Three Lane Highway is Chris' weekly column about Dota 2 and related games.

One of the best things I read about Dota 2 this week was this JoinDota article about the impact of cosmetic item bundles on the competitive scene. Their evidence is compelling, and it's hard to read through the entire thing without wanting Valve to rethink the way that tournament tickets are marketed and sold.

The article both rests upon and reveals the fact that players really covet cosmetic items. That's not a groundbreaking observation by any stretch, but it's one of those things that gets weirder the more you think about it. I mean, I collect Dota items and I'm not even entirely sure why. I am guilty of buying tournament tickets for the cosmetics first and the tournament itself second.

Players desire this stuff to the point where that desire eclipses the game it supports. I gestured at this last week—Dota events traditionally stumble because players will do literally anything, even if it isn't fun, to get a shot at free stuff—even if it makes them less likely to continue playing the game those items are for. I sometimes wonder if we're guilty, generally, of just assuming that 'hats are popular' without interrogating why—of missing a broader point about the game itself because the mania that surrounds cosmetic items has become a running joke.

A pet theory: collecting cosmetic items provides everything that traditional Dota 2 does not. They allow you to make clear, visible progress in a way that is quick and easily broadcast to other players. You can work on it entirely alone, and the factors that might mitigate your progress—money, time, luck—are all nontheless things that you can control. The ineptitude of four other people does affect your chances of getting items unless there's an event on, and the way the community behaves during events backs up what I'm saying.

(This doesn't mean that collecting items is always compensatory—it's perfectly reasonable to covet something because you, you know, like it. This is more about figuring out why collection gets taken so seriously, how it ends up valued above and beyond aspects of the game that, if pressed, most players would agree are more 'important'.)

In this sense, the negative influence of cosmetics on e-sports is symptomatic of a broader malaise experienced by Dota players: the drive to derive instant gratification from a game where almost everything you aspire to do or be takes significant time and effort. Watching a tournament requires engagement, investment of energy, learning, and so on. Collecting hats requires clicking on the hats.

The only thing that makes you better at Dota is playing more Dota. The best way to show your commitment to e-sports is to watch more e-sports. These are easy notions to forget, or at least it's easy to be distracted from them. It's so tempting to look for shortcuts to that feeling of progression that you may not even realise that you're doing it—at least, that's been my experience of this hobby over the last couple of years.

I had this fact hammered home late last week. I'd spent a week teaching four total newcomers to play Dota, colleagues from PCG's UK office with less than ten games played between them. We faced off against Rock Paper Shotgun's more experienced lineup—two and a half experienced players, two and a half total newcomers (one had played the game years ago for a hundred hours, but not returned since.)

I'd theorised that it was possible to break Dota down into general, easily-remembered principles that would ultimately give my wizard-babies the edge even if they had no idea what the majority of heroes did, how the majority of items worked, or even how their roles functioned. I attempted to explain what a gold and experience advantage looked like, what staying safe looked like, what map control was and how you got it—and I think I succeeded, to a limited extent.

What I realised, though, as we lost that game, was just how much Dota has passed into the lower, reactive levels of my brain. As I attempted to formulate a simplified conscious approach to Dota, I remained ignorant of just how much I'd picked up simply by playing a lot of the game for a long time. I can see it, now, in every screenshot of that match. A level 4 Sniper pushing a tower right next to an incoming TP belonging to a level 7 Puck who would inevitably kill him. I realised how natural it was for a new player to think nothing of another glowing effect among so many glowing effects; I realised how many different experiences contribute to me seeing that image in such a powerfully divergent way. Where the Sniper sees nothing wrong, I see imminent disaster: and I see it because I've lived it, in thousands of different ways, over the course of thousands of hours.

As our ancient exploded, I realised that there's no shortcut to that kind of experience—no way for me to simply beam it into the heads of my newbies with a couple of simple instructions. I realised, also, that there was no way I was going to get better through anything other than more experience. I had been on a losing streak, otherwise, from the finals of the Rektreational industry tournament (3-2, damn!) to my recent return to solo ranked. And all of it comes back to the same thing: hours invested, energy committed, losses accepted, lessons learned. It is so, so tempting to go back to 'proving' myself with a hat collection, to amass the badges and stack up the tournament ticket stubs and get the cosmetics that say this guy cares. But that is, I think, a placebo. It's a behaviour pattern that resembles nothing less than a mid-life crisis: the attempt to spend your way out of some broader sense of inadequacy.

