Esports

Many games use some form of microtransactions, and Dota is no exception. Dota 2 microtransactions are what help keep Valve's free-to-play game afloat, but there are plenty of reasons to criticize the current monetization model. Detractors of League of Legends...

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for lists and countdowns. We already covered the biggest Dota drama of 2017 earlier this month, so let's end 2017 on a more positive note and go over the...

Saahil "Universe" Arora used to play offlane for North America's top Dota 2 team, Evil Geniuses (EG). Universe currently has the third highest career earnings of all esports players. He's played Dota 2 professionally since the game's inception in 2011....

EA disappointed and amused countless gamers this season with its tumultuous release of Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game packed with content ready for players to enjoy - that is, only if you were ready to spend literal days...

Pauses are a contentious issue in professional Dota 2 matches. Unfortunately, the vast majority of pauses you sees in matches are usually accompanied by an excuse along the lines of "sry lag." Obviously, lag is a bigger problem in teamfights...

Last weekend in Sweden, three Dota 2 teams had breakthroughs at the expense of former champions. By winning the DreamLeague Major, Team Secret claimed their first premier tournament victory in over twenty months. Team Secret's triumph in the grand finals,...

Midas Mode is a brand new type of Dota tournament, invented by SirActionSlacks and Moonduck Studios. Novelty Dota tournaments are somewhat of a rarity: in the past, we've had Captains Draft and Ability Draft, but these events are anything...

Despite the commercial and critical success of Overwatch, the game's professional scene has still failed to attract a following. Blizzard hosted the Overwatch World Cup at Blizzcon this year, but viewership of the tournament was, for the most part,...

If you visited the Dota subreddit last week, you were likely confronted with a front page dominated by a near-endless stream of Mercedes-Benz memes. This sampling of posts and comments should give you an idea of how pervasive the...

Blizzard's upcoming Overwatch League has been a hot topic in the esports world for quite some time now. Among the teams participating is OpTic Gaming, who will be responsible for managing Houston's team in the League. I had the...

The first time I watched a game of Dota, I had no idea it would become such a large part of my life in the years to come. That was three years ago, during the TI4 qualifiers. I was 25....

‘Skill floor’ and ‘skill ceiling’ are terms you will likely come across when playing or discussing competitive gaming. But what do these words actually mean? It’s not too hard to grasp the basics, but understanding how these concepts play...