After months of speculation and just teasers to go off, we now have concrete information about Arcane, Riot Games’ League of Legends-inspired Netflix Series. The developer released a full trailer on Saturday, September 25, as well as release dates and more details.
The trailer seems to show the story will focus on LoL characters Jinx and Vi and their lives in Piltover. What’s more, the trailer appeared to show Caitlyn, Jayce, Heimerdinger, and Viktor, giving us a full array of the Hex-tech wielding cities champions.
We’ve known about the series since May, when Netflix first leaked details. Netflix has recently taken a big drive into video games, and specifically Moba-related, IPs. The streaming platform debuted Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood earlier this year to critical acclaim. Now Dota 2’s rival game League of Legends is set to hit the platform.
Along with a trailer, we also found out more about the cast. Vi will be played by Hailee Stenfield, with sister Jinx played by Ella Purnell. Have will be played by Kevin Alejandro, and Caitlyn by Katie Leung.
Riot also revealed the staggered release schedule of the series. The show will release in three episodes’ Acts,’ with the first debuting just after the end of Worlds 2021 on November 6. The remaining parts will release on November 13 and November 20, giving us a month of Arcane action.
The hype around the series is tremendous, as for years, fans have been clamoring for something deeper than League of Legends’ champion profiles to sink their teeth into. Comics and interactive events have satisfied up until now, but a whole Netflix series is sure to please dedicated LoL lore fans.
Dota 2’s next big tournament before TI10 is starting tomorrow, and for avid viewers here’s who will be competing at ESL One Fall 2021.
TI10 is still two months away, but there are some big T2 tournaments to watch out for, especially for Dota 2 fans who want to see how professional players will handle the game’s latest patch. With the metagame about to see a pretty big shift, ESL One Fall 2021 will be ground zero for patch 7.30, and quite possibly setting the tone for The International this October.
This T2 tournament will host twelve teams from different regions, ten coming in from direct invites and two from the recently concluded closed qualifiers. Check out the participants for ESL One Fall 2021 and some details with regards to their rosters below.
ESL One Fall 2021 – the participating teams
Alliance (Direct invite) (EU) (TI10-qualified)
Roster:
Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov (position 1)
Linus “Limmp” Blomdin (mid-lane)
Gustav “s4” Magnusson (off-lane) (C)
Simon “Handsken” Haag (soft support)
Artiom “fng” Barshack (hard support)
Team Liquid (Direct invite) (EU)
Roster:
Michael “miCKe” Vu (position 1)
Maximilian “qojqva” Bröcker (mid-lane)
Samuel “Boxi” Svahn (off-lane)
Tommy “Taiga” Le (soft support)
Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi (hard support) (C)
Team Spirit (Direct invite) (CIS) (TI10-qualified)
Jean Pierre “Chris Luck” Gonzales Salazar (mid-lane)
Adrián “Wisper” Céspedes Dobles (off-lane)
Elvis Joel “Scofield” De la Cruz Peña (soft support)
Steven “Stinger” Vargas Mamani (hard support) (C)
Virtus.pro (Direct invite) (CIS) (TI10-qualified)
Roster:
Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko (position 1)
Danil “gpk” Skutin (mid-lane)
Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin (off-lane)
Vitalie “Save-” Melnic (soft support) (C)
Illias “Kingslayer” Ganeev (hard support)
Tundra Esports (Direct invite) (EU)
Roster:
Oliver “skiter” Lepko (position 1)
Leon “Nine” Kirilin (mid-lane)
Neta “33” Shapira (off-lane)
Jingjun “Sneyking” Wu (soft support)
Adrian “Fata” Trinks (hard support) (C)
SG esports (Direct invite) (SA) (TI10-qualified)
Roster:
Guilherme “Costabile” Costábile (position 1)
Adriano “4dr” Machado (mid-lane)
Otávio “Tavo” Gabriel Cerqueira Silva (off-lane)
Thiago “Thiolicor” Cordeiro (soft support)
Mattheus “KJ” Diniz (hard support) (C)
Team Empire (Closed qualifier winner) (CIS)
Roster:
Alexey “Smiling Knight” Sviridov (position 1)
Gleb “depressed kid” Ziryanov (mid-lane)
Maxim “Shachlo” Abramovskikh (off-lane)
Oleg “sayuw” Kalenbet (soft support)
Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorokhod (hard support)
Creepwave (Closed qualifier winner) (EU)
Roster:
Remco “Crystallis” Arets (position 1)
Bozhidar Georgiev “hansha” Bogdanov (mid-lane)
Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf (off-lane)
Evgenii “Chu” Makarov (soft support)
Dzmitry “Fishman” Palishchuk (hard support)
ESL One Fall 2021 – schedules, streams and more
The tournament will begin with a four-day group stage set of matches, divided into the A and B streams. The A streams will be happening on ESL Dota 2’s Twitch channel, while the B Streams can be watched on the tournament organizer’s B channel. T1, Team Spirit, Thunder Predator, Tundra Esports, Team Liquid, and SG esports will open the tournament for the A streams, while the B streams will have Virtus.pro, Creepwave, Alliance, Team Empire, Team Spirit, and Thunder Predator matches. You can check out the full group stage format and schedules here. The group stages will run from August 21 to 24.