It's actually kind of a relief to arrive at that understanding. It takes the pressure off. You really probably don't need every item set that comes out. You probably don't even need to worry about your MMR, or your winrate, or your all-time records. You probably just need to play more, and that is the least demanding thing Dota ever asks of you.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

The ESL has announced a $1 million prize pool for the 2015 ESL One Dota 2 tournament series, which it says represents a quadrupling of its investment in the series last year.

"We re starting with ESL One Frankfurt 2015 in June this year, where the prize money has been raised from US$150,000 to US$250,000 - and this is just the beginning," Ulrich Schulze, ESL's managing director of pro gaming, said in a statement. "ESL One is here to set a new standard for professional Dota 2 events at this level. We re dedicated to pushing the boundaries, and giving players from around the world more chances to make their careers as professional gamers is a key aspect of that."

As MCV UK pointed out, last year's Dota 2 series consisted of two events, in Frankfurt and New York. Assuming my math is correct, 2015 will see that number at least double, with tournaments set to take place "in some of the world's most iconic stadiums and arenas."

The news follows closely behind last week's announcement that the ESL will hold the world's largest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament in Cologne, Germany, with its own $250,000 prize pool funded entirely by the ESL. I'd say it sounds like things are going pretty well over there.

Three Lane Highway is Chris' weekly column about Dota 2 and related games.

Everybody is angry about a seasonal Dota 2 event. This does not tell you very much. Events have always made players angry, and not entirely without reason—traditionally, they are not very good. That said, the angriest the Dota community has ever been was when a seasonal event didn't happen. This complicates things, somewhat. If the community is equally enraged by events that exist and events that don't exist, what have we learned? Primarily, that hardcore gaming communities are often angry about something, and that 'something' may or may not map fully onto reality. This is not a revelation, and nor is it news. Don't let that stop you, though—it's op-ed season! Grab your gun, honey, there's fish in that barrel.

Valve continue to make weird decisions about how they implement optional modes into Dota 2. Generally, knowing Valve, you can assume that this is a form of experimentation—discerning what the community will accept, what it won't. The company's weaknesses has always been that this experimentation takes place in isolation from what other companies have learned and, sometimes, in isolation from common sense. Valve give the impression of a company that is attempting to invent community events from scratch—a homebrew approach with its roots in lush, organic data. I wonder how they store and process that data, sometimes; how they account for the significant portion that is just the phrase 'FUCK THIS' over and over. It's all useful, I suppose. Nothing grows that isn't fertilised at least in part by the shit that came before it.

Where Manifold Paradox's problem was that it affected how people play regular Dota, Year Beast's issue is that it allows players to purchase an advantage in new, optional Dota. If you have lots of points your team gets a better Year Beast and that's kind of shitty to deal with. I think you'd have to attempt some pretty tricky rhetorical gymastics to take criticism further than that: Year Beast does not mean that Dota as a whole is 'pay to win'. 'Pay to win' is not a force with its own agency: it cannot creep out of one game mode and alter another. It cannot slip off the whiteboard and infect a room full of designers, it does not corrupt its hosts from within and you will never find yourself approaching Icefrog in the street only for him to raise a finger and honk "PAY TO WIIIIIIIIIN" at you like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

In short: it's bad, you don't have to play it, you definitely don't have to spend any money, and you probably wasted any time you spent sharpening pitchforks (do you sharpen pitchforks? I guess you must.) Lasting impact on Dota, the decade-old fantasy wizard sport you play every day of your life for some reason? Nil.

What does concern me about Year Beast is that it demonstrates that Valve haven't really learned their lesson regarding event rewards. In every case, the outcry over an event has ultimately been grounded in the assumption that you have to do whatever terrible thing the event is making you do, and that you have to do it because otherwise you don't get whatever reward is being dangled in front of you. During Manifold Paradox, people had to bend their entire strategy around helping or thwarting Phantom Assassin because otherwise they wouldn't get items. Now, people have to build the best Year Beast because otherwise they don't get item sets.

In gaming communities, 'material' rewards tend to override every other incentive to play. People ruin their experience of Dragon Age: Inquisition's opening hours because they convince themselves that they need all of the stuff in the Hinterlands before they allow themselves to progress. Over in console-land, hand-wringing about Destiny's loot system has eclipsed the game's successes (and failures) as a shooter to such an extent that it might as well be a Faberge handle on a slot machine. This is the age of people saying 'I had an amazing time but I didn't get the right space hat so fuck it' without irony, a sentiment that is for some reason taken seriously and not laughed at like we laugh at those teenagers publishing tearful video blogs when they don't get the right car for their birthday.

