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Hey, y'all. It's almost August. That means the group stages of this year's The International is about to kick off in like two days. If you've been following DotA or TI in any capacity, you probably know what to expect. If you haven't, however, then let me bring you up to speed with the current state of competitive DotA... is what I would like to say, but I have not had any time to dedicate to this stupid game lately, so I know jack shit about anything and everything with regards to the competitive scene, or the meta, or the patch notes, or hero changes... you get the point. But let's pretend I do and at least run down the teams, eh?

This year's direct invites consist of six teams:

All six invited teams have been to previous TIs. Now, if my memory is correct, three of these teams (IG, Newbee, EG) have won previous TIs. OG has won four Majors. VP took second place in the most recent Major in Kiev. It's been a while since I've watched a competitive match, but many of these players still stand out to me. These should be top notch teams, and as far as invitations are concerned, their spots are well-deserved.

We can't have a TI with only six teams! Here are the teams that made it to the event by going through the qualifiers:

So, first thing's first: NP became C9? I was not aware of this in the slightest. I'm going off of Liquipedia for most of these rosters, so they should be correct. Anyways, duders familiar with EE and friends would probably find a little humor in this.

DC has gone through some changes it would seem. That's a huge roster overhaul. I do like Forev, Abed, and DuBu quite a bit. Looking forward to seeing them play.

The Chinese teams are what they are. There's a good mix of old and new talent on all three teams.

Out of the SEA teams, Fnatic is the one with the most new faces, it seems. Theeban is an unexpected addition to TNC, and Execration went from being a group of relatively new kids to a collections of seasoned veterans.

Is Secret still the meme team, nowadays? Roster is still the same since I last saw them play. HR has been around for a while, but never really paid them much attention.

Normally, this is where I'd end the post, but since DotA has been getting some coverage on the site recently, I figure why not do a little something for the duders that are thinking about getting into (or at least thinking about watching) this dense, incomprehensible game that would probably make them question the living value of some of their fellow human beings?

What is DotA?

Dota, Doto, the Dotes, or if you're from Australia, Doter; Defense of the Ancients has many different names. It is a competitive team-based game where one (ideally) works with one's teammates to get into the opponent's base and break the building in the center of the base, commonly called the Throne. The first step is to select a "hero" to play for the duration of the match. One's hero levels up by gaining experience from killing npc units and player controlled heroes. These kills also supply the player with gold with which to buy items that power-up one's hero in different ways. Top-down team-based competitive strategy-action RPG, maybe?

Pick & Ban

Once the game starts, you are locked into to a specific hero. No take backs. If you ran out of time during picking, you will be randomly given a hero by the game, so don't take too long or you might get stuck playing some ugly yellow banana snake thing whether you like it or not. The game has many modes, but if you're only planning to watch some pro games, the only mode you have to understand is Captains Mode. In this mode, each team's selected captains (player) pick heroes for their respective teammates, and bans heroes from the 100+ selection pool. Banned heroes cannot be picked by either team for that game. Picks and bans are extremely important! Hero counters and synergies are definitely a thing. Most professional teams will take the full amount of given time to mull over which heroes to pick and ban, meaning the pick and ban phase will usually last over 10 minutes. While most heroes are viable in competitive play, team composition still makes a huge difference.

The Heroes

There are 113 heroes to pick from in DotA. For Captains Mode, that number is currently 112 due to one being removed the mode for reasons. Heroes are divided into three main categories based on their dominant stat. Strength heroes typically have more healthy and can take a frontline role in team fights, and be more aggressive during the first couple of minutes of the game called the laning phase. Agility heroes emphasize attack speed and damage, usually filling the role of carry during mid to late game. Intelligence heroes have bigger mana pools and are usually spellcasters. Many support heroes can be found in this category. This is a very rough breakdown of hero type, because many heroes are very flexible and can take on multiple roles or transition to fill required niches if need be. Flexibility is one of the main reasons why DotA's metagame is ever-changing and so exciting. The potential for shenanigans is endless.

The Items

Purchasing items in DotA is very similar to how one should spend money in real life: buy shit you need to live and keep you alive, save some money in case you die.

