Valve wastes no time: Reworked heroes are back in Captain's Mode

It's been barely a week since 6.86 dropped and completely changed Dota 2. The map was changed, new items were added, a new rune made its appearance, and several heroes were removed from Captain's Mode. Doom, Faceless Void, Death Prophet, Lone Druid and Winter Wyvern all received an extensive rework. Today with 6.86b they make their return to competitive play. Read on for a summary of the changes.

All of the heroes below were extensively reworked during 6.86. These are the new abilities and functions you'll see during competitive matches now that 6.86b has dropped.

A Refresher on 6.86

Doom no longer posesses Level Death. The hero has traded his personal linkens-popping nuke for Infernal Blade, an autoattack modifier that allows him to burn 1.25/2.5/3.75/5% HP on hit. This change has made him a stronger laner, but greatly increased the effectivity of Linken's Sphere against him.

Faceless Void lost his most famous RNG ability. Backtrack has been removed an in its place he can now use Time Dilation. With this spell Void can freeze the cooldowns on all enemy heroes in a 725 AOE for 5.5/7/8.5/10 seconds. It also applies a percentage-based attack and movement slow to heroes that are hit. Additionally Time Walk has been changed to work as a "mini timelapse", allowing Void to jump away from danger and undo any damage taken in the previous two seconds.

Death Prophet is no longer dependant on Witchcraft for her scaling. The scaling of Witchcraft has been added to her other spells, while the slot in her ability bar is now taken by Spirit Siphon. It is very similar to Pugna's Life Drain with an added slow. 

Lone Druid and his bear can now both activate a new ability called Savage Roar, which causes enemies in a 325 AOE to run towards their fountain for up to 2.4 seconds. Synergy has been removed from the hero, and all Synergy scaling has been transferred to his other abilities.

Winter Wyvern has had her ultimate completely reworked. Winter's Curse now makes all affected units invulnerable to damage from enemies. Instead, it now lasts longer and grants extra attack speed to the heroes attacking their own teammate. This means that the spell loses most of its functionality as a disable and becomes even more of a disrupting teamfight ult than before.

6.86b Changes

Rikimaru has still not been re-enabled in Captain's Mode. The notorious backstabber did receive several buffs, however. Arcane Rune's mana cost reduction has been nerfed, Outworld Devourer received buffs to Arcane Orb and Astral Imprisonment, and Meat Hook's Aghanims Scepter damage has been nerfed.

You can find the full patchnotes here.

Reactions from the Competitive Scene

Not everyone was happy with the swift return of the reworked heroes. Several teams were scheduled to play the MarsTV Dota 2 League qualifier finals this evening, and they suddenly had a handful of new and unpredictable picks to work with.

Sources: Dota 2 Blog
 

Entire Fall Majors invite list complete - Eight teams receive direct invite

The rolling direct invites for the Fall Majors have started and opened with the two TI5 finalists, Evil Geniuses and CDEC. Sixteen teams will compete at the Fall Majors with only eight teams directly invited. Will the results of ESL One Frankfurt sway the tide? We will be updating the blog live as the teams are announced, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. 

 

Update: The rolling release of the direct invites has started
  

First invite: Evil Geniuses are the first invite revealed on Valve's official Fall Majors website as expected.

Although only playing once match since TI5, Evil Geniuses finished first at TI5, making their invitation almost a no-brainer. Evil Geniuses have only changed one player since TI5, swapping Kurtis 'Aui_2000' Ling for Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev.

Second invite: CDEC Gaming received the second invite to the Fall Majors and like Evil Geniuses, were an indisputed invite by the community.

CDEC finished second at TI5 after an incredible run through the tournament having come from the open qualifiers. They also recently competed at the ESL One New York where they finished 3-4th.


Third invite: TI5 bronze medalist LGD Gaming are the third invite despite a rocky performance in the aftermath of TI5 following former captain Zhang 'xiao8' Ning 's move to the substitute bench.

LGD Gaming were sent to the lower-bracket at TI5 by CDEC and eliminated by Evil Geniuses in the lower-bracket final, but their third place finish and great performance in the competition including victories against Virtus Pro and Vici Gaming makes them fully deserving of their invite.

Fourth invite: Vici Gaming the fourth place finisher at TI5 were also the fourth invite for the Fall Majors in Frankfurt.

Vici Gaming's form like LGD Gaming has dropped since TI5 and have added Xu 'BurNing' Zhilei to their roster from Invictus Gaming. Their run at TI5 was ended by LGD Gaming, but they were the ones to eliminate RoTK's EHOME who were a formidable force at the event.

Fifth invite: The fifth invite is Vega Squadron, who actually failed to make the main event of TI5 but have done extremely well post-TI5 after keeping the same roster and were the victors of the first major event on 6.85, the ESL One NEw York 2015.

On their road to victory they eliminated TI5 champions Evil Geniuses as well as the new Team Secret in the Grand Finals.

Sixth invite: The sixth invite was the new roster of Team Secret who were runners-up at ESL One New York over the weekend although only finished 7-8th at TI5.