In short: the chance to win stuff tends to make gaming communities behave in some really weird ways and Valve have been naive in their approach to that. On paper, giving a reward to winners makes sense. In practice, it changes the emotional register of the entire thing. It introduces entitlement, irrationality and negativity. They made the same mistake with the first-ever Compendium, which gave every owner a different Immortal item from a limited set. Technically, they were all equally valuable. In practice, everybody wanted the Pudge hook or the Kunkka sword. The system created winners and losers, and the result was much wailing.

If every Year Beast participant had the same chance of getting a reward regardless of the match outcome then nobody would care much that it was pay to win. Well, some might, but it would be those few that are genuinely concerned with the health of the game in abstract and that tends to be a far more level-headed set. It'd also mean that fewer people would feel the need to spend money on points alone (as opposed to the points that come with the Arcana), but if Valve are serious about steering clear of Bad Free To Play then they'd have to accept that.

The goal with a community event shouldn't just be to raise a bit of extra money, nor should it be to experiment with what the community will enjoy or invest in. The aim should always be to create a sense of communal attachment—to stick a pin in the calendar at a certain point and encourage people to invest that time with meaning. You should look back on a seasonal event and think 'remember that? That was cool. That's where I got this hat.'

That goal is not incompatible with an experimental approach, nor is it incompatible with making money. But Valve need to get better at it. At the moment, the memory they are creating is closer to 'god, remember that? That was awful. I spent half an hour of my life convincing one guy not to abandon the game because he wasn't going to win a hat. I can't believe I spent actual money on momentarily enhancing my team's magical rhino-dragon so that it might win me a Sand King set from two years ago that I didn't even want'.

The key is distributing rewards evenly to create a sense that everybody wins out just by participating. By doing so, the event becomes a pinata that everybody gets an even whack at—and, like at the very best children's birthday parties, every attendee is guaranteed some candy or a toy. Have you seen what happens when a parent underestimates the importance of egalitarian distribution? It's exactly like what is happening in the Dota community at the moment, only with real six year olds instead of functional six year olds.

Here, then, is how you fix Year Beast. Remove the points system, and give both winners and losers an equal chance to earn whole sets. Match this with a reliable progression track that you move along with every game you play, unlocking scaling rewards as you go. You should know roughly what you stand to gain when you start a Year Beast match, not when it ends. That way, players go in feeling positive.

Instead of selling points, sell tickets for the mode itself. Give every player one free ticket for every day they log in and scale reward distribution with that in mind. Give extra tickets to Arcana owners, and give players who play with an Arcana owner a chance to earn tickets through playing regular Dota matches. Ticket prices should be slightly lower than the lowest-value reward from a given Year Beast game, because there's no reason why the player should stand to lose: Valve have learned this lesson before, with item chests.

Then, watch a happy seasonal event unfold and watch players flock back to the next one. If there is a next one. You might have handed the whole thing over to the community by then by adding custom game tools. In which case, it's their problem. Let the little shits run their own birthday party. Uncork a bottle and bar the kitchen door: you've earned it!

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

Dota 2 still plays second fiddle to League of Legends, but its star continues to ascend: at the weekend, 1,075,464 Steam users were logged into the game at the same time, easily doubling the next most popular Steam game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. That's the highest concurrent figure in Steam history, but it's still no serious challenger to League of Legends, which has attracted well over 5 million. 

The spike in players was no doubt prompted by the New Bloom update, which introduced a new game mode in the form of the Year Beast Brawl, as well as a new hero and community-made gear, among other things. Oh, and if you noticed Dota 2 update frequently yesterday, it's because of a few hotfixes made during the Bloom. 

There have also been some price adjustments to Ability Point packs, with previous purchasers compensated. Check out the full details here.

Three Lane Highway is Chris' weekly column about Dota 2 and related games.

It's update week! For Smite in particular—season two went live on Wednesday, fundamentally overhauling the Conquest map and introducing a broad sweep of balance changes equivalent to a major Dota 2 patch. I've played Smite exactly twice since then because Crystal Maiden has a puppy now. Conquest revamp, puppy. Conquest revamp. Puppy. Look at the puppy! Look at it.

