Dota 2
Dota 2
New season patch brings Dazzle, Io, more changes to Dota Auto Chess
gabhernandez
The first season of Dota Auto Chess has concluded and Drodo Studio has released some huge changes to the game. Major changes were added to the popular Dota 2 custom game as it closed its first season. These include reworking hero synergies, rebalancing of existing heroes, and adding new chess pieces to the game. Drodo Studio also marked April 30 as an “offseason” day. This means that all games played …
Dota 2
Former Team Liquid coach Heen joins up with TNC Predator
gabhernandez
TNC Predator has announced the addition of a former Team Liquid coach to its organization. Lee “Heen” Seung Gon is popularly known for coaching Team Liquid for more than two years. Team Liquid had found several tournament successes under his guidance since his joining in 2016. His coaching for Team Liquid debuted at The Manila Major 2016 where the team took second place behind OG. From there, Liquid found its …
News
Ninjas in Pyjamas win OGA Dota PIT Minor, head to Disneyland Major
Steven Rondina
Ninjas in Pyjamas are going to Disneyland. The European squad fought their way through the OGA Dota PIT Minor to capture the last available spot in the MDL Disneyland Paris Major. The team took the victory with an impressive 3-2 win over EHOME in the grand finals. The first game was a wild one. NiP held a considerable lead over EHOME, taking every team fight that came about. EHOME managed …
Dota 2
Natus Vincere bench Chuvash, bring on Zayac after Mumbai loss
gabhernandez
Natus Vincere has benched Evgeniy “Chuvash” Makarov a few days after the team’s third-place finish in ESL One Mumbai. Bakyt “Zayac” Emilzhanov, who recently played for teams such as The Pango and Vega Squadron, will replace Chuvash for upcoming tournaments with Na`Vi. The duration of the inactive status of Chuvash is unannounced. Chuvash’ status might be similar to Danil “Dendi” Ishutin’s inactive status, allowing the player to permanently take a …
News
Dendi, Xepher part ways with Tigers in latest roster shakeup
Steven Rondina
The most beloved player in Dota 2 has once again been left without a team. Speaking on the team’s Facebook page, Southeast Asia’s Tigers announced that it is parting ways with Danil “Dendi” Ishutin and support player Kenny “Xepher” Deo. “Today we bid farewell to two of our dearest players, who we have gone through so much together with,” the team said in the announcement. “Both players have shown great camaraderie and …
News
OpenAI bots defeat thousands of human teams in OpenAI Arena
gabhernandez
OpenAI Five has stepped up its game and defeated 7,215 human teams in public matches. Earlier this month, OpenAI hosted a final live event for OpenAI Five in the San Francisco bay area. The show’s highlight was a series between the bots and the reigning The International champions at OG. OpenAI Five stomped the current Aegis holders despite OG’s attempt to exploit the bots’ weaknesses. OpenAI then took it up …
Dota 2
Febby picks up ESL One Mumbai MVP award despite finals loss
gabhernandez
Fans were in for a big surprise with the Most Valuable Player prize was awarded at ESL One Mumbai, as the player was not from winning team Keen Gaming. Kim “Febby” Yong-min drove home a brand-new Mercedez-Benz car for being named ESL One Mumbai MVP. The automobile is worth €50,000. Febby temporarily replaced Ryan “Bimbo” Jay Qui in the Mineski lineup due to visa issues. The team dominated the upper …
Dota 2
EternalEnVy under fire for Team Team release of two players
Steven Rondina
Team Team has made some surprise roster moves and Jacky “EternalEnVy” Mao is taking some serious heat for it. A day after the North American squad washed out of ESL One Mumbai, Team Team mid laner Nico “Gunnar” Lopez and support player Jason “Newsham” Newsham both posted ominous “LFT” messages on Twitter. Gunnar added “we were kicked” shortly after. This sparked a deluge of criticism towards the team’s newly added …
Keen Gaming win ESL One Mumbai amidst player and team dramas
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
ESL One Mumbai had a lot of strange things going on in the background, but everything under the spotlight went exactly as expected. Keen Gaming took first place at the tournament, scoring its first live event victory in organization history. It is also the first trophy in the pro Dota 2 careers of Keen players Song “dark”‘ Runxi and Zhai “一” Jingkai. The squad won the top spot with a …
TNC Predators defeat local hope Signify at ESL One Mumbai
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Signify did its best to represent Indian Dota 2, but wasn’t quite able to find victory against one of the world’s top veteran teams. Following the withdrawal of several teams from ESL One Mumbai, Indian squad Signify had the chance to compete in front of a live crowd as hometown favorites. Instead of forging their way to the finals and winning over the world with an electrifying victory, the little-known …
Chinese Dota 2 event hit with allegation of cheating by veteran player