Team Secret changed four players from the roster than competed at TI5, with only captain and drafter Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov remaining on the team, but their performance over the weekend silenced many doubters.

Seventh invite: Virtus Pro were the highest placing CIS/EU team at TI5 and although had an early exit at the recent ESL One Frankfurt after losing to Invictus Gaming have been a stable team.

Virtus Pro did not change their roster post-TI5 and like Vega have stuck to what they know with Artem 'fng' Barshack really blossoming as a draft and captain over the course of the year.

Eighth invite: The final invite for the Fall Majors was EHOME who finished 5-6th at TI5. Since TI5 they lost their captain Fan 'rOtk' Bai and ultimately were forced to replace three of their roster.
  

However, their three new additions have performed phenomenally well and although they did not attend ESL One New York, they did win the Chinese qualifiers for it.

There will be 8 teams directly invited and 8 teams coming from the Regional Qualifiers. A total of 40 teams will be competing in the Regional Qualifiers next week, with 8 slots reserved to the winners of the Open Qualifiers.

- Valve's official post

 

Regional qualifiers teams will also be announced
For those teams who do not receive a direct invite to the Fall Majors there are still 8 invite slots to regional qualifiers available, where they will join the two winners of the regional qualifiers. THe EU, SEA and NA regional qualifiers start this weekend and run from the 10-13th October, while the Chinese qualifiers start a day later on the 11th and last until the 14th October.

 

 

For the SEA Regional qualifiers the biggest surprise is Fnatic, who had the potential to be chosen for a direct invite based on them being the best SEA team at the moment. Meanwhile, the team listed as Team Imagine is in fact Leviathan, who recently reverted to their former team name. No major talking points for either the SEA or NA regional invites.

 

 

It is important to note that both Monkey Freedom Fighters and Team Empire forfeited their possible place due to them breaking the roster lock. Empire's roster for the upcoming qualifiers was posted yesterday. Also for those unaware of the recent sponsorship, STARK is the former 4ASC roster. Notable absence from the EU regionals is ScaryFaceZZZ.  

SOURCES : WWW.JOINDOTA.COM

NAR receive sponsorship ahead of TI for the second year in a row

Exactly 100 days passed between the initial tweet announcing that North American Rejects would be returning, and the announcement that the TI5 potentials will be playing under a new alias; Team Archon. The change comes in light of NAR v2 being the only unsponsored team in the running for TI5. Last year's NAR managed to get picked up by Na'Vi, making this the second year in a row Korok and Fogged found sponsorship ahead of a TI. 

NAR v2 will now be playing under the name Team Archon

The gaming organisation, which is already well-established in the Hearthstone competitive scene, released an annoucement yesterday stating they would be expanding into Dota 2, by picking up the roster of NAR v2. The roster consists of the following players:

• Scott 'bLeek / chad' Jensen
• Chris 'ush' Usher
• Arif 'MojoStormStout' Anwar
• Steven 'Korok' Ashworth
• Ioannis 'Fogged' Loucas

Community favourite SirActionSlacks produced a video giving a 6 minute run-down of the history of the players, and their experience with The International.  

In 2014, the roster constructed by Fogged and Korok won the 4th Gigabyte Challenge, promptly followed by the International American Qualifiers. They were soon picked up by Na'Vi as the American branch of the organisation, but disbanded after a couple of poor performances. NAR v2 returned this year, contending the International Qualifiers once again, this time placing second - securing a place at the Wildcard playoffs.

Archon's team founder Jason "Amaz" Chan released the following statement:

"I'm very excited to see NARv2 become a part of Team Archon. I've always been careful on selecting new teams for Archon: they have to be highly skilled and I believe these guys have the potential for success. They will be playing in the TI5 Wildcard Qualifier for a spot in the playoffs, and I will be cheering them on to advance and make magic happen. You, the viewers, should cheer for your new Dota 2 Archon team as well!"

Archon is one of a growing list of organisations to have picked up a Dota team pre-TI, following on from Fnatic and Mouz, who picked up Team Malaysia and Team Tinker respectively. The TI5 wildcard qualifiers will be taking place in 21 days, with Archon, CDEC, MVP Phoenix and Vega Squadron competing.

Image courtesy of teamarchon.com

Original Post : http://www.joindota.com/en/news/29635-nar-receive-sponsorship-ahead-of-ti-for-the-second-year-in-a-row

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US embassy rejects SoNNeikO's visa application twice

According to a tweet by Ukrainian caster Vitali 'v1lat' Volochai, Natus Vincere latest addition Akbar 'SoNNeikO' Butaev has been refused two B1/B2 visa applications with approximately 20 days to go until their flight to Seattle.