It's entirely too early to tell whether I'll one day regret having spent 18 on a magical cape that comes with a dog. I suspect that the answer is 'no' when it should probably be 'yes', but that's how it goes. I'm almost two thousand hours into this particular series of questionable life decisions. One day I'll end up spending even more. Imagine if the Crystal Maiden arcana extended Freezing Field's duration to three minutes and thirty-nine seconds and replaced the channeling animation with the entirety of 'Let It Go' from Frozen. I don't know how much I'd pay for that. A lot, I suppose. I wonder how much my kidneys are worth.

I'm not in a position to offer comment on the New Bloom event itself yet because of the way it is structured—the new mode is only accessable at random times, with warning given an hour in advance. I suspect that Valve has structured it this way to ensure that people in my position play it exactly twice—once when it appears by chance, and once after spending an entire day waiting. I have a job and commitments: I need to plan my Dota time in advance, and that is directly incompatible with the structure of this year's New Bloom. I imagine there are reasons for it being this way, but from my isolated place in the crowd they seem like they might be dumb reasons.

That being the case, I'm going to discuss something else. Specifically, I'm going to explain why this support-centric update adds to a long list of reasons why Silencer can go fuck himself.

Phew. It feels good to finally say that, you know? Over the last couple of years I've worked through most of my personal problems with certain heroes. I used to loathe Nature's Prophet, and Pudge, and Faceless Void—I had a very specific sense of the types of people who would play those characters. Nonetheless, I'm aware of how silly and immature it is to make assumptions about somebody's personality based on the types of characters that they like to play, and I appreciate the way that all of these characters ultimately make the game more interesting. I'd even extend that to Sniper. Sure! He's an irritating shit sometimes, but there's a kind of tragic comedy to his impact on the lategame if he gets out of control.

At the end of this long period of personal development, only Silencer remains as the hero I truly and personally dislike. He's a prick and I hate him and here is why.

I love Winter Wyvern. I love how Valve have reimagined her, and I love how silly and showy her abilities can be. Like Omniknight, she's only ever going to be a very situational counter-pick—but like Omniknight, her impact on a fight can be visible and exciting. Her skills come with plenty of potential for clutch saves and dazzling plays. In my last game with her, I discovered that she acts as a hilarious foil to Chaos Knight and Io. Watching them teleport in only to force CK to murder his glowing blue life partner in cold blood is a precious gift that doesn't get old. Other highlights: the moment your carry realises just how good Cold Embrace is. When you realise that she can do 1700 damage split between the entire enemy team at level 7. She's dependent on the circumstances being perfect, but man—what an interesting set of new ideas to add to the game.

Most heroes are like this, one way or another. I've written something similar about Axe in the past. Dota is about systems colliding in new and unexpected ways. It is fundamentally about stuff happening.

Silencer is about stuff not happening. He is a brutal counter to Winter Wyvern and any other hero that subsists on spells at the bottom of the farm priority pyramid. Expect him to be one of the major factors curtailing Winter Wyvern and Crystal Maiden's brief surges in popularity, because by design he shuts down exactly what makes these characters interesting.

This is a design issue, not a balance problem. The character has plenty of weaknesses—but, like Faceless Void, they're the kinds of weaknesses that pub players typically struggle to exploit. He's one of the kings of the potato bracket because he requires your team to do the exact things that pub teams are typically terrible at doing: building BKBs, disengaging properly, and timing engagements to coincide with ultimate cooldowns.

Unlike other powerful heroes, Silencer isn't exciting to deal with: he's just depressing. There's no spectacle or impact to his skill set. Think about how extravagant a Refresher Orb feels on other heroes. Think about the pushing power of a double Chaotic Offering—'full boy band mode'—or the way double Thundergod's Wrath feels like the actual wrath of heaven. Compare that with two Aghs-upgraded Global Silences—twelve full seconds of nothing happening, watching your health and mana slowly tick away.

He stops spellcasting. He drains mana. He steals intelligence. He disarms. He stops spellcasting again, for everyone, everywhere. Unlike every other character in the game, Silencer is designed to reduce the number of interesting interactions that take place. Replace him with literally any other hero in a line-up and the game becomes more fun for everybody. He's the only character whose complete removal I would applaud.

Just look at him. Look how unhappy he appears, in a game full of vivacious and lively characters. He's the awful guy at the party that everybody wishes hadn't come. He's the commenter that shows up to derail the discussion. He's the mob that floods your Twitter replies and doesn't know when to stop. He makes conflict less fun. He makes everything less fun. If there is ever a Silencer arcana, it should involve a fedora and change all of his voice lines so that they begin 'WELL, ACTUALLY...'