After group stages, the teams will be seeded according to their W-L records into their respective playoff brackets. This will run from August 26 to August 29 and is a double-elimination bracket Bo3 format. The grand final will be Bo5, and the winning team will take the lion’s share of the $400,000 prize pot, totaling $175,000.
Valve has just updated Dota 2 for the first time in months, and with the metagame now shifting once again here are the OP heroes for patch 7.30, as well as some to avoid due to their nerfs.
Dota 2 patch 7.30 – big metagame changes
With another big tournament incoming later this week in the form of the ESL One Fall 2021, Dota 2 players finally had their prayers answered with the release of patch 7.30, the game’s next big update and one that will save the player base from lobbies filled with Broodmothers and Templar Assassins.
However, this does not mean that nobody will be there to take their places instead, and indeed there are some standout heroes that will most likely be considered OP for patch 7.30. On the other side of the spectrum, there are some heroes as well who should be avoided due to some very big nerfs.
With all of that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the biggest winners and losers of patch 7.30 for Dota 2.
OP heroes for Dota 2’s patch 7.30
Tinker
As an avid Dota 2 player myself, I believe Valve might have made a very big misstep with the 7.30 iteration of Tinker. At a glance, it will seem like the changes for him made him slower in farming due to the removal of March of the Machines, but it’s important to look at what this entailed in return.
KEEN CONVEYANCE
New Rearm Sub-ability. Channel for 4.5/4/3.5s to teleport to a friendly Building. Level 2 allows targeting units and level 3 allows targeting heroes. Mana cost: 75
This sub-ability levels up in conjunction with Rearm, Tinker’s signature ultimate skill. This ability is, for lack of a better term, ‘stupid beyond belief,’ and it makes Tinker one of the most OP heroes in patch 7.30.
What makes this ability broken is the fact that now, Tinker can spam Rearm and Keen Conveyance to keep himself topped up in terms of health and mana at all times, and the only barrier to it is hitting level 6. Previously, for Tinker to meet these conditions, he would have to first farm 2500 gold for Boots of Travel, a fairly decent tradeoff for what it can provide him. Now, with Rearm and Keen Convergence immediately available, Tinker can be a terror in the side lanes with the reworked Laser and the always reliable Heat-seeking Missile with very little tradeoff to keep him in check.
Tinker’s rework added the Defense Matrix skill in lieu of March of the Machines, basically interchanging the Shard skill with the original one. The skill is incredibly potent at shielding himself and his allies, with the status resistance on top to help increase its potency.
All of that said, there is a bit of a nerf to Tinker’s overall farming and split-pushing power, as March of the Machines now requires an Aghanim’s Shard to be skilled. Shard costs 1400 gold and it will be available 20 minutes into the game, which means that so long as you can shut down the Tinker before he hits big items like the Scythe of Vyse, you will have a chance to win against him.
TL; DR — Tinker no longer needs BoTs to make an impact, lowering his barrier to usefulness in the team.
Slark
The small, amphibious terror may be on his way back to the big leagues, as slight changes to Slark made him one of the OP heroes to check out in Dota 2 patch 7.30. What will make him top-tier in this current metagame are not those slight changes themselves, although they did help a lot; what will push him to see more play are the significant nerfs to other carries, such as Medusa, Luna and Terrorblade.
First and foremost, Slark got a sizable buff to his Dark Pact skill, significantly lowering its own damage while keeping most of the other values intact. This means that this spell is now definitely more spammable in-lane, allowing Slark to have kill potential even before he gets to level 6. His ultimate, Shadow Dance, also had its cooldown reduced by a noticeable margin, giving him more chances to use it.
