win.gg
Win.gg Dota 2 A Dota 2 pro became Herald, here’s what happened next

A Dota 2 pro became Herald, here’s what happened next

Author Icon
William Davis Published 11/03/2023

A wild MMR glitch put a pro Dota 2 player into Herald matchmaking, and the results are not surprising. 

Former Dota 2 pro player He “Inflame” Yongzheng has recalibrated his MMR to 10, placing him at the very bottom of Herald matchmaking. This is likely due to a bug, which has since been fixed. However, this strange phenomenon resulted in an 8,000+ MMR player playing against the worst players in his region.

Here’s how his matches went and how much MMR he gained once the bug was fixed.

Inflame is a former Chinese Dota 2 pro who most famously played for LFY in 2017 and 2018. That squad earned third place at The International 20177, winning $2,592,231. Inflame is now a streamer, but he maintains his pedigree as a top-level offlaner. When recalibrating for his stream, some sort of glitch caused his MMR to drop all the way to the floor. 

Dota 2 pro Inflame drops to Herald

Screenshots from his profile show Inflame going from Immortal matchmaking directly to Herald. Unsurprisingly, he began stomping matches with a massive number of kills and very few deaths. In his first six games after the bug, he earned 117 kills with just eight deaths. He streamed the matches live on his Douyo channel, showing stomp after stomp. Smurfing is against the rules of Dota 2, but there’s not really a precedent for this sort of situation.

However, someone at Valve seems to have taken notice of the situation. After 18 games in the trenches, Inflame started queueing into other Immortal-level players while still having just a few hundred MMR. After one loss, he experienced a massive MMR growth spurt up to 7,910, placing him solidly back in Immortal.

That number is lower than his starting MMR, but at least he achieved one of Dota 2’s most difficult feats by finally breaking out of Herald.

What MMR are pro players in Dota 2?

The MMR of pro Dota 2 players varies quite a bit, but they generally start at around 8,500 and scale past 10,000.

The current highest MMR in Dota 2 belongs to Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov, who is the top-ranked player in North America. His exact MMR is not known, but it is confirmed to be over 12,000. His rivals for the position include Souliya “JaCkky” Khoomphetsavong and Danil “gpk” Skutin, who are ranked first on the Southeast Asian and European MMR leaderboards, respectively. All three play for top-tier teams in their respective regions. 

watson highest MMR Dota 2 pro

However, there have historically been pro players with less than half of their MMR. Most famously, Joakim “Akke” Akterhall was ranked around 5,000 MMR when Alliance won The International 2013. Nigma Galaxy captain Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi is notably pub-shy, playing relatively few games in matchmaking. He was allegedly not even on the leaderboards when Team Liquid won The International 2017.

William Davis
About William Davis

View full profile
Read Also
ESIC hand down ruling in EWC Dota match-fixing case: Lifetime ban for coach as DarkMago gets a nickel Dota 2
ESIC hand down ruling in EWC Dota match-fixing case: Lifetime ban for coach as DarkMago gets a nickel Michael Hassall South American Dota 2 player Gonzalo "DarkMago" Herrera will be banned for five years from competitive Dota 2, with his coach Juan "Vintage" Angulo banned permanently, following the results of an The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) investigation. ESIC handed down the findings and rulings from its investigation into match-fixing allegations leveled at members of South American Dota 2 team PlayTime during the Esports World Cup on Sep. 10, in a ...
Polystrike Turns a Dota 2 Mod Into a Standalone Tactical Shooter News
Polystrike Turns a Dota 2 Mod Into a Standalone Tactical Shooter Hannan Mundia After the community-made mod found success within the community, developer and publisher Robin Entertainment has decided to turn Polystrike into a proper standalone game. Community-made mods of games finding success within the respective game’s community is nothing new. However, only a handful of those mods are able to go on and become a standalone game. One of the more recent examples is The Forgotten City, which started as a mod ...
Team Spirit wins TI15 to lift a record third Aegis of Champions Dota 2
Team Spirit wins TI15 to lift a record third Aegis of Champions Michael Hassall Team Spirit has defeated TEAM VISION in the grand finals of TI15, The International 2025. In a full five-game series on Aug. 23, Spirit pulled out all the stops and narrowly defeated an incredible VISION team in a back-and-forth series in Shanghai, China. With Spirit’s victory, Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk and Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov become the first ever three-time TI champions, and Team Spirit becomes the first ever organization to lift ...
The International 2026 (TI15) Finals Preview and Predictions Dota 2
The International 2026 (TI15) Finals Preview and Predictions Michael Hassall The International 2026, TI15, has reached its final day, and just three teams remain in the fight for the Aegis of Champions. With the lower bracket final and Grand Final still to come, everything comes down to one final day of Dota 2 action. The lower bracket finalists will first battle for the right to reach the main event’s final series, while the winner will advance to face the upper-bracket ...
TI15’s opening ceremony weaves a tapestry of emotion for Valve’s storied title Dota 2
TI15’s opening ceremony weaves a tapestry of emotion for Valve’s storied title Michael Hassall The main stage of The International 2026, TI15, kicked off today with the traditional opening ceremony heralding the start of the biggest celebration of Dota 2 on the calendar. On Aug. 20 fans in Shanghai, China, and at home, were treated to a rousing 11-minute series of performances and video packages, introducing TI15’s main stage show. Here’s how the magic unfolded: The ceremony began with a graphic which quite literally ...
The International 2026 (TI15) Playoffs preview and predictions Dota 2
The International 2026 (TI15) Playoffs preview and predictions Michael Hassall The Group Stage of The International 2026, TI15, is in the books and we’ve whittled down 16 of the world’s best Dota 2 teams to just eight finalists. One of these talented lineups will be the ones lifting the Aegis of Champions come Sunday, Aug. 23, but until then, there’s plenty of playoff shenanigans that could go on. Below we’ve put together a preview of the upcoming Playoff Games, along ...
The Esports Nations Cup Has Been Postponed to November 2027 News
The Esports Nations Cup Has Been Postponed to November 2027 Ben Boland The 2026 Esports Nations Cup has been suspended until 2027. The Esports Foundation announced the delay on August 18, citing ongoing regional uncertainty. The inaugural competition was scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, comprising over 100 national teams and featuring 16 different games, including League of Legends. According to the Esports Foundation, this decision follows ongoing developments in the region and consultation with key stakeholders. Moving the event ...