This should be a new golden age for support players. We've got a dog now and we can force carries to kill their friends. Except we can't, because there he is in every game. They've just locked in three punchy melee carries? It's Winter Wyvern time! Here they come, pushing down mid. You anticipate the teamfight to come. It's your time to shine. You're in the trees, your force staff ready, your finger over 'R'. Then -

SILENCE.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

My sympathies go out to anyone who has paid megabucks for Blades of Voth Domosh, Fiery Soul of the Slayer, or really any other Arcana. You see, as part of the New Bloom update, Crystal Maiden is getting a wolf puppy. As such, she now has the uncontested best cosmetic in all of Dota 2.

Check out this cute motherflipper:

Look at that dopey face!

Aurora: Wolf Pup of Icewrack joins Crystal Maiden when she equips the Frost Avalanche Arcana. Arcana, if you don't know, is Dota-speak for a special cosmetic that brings new animations and effects to its wearer. It's also not cheap: $35/ 23 for  this latest one, albeit with a slight discount if its pre-ordered.

That is unquestionably a lot of money, but also, the little guy chases his tale when CM teleports. Sure, it's a non-combat pet, but god damn it's adorable. 

Oh yeah, the New Bloom update. It's not just wolf pups. New hero Winter Wyvern has been revealed. She's a big frost dragon, and her ult freezes an enemy and forces their allies to attack them.

In addition, the New Bloom map is back, item drops have been made more frequent, new community-made gear has appeared, and an item recycling system lets you dump unwanted stuff for a chance at a hero item set.

You can find a full rundown of New Bloom's changes over at the Dota 2 microsite. New Bloom isn't live just yet, but you can try it out in the Dota 2 test client.

It's New Bloom time in Dota-land. What does that mean, specifically? In lore terms, something about the Year Beast. In Valve terms, it's a time of comics, trailers and cryptic teasers.

Today's New Bloom preamble is a comic starring bubbly ice-nuisance Crystal Maiden. It tells of an encounter with Winter Wyvern—who is sure to be this update's new hero—and of the acquisition of a powerful new cloak.

That cloak was also glimpsed in yesterday's New Bloom trailer. It seems as if Rylai has a new Arcana item on the way.

What of the Year Beast? Last year, players fought it. This year, the trailer suggests, we'll get to tame it. We'll see what that involves when the update is released later this week.

Three Lane Highway is Chris' weekly column about Dota 2.

Last night I lost a game of Captain's Mode to a team that randomed two of their heroes. Their captain was AFK. Our captain wasn't AFK—he was, well, me—and I figured that I could easily counterpick a team that was lumbered with a Lina and an Elder Titan that they didn't plan to play. The draft didn't matter much, as it happened. They outplayed us from the moment the laning phase ended, fighting better, rotating better and generally closing us out of the game before we could bring our non-randomly-generated plan to bear.

There are two meagre reasons why this was not entirely an unbearable experience. The first is the single message their team transmitted in English over the course of the game: a lonely 'sick my duck', perhaps an Outkast reference, perhaps simply a wonderful typo. The other is that it was a relatively straightforward loss. These have seemed harder to come by, lately: I don't know about you, but for me and mine 6.83 has been the era of the throw.

It's simply easier to lose control of a lead than it used to be. It only takes a single teamfight to completely reverse the momentum of a game. Sometimes, it's less than that—the pick-off kill that means your next engagement ends disastrously, the sneaky Roshan attempt that you forget to check for. I don't feel like we've been losing more games than we generally do, but I definitely feel like we've thrown away more advantages.

It's no longer safe to snowball, and early leads need to be treated with a mixture of respect and caution—both by the team that's ahead and the team that's behind. The rewards for storming ahead in the early game aren't what they used to be, and transitioning into the kind of lead that actually ends the game takes skill and careful mitigation of risk. It's this latter element that I've been thinking about a lot recently. Dota 2 is a game of numbers, chance, percentages: most throws begin the moment you forget that.

Two weeks ago I talked about how a team that is in an advantageous position needs to identify their 'victory switch'—the set of collective strategic and psychological shifts that allow them to properly end a game. As part of that shift, it's increasingly important to define your team's relationship with the game's unpredictable elements.

A few weeks ago I read this guide to Hearthstone's Arena mode by VivaFringe. I don't play a lot of Hearthstone, but what drew me to it was this line:

When you re ahead, try to minimize variance. When you re behind, try to maximize it.