His Talent tree saw a mixed bag of changes, although it’s arguable that overall it made Slark more formidable across all stages of the game. He lost some lifesteal and attack speed but gained the latter back while in Shadow Dance, so it balanced itself out in the end. The +1 Agi per Essence Shift stack talent at level 20 is possibly OP, especially if he’s built himself a lead before he hits that magic number.
TL; DR — Slark moved to the top tier thanks to small buffs and heavy nerfs for other top-tier carries.
Lycan
Before 7.30 came out, Lycan was one of the heroes that were in a weird, not-quite-carry, not-quite-off-laner state. This loss of identity was one of the biggest reasons why his pick rate suffered, but thanks to significant buffs for this patch he may have found his calling as a powerful core that can fit into a ton of team compositions.
One of the biggest changes for Lycan to make him one of Dota 2 patch 7.30’s OP heroes is with regards to his Wolves. Upgraded Shard Wolves have been made to be much stronger, making them split-pushing monsters that can passively generate income for Lycan after minute 20. They now have Low Attack Priority, meaning that they are the last to be targeted by enemy creeps, and they can now Cripple towers as well, giving them massive bonus damage overall.
He also got a minor buff for his level 15 talent, which changed the percentage cooldown reduction into a flat -20s cooldown on his ultimate, Shapeshift. This makes it easier to play with your team overall.
TL; DR — Lycan’s Shard Wolves got buffed by a ton, and his 15 talent makes his Shapeshift ultimate much more reliable overall.
Beastmaster
The walking zoo himself should see a bit of a boost on his Dotabuff stats thanks to buffs across the board. Beastmaster is easily one of the most OP heroes in Dota 2’s patch 7.30 thanks to not only changes within his skillset, but with regards to changes for Helm of the Overlord as well.
One of the better changes made within Beastmaster’s kit is with regards to his Shard upgrade for Call of the Wild Hawk. Previously, the stun skill that came along with it was ground-targeted, meaning that if the enemy can move outside its range they’ll be safe. The 7.30 changes made it so that it is now unit-targeted instead, giving it tracking abilities and a reliable stun, to boot. The Board and Hawk also got significant upgrades as well, with the former getting more damage at earlier levels while more vision was given to the latter.
To make matters more interesting for Beastmaster, Helm of the Overlord’s components have also been reworked. Beastmaster is one of the heroes that make use of this primarily, thanks to its abilities to dominate creeps. With the added Vladmir’s Offering component, Beastmaster can now provide more aura for his team and creeps, including his annoying Boars, without needing to take up one more slot for it.
TL; DR — Beastmaster’s pets have been buffed significantly, and his Shard Hawk is now a reliable, unit-targeted stun.
Shadow Fiend
Nevermore has always been one of the poster boys, not only for Dota 2, but for the original Warcraft III mod released more than a decade ago. While he was not in the worst spot ever before patch 7.30, certain buffs to his abilities will push him to OP for the rest of this patch (barring big changes, of course).
The first is with regards to his Shard upgrade, which affects Necromastery. Patch 7.30 changed it to be an attack modifier once you’ve purchased a Shard, and just like all of Shadow Fiend’s abilities it makes use of his soul collection number at any given moment. The reworked Shard upgrade for Necromastery now consumes one soul, but grants your next atack 170% crit damage on a three-second cooldown. To make things better, killing an enemy unit with this modified attack grants two souls instead of one.
This buff makes it so that Shadow Fiend does not fall off too much in the late game, while keeping his early terror laning presence intact. Several buffs to his Talent tree made him very OP for patch 7.30 as well, including increased attack speed and spell amplification as well as earlier Shadow Raze damage boost at level 15 instead of 20.
TL; DR — Shadow Fiend is now not as reliant on his spell damage thanks to the new Necromastery Shard upgrade.
Patch 7.30’s biggest losers
On the other end of the spectrum, some heroes got struck by Valve’s nerf-hammer too much to drop off in overall viability for high-level games. In particular, there are two heroes who are less likely to be useful this patch 7.30, compared to their previous status in the last patch.
Broodmother
In the span of a few hours since the patch hit, the Spider Queen herself went from one of the highest win-rate heroes on Dotabuff to currently its lowest, an oversight that will most likely be fixed soon by Valve. Broodmother is currently one of the weakest heroes in the patch, with a ton of her strengths outright neutered in an effort to curb her curb stomping nature.