Okay, that last part doesn't really translate one to one (addressed in the next section: The Currency), but hear me out first. Items are very powerful in DotA. Some are game changers. Wasting gold on bullshit will make your mates flame you and call you name, and lead to lost games. This is going to sound like a cop-out, but a guide is your best friend when it comes to deciding what items to get for your hero. People have that shit figured out. Every hero has a few core items that needs to be gotten under any circumstance. Luckily, guides are built into the game! No need to tab out, just select Torte's guide and you're pretty much good to go. The situation isn't as clear cut during professional matches. Pros with deeper understanding of the game are more likely to adapt and pick items based on the necessities of the current match.

There are 3 categories of items: consumables, passive, active. Consumables are items that disappear from the heroes inventory when used or triggered, and usually take time for the shop to restock. Passive items provide gains as long as they are active (some passive items can be switched on/off, items in backpack are inactive) in the hero's inventory. As their name implies, active items have to be actively used. Many of these inflict status effects, heal allies/self, or damage enemies. Item usable is another important aspect of the game. Knowing when and where to use an item can turn the tide of critical team fights that might eventually win you the game.

The Currency

You can't afford items without money. The currency used to purchase stuff in the game is gold. All players gain gold at a passive rate, but the most common way to augment one's income is buy killing "creeps." Creeps are npc units, usually. Certain skills and items allow players to take control of creeps permanently or temporarily, but most of the time, you're going to be killing them for gold. There are 4 kinds of creeps: lane creeps that each team passively spawns that run down the lanes of the map and clash with with one another, jungle creeps that spawn in designated spots on the map that are hostile to all except their fellow jungle creeps, "ancient" creeps that are a special kind of jungle creep that are far more powerful but give more bounty, and Roshan (more on him(?) later). The act of killing creeps for gold is called "farming." You'll hear the phrase so and so is "farming X item" quite a bit from commentators. The number of creeps killed is called the creep score, abbreviated as CS, so "CS-ing" is another common term for farming, although the former gets used more for lane creeps.

Players also receive gold from hero kills. Quite a bit more than creeps, in fact. This is obviously more difficult, because you're fighting against a person. Usually, one team will gather up and ambush unaware heroes on the other team in a maneuver known as "ganking." This can happen during any point in the game, often occurring when a player overextends on the map too far while farming, or when enemy heroes have hit a timing where the necessary skills needed to secure a kill have been leveled proficiently.

Other than using gold for items, it is also used for "buybacks." When your hero dies, a countdown timer starts. After the timer hits zero, your hero resurrects back into the game. Alternatively, one can use gold to resurrect one's hero instantly before the timer expires. Saving money for buybacks is very important because if you get caught out at an inopportune time and dies, buying back can mean holding your base or losing the game. Be prudent about using this mechanic, however, because buyback itself is on a cooldown and cannot be used frequently.

The Map

When people talk about the map for DotA, they're talking about the map. There's one and only one map for all DotA games. Sure, there are different tile sets that make the map look fancy, but it is still the same map.

Seems complicated? It's really not.

At the corners of the map are the bases for the two teams, Radiant and Dire. The throne sits roughly in the center of each base. The fountain where players can regenerate at are designated by the respective color dots at the corners of the base.

The red lines are the lanes in which lane creeps advance down in the direction of the colored arrows. "Pushing" the lanes refers to upsetting the creep balance in the lane that changes the momentum in a desired direction. This is what you do in order to get into the other teams base, because each lane is populated by powerful guard towers that must be destroyed before the throne can be damaged.

The blue circles are collectively known as the jungle, broken into Dire and Radiant depending on the side of the river. Jungle creeps spawn at certain locations in this area. The white dots near the jungle are where Ancient creeps spawn. The white cross is the location of the Roshan Pit, where Roshan resides. Killing Roshan give the team gold and an item that revives the carrier upon death. Subsequent kills also drop Cheese that instantly restores the healthy and mana of the user. Roshan is very powerful, and should only be tackled under the right circumstances.

The gold circles indicate the locations where shops are present. The base shop offers most of what you'll need. The side shops stocks items that can help heroes stay in the lane longer without returning to base. In the vicinity of the jungle are the two secret shops that offer powerful and expensive items that serve as components for high end items.

If you got all that, then you've understood the basics. Let's get into a little bit about how the game is typically played.

Roles

The five players on each team all have unique roles to play. These positions are often referred to by the numbers 1 to 5, organized in sequential farm priority. This simply means position 1 players demand the most farm, while position 5 players get the least. Depending on their positions, heroes will head into different lanes.

