finally confirmed the release date for both patch 7.33 and the likely release of new hero Muerta. The announcement comes after the longest patch in Dota 2 history, with 7.32 to last a total of 195 days. Here’s the …
The Steam account with the most games only plays Dota 2 William Davis Dota 2 If most players had a Steam account with all games, they would probably jump from high-end title to AAA blockbuster all the time. Not this guy. The public Steam account with the largest number of registered games on it has more than 33,000 titles in its library. However, it seems that the owner isn’t interested in any of them besides one. The most-played game on the account by far is …
Dota 2 Berlin Major dates announced for 2023 DPC William Davis Dota 2 The Dota 2 Berlin Major has finally been announced by ESL, and here’s all the juicy info.  A major is a time of celebration for Dota 2 esports fans, with teams from all over the world meeting just three times a year before The International. Valve has already revealed the major cities for the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit, but details on anything past the Lima major have been scarce. That …
The top 3 favorite teams to win Dota 2 Lima major William Davis Dota 2 The favorites for the Lima Major dominated their respective regions, and now they’re gunning for the rest of the planet. With the first tour of 2023 completed, the Lima Major will mark the first global Dota 2 event since The International 2022. However, gauging the relative strength of Dota 2 teams across the world is no easy task. With the competitive scene once again split up by region, it can …
Dire win rate soars over Radiant at 2023 Winter DPC William Davis Dota 2 The win rate for the dire side has exploded in the Winter Dota Pro Circuit season, with two regions surpassing 60%. The differences between Dire and Radiant may seem small to newer players, but Dota 2 veterans know to take advantage of their half of the field’s perks. Radiant has historically held an advantage over Dire, and that remains true for public matchmaking in patch 7.32. However, the pro scene …
Leaked Dota 2 items will probably amount to nothing William Davis Dota 2 New items have leaked for Dota 2, but will they really be added to the game? Dota 2 fans have discovered a new set of strings that grants access to unreleased items in offline game modes. These new items give an interesting glimpse into the development process of Dota 2, and the fact that players can access them has led some to believe that they’ll be added in the long-awaited …
Puppey’s Team Secret falls to Div 2 in Western Europe DPC William Davis Dota 2 Team Secret and its legendary captain Clement “Puppey” Ivanov will spend a season in the minor league after bombing the Western Europe DPC. Team Secret has just pulled off one of the biggest nosedives in Dota 2 esports by earning silver at The International and then getting relegated to the lower division. The legendary squad lost every match of the winter DPC tour, ending with an anticlimactic forfeit to go …
Could the Dota 2 Lima Major be canceled due to unrest? William Davis Dota 2 Some Dota 2 pros are theorizing that the Lima Major may get canceled, putting a big damper on the 2023 DPC. For now, Valve is set on hosting the first major of the 2023 DPC in the Peruvian capital city of Lima. However, political unrest in the city could result in changes to the $500,000 event. Pro players and journalists have proposed that the event could get canceled, which would …
The easiest way to take Rosh solo as OD in Dota 2 William Davis Dota 2 Outworld Destroyer isn’t the first hero most Dota 2 players think of when it comes to taking Rosh solo, but OD is now a member of the exclusive club. Whether you plan to go Meteor Hammer or Moon Shard, OD is one of the best mid lane heroes to play in solo ranked. He has a great matchup spread and can quickly snowball to a victory against feeble-minded opponents. His …
Learn how to prep crit and bash in Dota 2 with PRNG William Davis Dota 2 Learning how to prep crit and bash is a core skill in Dota 2, so it’s a surprise how few players actually do it. Random number generation is generally considered uncompetitive at best and game-ruining at worst. However, the concept is also baked into the core of Dota 2. Many abilities and spells use RNG to determine their effects, with some heroes practically built around luck, such as Chaos Knight, …
TI11 prize pool was just 6.45% of total battle pass money William Davis Dota 2 If Valve used the original percentage for The International 2022, the TI11 prize pool would have been more than $73 million. Now that The International 2022 and Diretide combo battle pass is over, Dota 2 fans can now roughly calculate how much money Valve earned from the release. According to Team Secret’s calculations, Valve pulled in an insane amount of money. But because of the new distribution, the prize pool …
How to fix the Searching for Dota 2 Game Coordinator error William Davis Dota 2 Some players think of the game coordinator as the final boss of Dota 2, and an error that prevents searching for matches is worse than any smurf. There’s nothing worse than sitting down for some games of Dota 2 with four friends but suddenly being stopped at the main menu. It’s unfortunately common to see a blue bar at the top of the screen explaining that the game coordinator is …
Chinese team accused of cheating in DPC upper division William Davis Dota 2 Cheating is a rare thing in Dota 2 esports, but one team may have exploited a maphack at the highest level of the DPC. In a shock to the Dota 2 pro scene, upper division DPC squad Knights has been accused of using cheats during their seasonal matches. If true, the incident could lead to long-running consequences for competitive Dota 2 teams in all regions. The cheating accusations are aimed at …

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.