It’s a classic case of over-nerfing, as Spin Web’s overall utility has been reduced to almost nonexistent once Broodmother hits a certain health percentage. Spawning Spiderlings is also more costly now, with reduced damage on top. Her Scepter upgrade also does not grant her more Webs, which is a big part of the purchase and why Broodmothers tend to go with it. Its replacement, Spinner’s Snare, looks intriguing, but at the moment it does not seem to be very useful as most players are figuring out.
All of this said, Broodmother can still be good in some scenarios, she is no longer the game-wrecker she was previously known as.
TL; DR — Broodmother is weak now due to nerfs to her Spin Web and increased mana costs on Spiderlings. Removing additional Webs from her Scepter upgrade also seemed to have killed its potential.
Templar Assassin
Another hero who needed hitting with the nerf-hammer for 7.30 is Templar Assassin, and she got what she deserved – and some more on top. She’s not as useless now as Broodmother, but it has made enough of an impact to stop her from snowballing out of control just by farming endlessly for the first 15 minutes of the game.
One of her biggest points of contention was Psi Blades, and now it has been slightly reworked to keep her from constantly out-farming everyone else just by staying at a distance. The range multiplier has been decreased, from 2 to 1.5, meaning that no more Psi Blades to kill you even from fog of war. The Psi Blades also deal less and less damage for each unit it passess through, a good trade for keeping the damage still Pure at the end of the day.
Her Scepter upgrade has also been nerfed, with Psionic Projection now requiring a longer channeling time and preventing TA from teleporting if she’s rooted or leashed. Her Psi Blades range Talent has also been moved to level 15, curbing her early game snowball potential.
TL; DR — Nerfs to Templar Assassin’s Psi Blades and Psionic Projection has somewhat curbed her disgustingly potent farming potential at all stages of the game.
Even though it has not been confirmed yet, the first Major of the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit will take place in Singapore. According to the leaks, the company that will host this event is ONE Esports. That said, there were some rumours that PGL might also be involved in the tournament.
The Event
According to the leaked details, the event will take place in the Singapore Indoor Stadium. There will be 18 teams in total. For of them will be from China, four from Europe, three from CIS, and SEA, and two from North America and South America.
The Group Stage will include eight teams in a single round-robin format. The top two will advance to the Upper Bracket playoffs. Those who finish between 3rd and 6th place will go to the Lower Bracket. Needless to say, the last two teams will be eliminated.
Once the playoffs arrive, we will watch 12 teams going up against each other in a double-elimination bracket.
Keep in mind that the information we’ve included here has not been confirmed yet. This means that we just have to wait and see what will happen. In the meantime, don’t forget to check all of the upcoming series in the 2021 DPC.
After waiting nearly a whole year, the DPC is finally back. Alongside a few new teams, the DPC has an entirely new format that allows the lower-tier teams to qualify for the big events. What’s really interesting is that we have two different brackets – the Lower Division and the Upper Division. Naturally, the second is the most interesting to watch as every world-class team can be found there.
Team Liquid vs Nigma
One of the most interesting series during the first week of the DPC was between Team Liquid and Nigma. People were really interested in this series because the two teams played several times against each other in 2020.
Although most people expected Liquid to be victorious, Nigma managed to win the series with a score of 1:2. Although Team Liquid had a very strong start after quickly ripping through their enemies, Miracle- and his team-mates managed to win two games in a row.
Following their victory, Nigma is currently occupying the first spot in their group. If you want to watch more epic Dota 2 games, make sure you check the schedule and watch the game live.
The new DPC is finally here, bringing with it a chance to watch a truly unique series. We also have important news that we’d like to share: Team Unique is finally back in the Dota 2 scene.
Tem Unique is back
In case you forgot, Unique used to have Dota 2 team until November 2020. Due to COVID-19, the team wasn’t able to participate in many tournaments, so the players decided to take a break. Now that the 2021 DPC is back, the organization has decided to pick up a new roster. This time, they’ve chosen NoPangolier, a team that will go toe to toe against the best CIS squads in the CIS Regional League Upper Division.
NoPangolier is a pretty famous name in the CIS Dota 2 scene, but the current version of the team was formed just a few weeks ago. In fact, this was one of the eight teams that received an invitation for the closed qualifiers. Even though many expected them to fail, NP managed to bring down teams like HellRaisers and Wistrike.
Following their awesome performance, the five players managed to qualify for the Upper Division. We will have to wait and see whether they have what it takes to proceed to the Major. Keep in mind that CIS only has three slots, so the competition will be fierce.