The Dota 2 scene is no stranger to visa issues and complications have arised multiple times causing teams to miss out on tournaments. Infamous for its difficult visa application, players from the CIS countries and China usually have a tough time obtaining the visa the first time round.
Individuals intending to apply for a B1/B2 visa will have to fill in the DS-160 form on the US immigration website. Among the long list of questions asked on the form is if the applicant has been denied a US visa twice in the past two years. Assuming the answer is yes, the immigration officer would take a closer look at your application before making the decision to approve it. At times, luck may also play some role in visa application, like if the officer is an avid follower of the eSports scene.
Butaev can continue applying for the US visa for as many times as he want and try to make it a convincing case to the officer. In most cases, Valve would help these players out by issuing them an invitation letter but at times, the immigration officers do not even bother looking at the letter. However, considering his age (18) and coming fresh off high school, it is not surprising if the immigration officers will give him a tougher time when he tells them that he will be playing in a 15 million Dollar Dota 2 tournament.

The rest of Na`Vi members on the other hand, will most probably have no visa issues since they have entered and exit the United States multiple times over the years. It is unknown what would happen to Na`Vi's The International 5 slot assuming Butaev does not end up attaining his visa in time. Perhaps Valve will allow a stand-in considering this is such a unique case.

Source: Gosugamers.com
Image from MarsTV

The International 5 surpasses 15 million dollars, all stretch goals attained

After 2 months since it was announced, TI5 has reached it's final stretch goal: the Axe Immortal with the accompanying comic. It's by far the biggest prize pool for any eSports event, and even eclipses prizes for sporting events. With the constant growth of Dota 2 every year, it's fascinating to see how it compares to major sports tournament, and how much farther it can go.

When the stretch goals were first announced for TI5, many people were speculating whether or not it would achieve all of its goals. After just 60 days, this question has been answered. The eagerly anticipated Axe Immortal will be made with an accompanying comic. It would be surprising to see the Axe stretch goal getting released before the Immortal III chest.

A preview of the comic that will accompany the release of Axe's Immortal set

The prize pool still has a month left to get even bigger, further cementing the record it has broken. The International has grown at an incredble rate, to the point where the prize pool eclipses prize pools of top tier sport tournaments.

TI5 beats out both the 2015 Masters Cup and the 2015 Cricket World Cup in terms of prizepool, with both competitions hosting a 10 million dollar prizepool for both tournaments. It's also almost on par with the FIFA Club World Cup, which has a prize pool of 16.5 million dollars. Despite this, DOTA 2, and eSports as a whole, still have a long way to go before we reach popularity levels on par with the NFL and FIFA. The winning team of the UEFA Champions League gets a whopping 15 million euros.

 Dota 2 as an eSport still has tons of room to expand and evolve into something even bigger than it already is. With each TI growing bigger and bigger in both prize pool and viewership, we can only hope that one day we'll see Dota 2 be on par with the top sports tournaments.

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Original post from Joindota.com : www.joindota.com

The Summit 3 Announced!

The Summit 3 is here! Beyond the Summit has just announced the schedule and details for the in-game ticket and item bundles for the prestigious American tournament. Eight teams will compete for a base prize pool of $100,000 which will be contributed by BTS and their sponsors, with an additional 20% from all compendium sales and 10% from the custom treasure chest supporting the international competition. The competition kicks off as early as tomorrow, with the European division starting their online pre-qualifier stage. 

 

 

The online qualifiers will begin with a pre-qualifier stage, where the unproven squads will compete for a chance to place into the regional qualifiers. The advancing squads will then face a number of top tier teams such as Team Secret, Evil Geniuses and Cloud9 for a limited number of LAN spots. Only two teams will qualify from Europe and North America, with an additional two teams representing Southeast Asia and China respectively. The competition will be fierce since there are limited spots for each talented region and teams will battle to reach the city of Los Angeles for this unique tournament experience.

 

 

Returning to The Summit 3 will be the defending champions Vici Gaming. However, the question remains, who will appear on the team's roster? Recent news confirming Dominik ’Black^’ Reitmeier's departure leaves the carry position wide open. Vici's direct invite brings the number of attending teams to seven; however BTS is bringing back the community vote as well, with the redemption vote returning to season three. Those who purchase a compendium will be able to revive a fallen team from the qualifiers, giving them a direct invite to the LA LAN this May.

BTS will also be releasing their "Treasure of the Frigid Beyond", a chest containing one of (6) hero sets, with a chance for the Chirpy Courier mascot. 10% of each sale will be going towards the prize pool. Additionally, players can purchase a Summit 3 Compendium, with further details coming regarding its contents and item bundle. Naturally, coverage for the international event will be provided by Beyond the Summit, however additional coverage will be provided in more than five languages, so expect the Summit's "behind the scenes" production to be accessible to even more fans!

The tournament will be one of the major international LANs in the post-DAC season, giving fans around the world a glimpse of their favourite squads. With the International looming closer and closer, professional teams will fight to secure The Summit 3 championship, with an invitation to TI5 in mind.

For detailed information on the sets and the BTS announcement page, Click Here!

Note: The Chinese teams in the Pre-qualifiers and Qualifiers have yet to be determined since rosters have not been finalized in the post-Chinese New Year shuffle.

 

Sources : www.joindota.com