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The games played by iG.Vitality at a recent tournament aren’t sitting well with Su “super” Peng. The veteran player and current staff member for the team accused a number of recent opponents of cheating during the China Future Cup tournament. Though iG.Vitality posted a solid second-place finish at the event, Super took to social media and blasted the players and the tournament organizer. “Unfortunately for us, we only achieved second …
Alliance to ESL One Birmingham after GG.BET Birmingham triumph
gabhernandez
Dota 2
Alliance captured the last spot at ESL One Birmingham by winning the GG.BET Birmingham Invitational. Eight teams from Europe and CIS fought for the last ticket to ESL One Birmingham. Natus Vincere, Gambit Esports, and Alliance were among the biggest names invited to participate in the GG.BET Birmingham Invitational for a chance to qualify to the bigger event. After a group stage bloodbath, Alliance and Gambit Esports topped their respective …
First Dota Auto Chess mobile keys start rolling out in China
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota Auto Chess developer Drodostudio has launched the alpha build of its mobile port of the popular game. A number of Chinese streamers have been broadcasting their play of the early version of the game. Though details of the mobile Auto Chess release are still unknown, fans of the game can now get an early look at what is in store. From a gameplay perspective, the mobile version of Auto …
J.Storm takes first place, wins title at WSOE 6: Serenity’s Destiny
Steven Rondina
News
J.Storm are the new champions of the World Showdown of Esports. The North American team took the WSOE Dota 2 title with a dramatic victory over Team Serenity at WSOE 6. The squad earned a crack at the proverbial belt by navigating a tricky field of opponents in the challengers bracket, last defeating Infamous. The series opened with a tough loss for J.Storm. Despite a solid laning phase from the …
Thunder Predator cruises through Mekansm League Season 1
Steven Rondina
News
Thunder Predator has long been the king of its regional Dota 2 tournaments, and it maintaind that reputation in the Mekansm League. The Peruvian team cruised through the tournament to take the first-place prize of $3,500. It did so by defeating Kingao+4, an impromptu team built around Chaos Esports Club player Danylo “Kingrd” Nascimento in the grand finals. That grand finals kicked off with an excellent showing from Leonardo “LeoStyle-” …
Winstrike reveals new Dota 2 lineup that includes Virtus.pro, OG alums
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The clock is ticking on teams looking to qualify for The International 2019, and that is prompting some heavy roster shakeups. One organization making serious changes is Winstrike Team. The CIS staple recently suffered a series of departures, but have put together a compelling new roster for a push into the EPICENTER Major. Joining Winstrike are longtime Virtus.pro player Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk and former OG carry Igor “iLTW” Filatov. The …
OpenAI Five dominate reigning Dota 2 champions OG, threaten humanity
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Artificial intelligence has already beaten the best in the world at board games like chess and go, but now it is beating the best in Dota 2. In a showmatch best-of-three series, OpenAI Five defeated reigning The International 2018 champions OG in lopsided fashion. Though the game used a special set of rules that barred certain items and included only a fraction of Dota 2’s hero pool, the human side …
Dota Auto Chess developer shows off new designs for pieces
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
Dota Auto Chess has taken the world by storm as a user-made game mode in Dota 2, but fans are getting a small taste of its upcoming standalone mobile release. Auto Chess developer Drodo Studio has been rolling out concept art for the characters in the mobile port of the game on Twitter. The new pieces let players see the title’s general art style, but also let fans know that …
Natus Vincere bring in Misha to sub for captain Sonneiko
gabhernandez
Dota 2
Natus Vincere captain Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butae will be benched temporarily. For the team’s upcoming tournaments, Na ‘Vi tapped Mikhail “Misha” Agatov to stand in for the side. Misha will be playing for Na ‘Vi in two tournaments outside of the Dota Pro Circuit: ESL One Mumbai and the GG.BET Birmingham Invitational. The reason behind this decision was revealed to be an ongoing health issue a recent press release. “During the …
ESL One Mumbai rocked by multiple withdrawals due to Dota PIT Minor
Steven Rondina
Dota 2
The ESL One Mumbai Dota 2 tournament is fast approaching, but many of the teams set to participate in it have peeled off and headed elsewhere. According to a statement from ESL, the event set to take place in India was rocked hard by a series of withdrawals, largely surrounding those teams qualified for the OGA Dota PIT Minor. Though the event will continue on, it will feature a reduced …
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.