HellRaisers has been one of the most popular CIS Dota 2 teams for the last couple of years. Sadly, due to constant roster changes, they were unable to live up to expectations. However, it seems that they have big plans for 2021 judging by the players they’ve recently brought on board.
New Roster
The first big player joining HR just a few days ago was Roman “Resolut1ion” Fominok. Everyone who’s been following the professional Dota 2 scene knows that he is one of the top core players in the world. Besides Reso, the second player on the roster for HR is Zaur “Cooman” Shakhmurzaev, another CIS legend who has had a major impact on every team he has been a part of.
Last but not least, we have Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorokhod, who will round out HR’s roster. VANSKOR has played for numerous teams throughout his Dota 2 career. Some of the most notable are Natus Vincere, Gambit Esports, and Team Empire. He definitely has what it takes to play alongside some of the best players in the world.
The first big challenge ahead of HR will be the DPC qualifiers that start on the 8th of January. The players will have to compete in the CIS decider tournament, which will determine which team will enter the Upper Division.
2020 was definitely not the best year for Dota 2. Due to COVID-19, almost every LAN tournament was postponed, meaning that teams didn’t have many options other than playing online. Luckily, CIS & Europe were merged together, which is why we saw tons of interesting series.
Now, a few months later, the Dota 2 world is finally preparing for the beginning of the new Dota Pro Circuit that will start in just a couple of weeks. Before that, ESL will host the upcoming CIS regional qualifiers, which should bring together some of the best teams from the region.
The Qualifiers
Unless something goes wrong, the CIS qualifiers should begin on the 5th of January. Valve has selected four teams that won’t have to go through any qualifiers. This means that they will go straight into the Upper Division of the first season.
Even though there were a few big names that deserved this, the ones that stood out were Live to Win, Team Spirit, Natus Vincere, and Virtus.Pro. Live To Win is perhaps the most interesting name here because the team was created just a few months ago. Despite that, Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev and his team-mates quickly showed the world what they’re capable of. Team Spirit is also a pretty interesting name because the organization acquired Yellow Submarine’s roster just a few weeks ago.
Don’t forget to watch the upcoming open qualifiers because they will definitely be really interesting. In fact, you can even register yourself, as long as three or more players from your team are residing within the region.
The new Dota 2 Pro Circuit is just around the corner. Consequently, there are many new teams looking to take part. Joining their ranks will be Team Spirit. As one of the top CIS eSports organizations, they’ve decided to acquire the Yellow Submarine roster.
The Team
Unless something changes, the new DPC will begin around one month from now, and Team Spirit has gone through numerous players in order to pick its final roster. In the end, there were only 12 players shortlisted. Although there were many big names on the list, the organization decided that Yellow Submarine would be the best fit.
The last time Team Spirit had a Dota 2 team was back in May. They had a very strong roster, but were unable to live up to expectations. As a result, the organization decided to part ways with its roster. Some of the players are now a part of Gambit Esports, whereas others play for Live to Win.
Team Spirit’s current roster
Ilya “yotoro” Mulyarchuk
Alexander “TORONTOTOKYO” Khertek
Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov
Vitaliy “so bad” Oshmankevich
Yaroslav “Miniposhka” Naidenov
Airat “Silent” Gaziev will be the team’s coach, an awesome player with plenty of experience.
A few months ago, one of Dota 2’s biggest stars Danil “Dendi” Ishutin announced that he would create a new team under the name B8. Although it featured a few promising players, Dendi and co. were unable to live up to the expectations. As a result, two of the B8’s members decided to part ways with the organization.
Who leaves?
The first player finding himself a new team is Remco “Crystallis” Arets. Although he is one of the best carries in the world and one of the few people that reached 11,000 MMR, he couldn’t unleash his full potential. Besides him, the second player that’s also going to change his team is Dmitriy “Fishman” Polishchuk. This was B8’s position five, who joined the squad back in June after another roster change.
The recent changes in B8 mean that Dendi’s team has changed by more than 10 players. We won’t be surprised if we see an entirely new roster for the next DPC season. In fact, B8 said in the announcement that they are “under construction”. We really hope that Dendi will be able to gather a new roster that can compete against the best teams in the region.
For now, the only players that are a part of B8’s roster are Danil “Dendi” Ishutin, Oleg “LastHero” Demidovich, and Enis “5up” Elfki. Feel free to follow DartFrog on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch for the latest Dota 2 news.