The top 3 positions usually have their lanes locked in most situations. Carry players' job is to farm and get into fighting shape as quickly as possible since they will be the biggest damage dealer for the team when fights break out. Carry heroes are, more often than not, weak early game, and become the target for potential early ganks. Mid players need a good balance of gold and levels to do their job, so they get their own solo lane. That doesn't mean they have it easy, however, since overextending even slightly might end up feeding the other team a kill. Offlaners mostly need levels to improve their skills to be effective. Harder lanes are okay for them since farm isn't a high priority. Pos 4 and 5 supports don't necessarily adhere to any lane, but sacrifice their own income and experience for the benefit of the team by doing support-y things like planting wards for vision, babysitting the carry, stacking jungle camps. Supports buy all of the utility items for the team, like smokes (invisibility), dust (detection), regen (any kind of regeneration items), and TPs (teleport scrolls: after channeling, sends the user back to the fountain).

Vision

Games can be won or lost on how much of the map your team can see. Normally, fog of war covers parts of the map where your team doesn't have units. Wards, stationary items that can be placed on the map, grant vision of their surroundings. Being able to see potential enemy movement gives a huge advantage in DotA. Good vision allows players to dodge/counter ganks, safely jungle, going high ground, and crossing the river into enemy territory. Besides wards, specific heroes can also grant allies valuable map control through minion, invisibility scouting, and one hero can even turn any tree into a ward for the team, albeit with limits.

Jungle

I've mentioned the jungle a couple of times by now, and you might be wondering why it keeps popping up. The jungle is a... special place. At first glance, one might think the lanes are where the action happens, but the jungle also gets a fair bit of action, too. There's a lot that goes on in there, and going through jungle mechanics one by one would be waaay too complicated for the purposes of this post. Simply know that the jungle is high risk, high reward. There are ways to mitigate those risks, but they'll still always be there and your enemies know that, as well. Some heroes thrive in the jungle, and roamers will setup ganks aplenty if you allow them the opportunity. Exercise caution and you will profit. Be reckless and you'll end up feeding.

One jungle mechanic that should be mentioned is the act of stacking jungle camps. This can be done to regular creeps or Ancient creeps. All creep camps spawn on a timer. When the timer hits, the game checks if there are units in the area. If yes, the camp does not spawn anything. Otherwise, a new set of jungle creeps spawn. Pulling creeps away from the spawn area before the timer hits allows a new set to spawn, so you get both the old stack and the new one. This can be done multiple times until the number of creeps in that specific camp becomes too much for stacking. Early game, clearing out the jungle before the respawn timer hits is usually impossible, so stacking camps is used to cut your losses, essentially. It also ensures a quick influx of gold should anyone on the team who needs it. This can also backfire if the other team finds and takes the stacks. High risk, high reward.

Objectives

So, how does one win? The throne is obviously the final objective, but before one can get to it, there are are some hurdles to overcome first.

Towers will be the main objectives before pushing into the enemy base. They have high healthy and damage, so fighting the enemy under their tower early game is suicide. Only a handful of heroes are able to take down towers early game, so under most circumstances, it would be wise to stay away until mid to late game. There are three sets of lane towers, one set in each lane independent of the others. There are 3 tiers: Tier 1 towers are the outermost towers, and the weakest, while tier 3s are the strongest and guards the barracks. In order to damage the subsequent tier, one must first destroy the ones before it. There are also two tier 4 towers guarding the throne. Destroying towers are crucial because it weakens enemy lane power, allowing one's team to push further. It also gives your team more map control and more room to operate around the map.

If you've taken down both tier one and two towers in a lane, you can push high ground. It's usually advised to take down all outer tower before that, however. Destroying the tier three tower allows one's team access to the enemy barracks ("rax"). There are two rax per lane, one melee and one ranged. Destroying either will cause the corresponding creep type of your team in that lane to power up. Destroying all three lanes will give your team Mega Creeps which are very powerful versions of regular lane creeps. Getting megas usually means you've won, but comebacks have happened. Destroying a tier 3 tower also opens up the tier 4s to damage. Going straight for those towers after tier 3s and subsequently the throne is also a valid, but more risky, strategy. When the throne's hp reaches zero, you win the game.

