The Weekly CourierNew Major System, Faceless likely to disband and 7.06e
Happy Friday!
New Major System
Earlier this week, Valve announced that going forward into the next season (2017-2018), the landscape of competitive Dota 2 as we know it will change drastically. The current Major system will be replaced with a new one and Valve looks to sponsor existing tournaments instead of hosting their own. Tournaments with certain prize pool sizes can apply to become either Majors ($500k) or Minors ($150k). Players will earn Qualifying Points at both types of events and direct invites to The International 2018 will be decided by these points alone. The full announcement can be found here.
We also wrote a blogpost to break down the pros and cons of the new format here.
Faceless reportedly disbands
Following a failed qualifier run for TI7, South-East Asian squad Faceless looks to disband. No official comment from the team itself has been made yet, but close friend and part-time manager Furryfish has confirmed on stream that the team was never meant to last past TI to begin with. Iceiceice also confirmed on reddit that Faceless has been a costly investment so far, so it seems unlikely that he would continue to fund the team for another year. On top of that, both him and Jabz stood in for Mineski in the WCA qualifiers.
7.06e nerfs popular heroes
A week after the end of the TI7 qualifiers, Valve released a minor balance patch to address the most picked and most successful heroes of the qualifiers. The likes of Sand King, Clockwerk, Queen of Pain and Puck proved to be too good during the qualifiers and were victims of minor nerfs. Largely unpicked heroes like Alchemist and Naga Siren received minor buffs.
The patch notes can be found here.
All-Star Match Voting & Player Cards
Battle Pass owners can now vote for the All-Star Match at TI7. Unlike previous years, the All-Star match, upon popular request, will now only feature pro players as in earlier installments. 10 players will face each other in a classic 5v5 Captain's Mode match with a $100,000.00 prize for the winners. The voting closes in 17 days. In addition, player cards are now also available. Common duplicates can now be dusted with the click of a button, instead of manually.
The official announcement can be found here.
Also Noteworthy
- NPDota's captain
EternaLEnVy has done an "AMA" (Ask Me Anything) on reddit and continues to answer questions.
- MDL is currently going on and OG and EG will face off in a bo3 in the lower bracket tonight.
- The prize pool for TI7 has officially broken the 20 Million USD mark. With Immortals III yet to be released, the prize pool is expected to surpass last year's.
- Evil Geniuses CEO PPD has started to record a podcast and in his first episode he talks to Digital Chaos' Bulba about TI7 qualifiers. Both provide a lot of behind the scenes insight worth checking out.
- The Clip of the week goes to LFY for dropping the TI5 grand finals combo of Earth Shaker and Ancient Apparition onto Evil Geniuses.
Thanks for catching up with us. We hope you enjoy your weekend.
I think Arc warden is super viable now because of that turn speed change. Probably needs some nerfs next patch... ;)
YES! YES! YES! I was so tired of seeing QoP's!
Honestly, it's just the fucking blink and being forced to stack disables to shut her down, same with AM. That ability is just obnoxious!
I mean, I know how to deal with the two, but it seems the mates I am handed are clueless in that regard.
EG took a dose of the 6 million slam, except it was for 30 thousand instead. Lmao.
I like how the most minor of buffs suddenly convinced my pubs that Alch is viable. He needs a lot of teamwork now, to be effective. The 4 base gold at all levels hits him so hard, he needs to hit multiple stacks at once to keep the multiplier going. Which means he needs his team to stack for him. So no, he's not just yet good enough for uncoordinated pubs. STOP PICKING HIM, OR be damn sure you can play him well.
goodbye Team Faceless .
There have been so many great moments .
Hmm too bad for iceiceice. I liked Faceless, especially when they lost to other region teams but beat all other SEA teams
RIP Faceless, it was a good year, sad to see them disband though :(