Flex, Bans, And Farm. What You Need To Know About Dota 2 Tournaments Before Watching Matches

If you are planning to watch a major tournament on this game for the first time, then first of all, familiarize yourself with its terminology. The Dota 2 tournaments is one of the most popular esports games in Russia and the post-Soviet space.

Regional and world championships with the participation of our teams are capable of gathering hundreds of thousands of viewers on broadcasts. However, for people who are not familiar with the game, it will seem extremely difficult. “Championship,” tells about the structure and main rules of Dota 2, which will allow you to understand what is happening at the current moment of the game and which team has a better chance of winning. 

Basic Moments

Dota 2 is a five-on-five team strategy where each player controls only one character, who are called “heroes”. The goal of the game is to destroy the throne – that is, the main building of the enemy, which is located at the base of each of the two teams.

Three paths (lines) lead to it – the central one and two side ones. Each is fortified with three towers that deal damage. It will not be possible to destroy them from the first minute, so at the beginning of the match, players are focused on developing their characters. They level up (the maximum possible is 30) and earn gold to buy items. At the same time, it is important to prevent the enemy from doing the same.

There are two main paths to victory. In one case, players choose characters that quickly destroy buildings and are strong in battles from the first minutes. The team is trying to crush the opponent and push him closer to the base, getting more resources and increasing their advantage. At the same time, blunders can bury the chances of the team, as the relevance of the characters will be weaker every minute.

Other strategies involve a minimum of aggression. The team carefully continues to develop their characters, who become stronger in the later stages. At the beginning of the match, it will not be easy, but if the players manage to withstand the onslaught of the opponent, the endgame will most likely remain with them.

These are two extremes, which are rarely used because of the risk. Usually, teams try to choose characters that will be useful both at the start of the game and in the late game (final stage) if the match drags on. The options can be very different, but it is extremely important to choose the right characters. The choice is called draft: it happens before the game and is the most important element of victory.

Choice Of Characters And Roles

During the draft stage, teams take turns picking heroes and banning (banning) others that could be used by the opponent. In addition to the general plan for the match and the combination of abilities, you need to choose five heroes who can fulfill one of the main roles.

Carry is a high damage character that should be the main offensive force. At the beginning of the game, he goes to the safe lane (lower lane for the forces of Light or upper lane for Darkness). There, the hero will be able to maximize his potential, earning gold for killing uncontrolled units or creeps. He often needs expensive items and a high level, so early on, carries are played more passively.

Mider– a more variable, but just as dangerous character. He goes to the center lane, where he almost always plays 1v1. Some mid-heroes can quickly join active actions due to early domination. Others, like carriers, need to farm gold and experience.

The offlaner or hardliner plays on the other sideline, which is traditionally more dangerous. It is more difficult to earn gold there, but the character can be useful by gaining a high level or being aggressive in the beginning, interfering with the enemy carry.

Also, each team has two support – support characters. They help the carry and the hardliner on the side lanes (sometimes two of them on one, more important one). Support characters can do without a lot of gold and experience, supporting attacks and healing allies mainly through their abilities.

When teams decide on a set of characters and their arrangement along the lines (some heroes can “flex”, that is, play one of several roles, which confuses the enemy), the main part of the match begins.

Game Progress

At the beginning of the game, any of the heroes are too weak to fight enemies and destroy towers. Therefore, all the characters are distributed in three lines and begin to gain gold and experience. This stage is called “laning” and usually lasts about 10-15 minutes, sometimes a little more or less depending on the chosen strategy.

Next comes the mid-game. The teams are trying to implement the first purchased items and learned abilities, especially the main one – the ultimate, which is available on most heroes after the sixth level. They conduct group battles, also called fights and teamfights by commentators, they try to seize territory and destroy buildings, kill the Roshan monster, which will give one extra life and other bonuses.

The team that will be most successful in this will receive additional opportunities and will be able to develop their advantage. Heroes will have more items, higher levels, and cooler abilities. But this does not necessarily mean that they will win: any next team fight or a series of successful actions can equalize the chances again.