Well, this got stupid long. Way longer than I first anticipated. Hopefully, someone will find this helpful over the course of the next week and a half. Hopefully, I've also roped a few innocent souls into the DotA deathpit from which there is NO ESCAPE.

GLHF. GG.

@zomgfruitbunnies: Brilliant post - extremely helpful. Thanks for this!

Only 5 heroes left unpicked so far, Dota is the best.

@schnoo: Only 5 "ignored" (i.e. neither picked nor banned), there's 7 unpicked. Lion and Meepo have been banned but not picked.

I hope EG get fucking bodied and Liquid take it all

LFY has been looking very strong. Not only winning the most amount of games, but also doing it in a very solid way. Monet is definitely a player to watch.

Good to see all regions having someone to cheer for. EG is looking fairly good for US , Liquid looking good for EU, VP for CIS ,TNC for SEA and the LGD teams for China. I remember Starcraft 2 always devolved into a game of 'can a non-korean at least win against some korean?! ' , so seeing how close the skillgap is between all those different regions is pretty exciting and healthy.

Why do fighting game tournaments get Giant Bomb Chat up but Dota doesn't? There's just enough Dota "love" on the staff as for fighting games now. How will I know what's going on without GB Chat to guide me?

Classic DotA, lose at the character select screen and then spend the next 30+ minutes to confirm that yes, you lost at the character select screen.

It still boggles my mind how MOBAs got this big.

It may be because fighting game tournaments tend to occur on weekends when the GB staff is out of the office and thus not going to need to use the stream for their own work. Dota, on the other hand, occurs during the work week, when the staff will be needing to run their own streams. The Dota finals will be on Saturday, though, so perhaps GB will put Dota in the GB chat for that day.

Drafting is undeniably very important in Dota, moreso than in many other MOBAs. This is a consequence of Dota's design philosophy of heroes having very pronounced strengths and weakness. In games where there is less hard difference between heroes, there are fewer hard counters, heroes become more interchangeable, and fewer heroes tend to get picked because more heroes can be reduced to merely superior/inferior versions of each other.

Diminishing the importance of the draft would mean gutting Dota to its core and wouldn't necessarily be desirable even if it were easy to do. Whereas the main game of Dota is as much execution as strategy, the drafting phase is practically pure strategy with minimal burden of execution. That makes the draft uniquely interesting and intense--it's some people's favorite part of Dota.

Although some games are, indeed, won or lost there, by no means are all. The currently live series (iG vs Liquid) is a good example. Liquid lost the draft quite clearly in both of the first two games. They couldn't find a way to play out from under their draft disadvantage in game 1, so it looked like a hopeless battle that was already over before it even started. Game 2 started off looking like a repeat with Liquid again falling rapidly behind, but this time Liquid brilliantly exploited iG's reliance on their gold lead to find chinks in their hubristic defensive play and crack them. Liquid never held a gold lead all game long (which is extraordinary for a game they won), but they specifically leveraged the fact that they were behind to subvert iG's expectations and reverse the tempo of the game. It was a perfect example of how a team can overcome a draft loss with amazing strategy, poise, and execution in-game.

@savage: Oh I know, I was mostly just making fun of the length of the matches and the relative lack of meaningful comebacks. The rounds often seem to go on for far longer than necessary.

And my general distaste for character match-up based games.

Explaining how MOBAs ever got this big is something I might never understand though.

@savage: Yeah I guess that's probably it. Linking to the Dota stream when they still have they're own ones sporadically clashing would be inconvenient. I hope they do bring chat up a bit during the weekend finals because watching the tournaments of Fighting games with Giant Bomb Chat folks brings a lot more to it for me.

What does the team from the upper bracket gain in the BO5 grand finals? I'd always liked double elimination brackets (I really wish more CS tournaments, especially majors, used them), but I've always thought it was difficult to balance the benefit the upper bracket team gets.

Man, it's still crazy to me how much the production quality of this improves year over year. Everything from the commentators, interviews, and presentation is just so smooth.

@e30bmw: The team plays fewer games so less chance of elimination and more time to prepare. Also get to watch their potential opponent play on finals day.

Empire knocked out EG. Wasn't expecting that. Three Chinese teams in the upper bracket at the moment. It's looking like another Chinese heavy TI, again. LFY doing really solid so far. CNDoto is back?