The game will gradually approach the final stage – the late game. After 30-35 minutes after the start of the match, the heroes become strong enough to kill all the enemy characters, if there is an advantage and a chance for a successful fight, and then destroy buildings that no one is protecting.

After the destruction of three towers, stronger creeps appear on one of the lines, and the enemies will not be able to move around the map easily either. In the end, the leading team will simply destroy the throne or force the opponent to surrender if the advantage in the match is too great.

Information On The Screen

The game interface can tell almost everything about how the match goes. However, it is quite difficult for a beginner to understand it. Not everything is needed for normal viewing, but watching the game closely can also be interesting. Let’s try to figure it out in the example of the picture below.

At the top center, you can see the scoreboard, which displays the icons of all ten characters, team logos, and the kill score. It must be said that in Dota 2 the score does not always reflect the real situation on the map, since the strategy may involve a passive game. A team that loses 2:10 or 4:15 may be stronger than the opponent.

In the middle is the total time since the start of the game, the icon of the sun or the month (at night, the visibility of the teams is reduced), and the yellow rectangles show the total score of the match if it goes to two or three wins. In this case, each of the teams won two maps, and now the last set is underway.

Under the icons of the characters, there are two bars – health (the number of hit points at the moment) and mana, which is spent when using abilities. The green rhombus between the icon and the stripes indicates that the hero can use his main skill – the ultimate. Blue means it doesn’t have enough mana.

If a character dies, their icon turns gray, like the second character from the left. The bottom shows the time in seconds it takes to respawn. After death, the character loses some of the gold and then appears at the base of his team.

Several information panels are available on the left. On the top left (highlighted in red) one of the graphs is displayed. Most often, this is the cost of the character – that is, all his items and unspent gold. Such a plate allows you to better understand which heroes on the map are stronger than others. The characters of the forces of Light (team on the left) have green stripes, the forces of Darkness have red ones.

Sometimes on broadcasts, instead of net worth (total value), other data is shown. For example, the current gold, the current level of the characters, or the availability of a buyback (“buyback”), which allows you to revive ahead of time for gold.

All game events are displayed in the yellow rectangle area. Strengthening or destroying buildings, killing (the second line shows who killed whom and how much gold was received for this), detecting wards, and activating runes. Wards give the team xtravision on the terrain, and runes appear in certain places and give bonuses like haste or invisibility.

In the lower-left corner (highlighted in blue) is a mini-map. All buildings, characters, and the direction of their movement are displayed there (the color corresponds to the color of the heroes at the very top of the scoreboard). To the right of the mini-map, you can see if killing Roshan, fortifying buildings, or scanning a closed location is available. These bonuses can be applied once every few minutes.

In addition, we can find out information about one of the characters. At the bottom center is the hero panel, which duplicates health and mana data, shows abilities and their level (the number means the number of seconds until cool down when the skill can be used), as well as items and teleport.

Please note that we do not always see the panel of the hero that is on the screen. Now his icon is darkened and means death (28 seconds before respawn), and two other heroes are shown on the screen – these are not Storm Spirit, but those who killed him.

In the upper left corner (white rectangle) there is a small statistics panel. The first line shows the number of kills/deaths/ help of the hero, and the second line shows the killed enemy creeps and not giving away your own.

In the opposite corner (light green) are shown items that the hero does not yet have. Stash displays items that have already been purchased, but are in the base and cannot be applied. Below is what the player plans to buy in the future. Even lower is the amount of gold.

Pro Season

The tournament system in Dota 2 involves a season divided into several stages. In the course of each, teams fight in their region, and then the strongest meet in a global tournament – a major. For high places in the league and major, teams receive Dota Pro Circuit points.

At the end of the season, the top 12 teams by rating get the opportunity to take part in The International, six more are determined during the regional qualifiers. The International is the most important tournament for every pro player; prize money at the next tournament will exceed $40 million.

There will be only two stages in the Dota Pro Circuit 2021 season due to the pandemic. The second season of the regional leagues began on April 12 and will last until May 23, in the CIS Virtus.pro, NAVI, AS Monaco, Gambit, and others will compete for victory. The Major will take place in June, and The International 10 will be held in August.