What VivaFringe refers to as 'variance' could also be described as chaos or unpredictability. In Hearthstone, this is fairly easy to locate: there are a lot of random elements, from the behaviours of individual cards to the card-drawing process itself. 'Randomness' in Dota 2 is a little subtler. It means more than just Phantom Assassin's chance to crit or Chaos Knight's chance to get a four-second stun. It means everything your team can't directly control, from the positioning of enemy wards to the chance that the support you've spotted wandering alone is actually bait for a smoke gank.

Here's a scenario that demonstrates the type of variance that I'm talking about. One of your team's core heroes is mobile, good at taking down single targets, and has had a good start—Storm Spirit, maybe. Your advantage going into the midgame has been built on the back of lots of individual plays. From an even start, your team has more gold and experience because risks were taken—and paid off.

Let's say that Storm Spirit has a 80% chance of succeeding at any given solo kill attempt. That's an arbitrary percentage: it's intended to express the idea that a player with a lead will normally do well, but that something can always go wrong. When all else is equal, it is absolutely worth taking that 80% chance of success. As the game progresses, however, the one-in-five chance of failure means more. In the lategame, the 20% you can't control could mean ceding a huge gold and experience bounty to an enemy carry, a lengthy respawn, an expensive buyback, or any number of other penalties. Eventually, Storm Spirit's solo gambits will present a bigger opportunity to your opponent than they do to your own team, because your opponent has a meagre (but not impossible) chance to win big from them.

When you're ahead, then, you need to stop gambling. The odds haven't changed, but the scale of the reward has. Stop seeing it as an 80% chance to bump your K/D/A, and start seeing it as a 20% chance to lose the entire game. Secure your lead by 'minimising variance'. Prompt teamfights. Take other objectives. Transition in sync with the changing mathematical landscape of the game.

This is often the opposite of what a snowballing player wants to do, and the inverse is true of players who are on the defensive. Simply being behind suggests that conservative play is the only way to win: you lost out in the early game, so there's no way you're going to gamble with what you've got left. Well, that line of thinking goes both ways. As the enemy pulls ahead in gold and experience, you can do more with each kill you manage to get. The one consistent element of unpredictable situations in Dota 2 is that they are dangerous. People make mistakes. People die. This is the last thing you want if you're winning, but exactly what you want if you're behind.

'Maximise variance' in this regard by making plays that feel unsafe. Go for that smoke gank. Contest Roshan. Push a tower and force the other team to come meet you, then run away. Sometimes they will respond perfectly and you'll lose anyway, but that's unlikely. By taking chances you increase the chance that they'll slip up, and when they lose a vital core hero for a full ninety seconds without buyback you'll have just won your way back into the game.

To put it another way: only winners can throw a game. There's a choice you need to make, when you've built up that comfortable lead, to hold on to it. And when you're losing the best thing you can do isn't hole up in your base or repeatedly farm the two jungle camps left to you: it's to strike out and invite the other team to take a risk. Think about every time you've thrown a game because you wanted one more kill, or to show off, or to end the game because you need to make dinner—then encourage that mindset in them. Not the dinner thing, I guess. But if you want, try typing 'brb 1min need to eat delicious pizza' in all-chat. It can't hurt. Beats 'sick my duck', anyway.

If you remain unconvinced, please enjoy this brief four-minute musical essay on the importance of being mindful of the numbers powering every Dota 2 match you play.

10% luck. 20% skill. 15% concentrated power of will. 5% pleasure. 50% slam. 100% reason to remember the jam.

This is as close to a perfect mathematical summation of Dota 2 as you will ever get.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

Why have Dota 2 and League of Legends become the most popular PC games of the generation? Wes and Chris take a moment during their visit to the Smite World Championship to try and answer what it is about MOBAs that's elevated them above FPSes, RTSes, and RPGs as the most-played games in the world.

The PC Gamer Show appears every Friday. Hit us with PC gaming questions for us to answer at the end of next week's episode in the comments!

We asked some of the top minds in four of today's top e-sports about the state of their games.

Dota 2

Will "Blitz" Lee is a professional Dota 2 player, streamer, and sometime caster. You might know him for his Storm Spirit, for his work on the International 2014 newbie stream, or for his role as waifu to Purge's husbando. Formerly of Team Zephyr, he crossed the elusive 7K MMR barrier in January.

What was the highpoint of 2014 for Dota 2?

I'd say the TI matches between DK and EG. All the matches these teams played between one another were highly innovative and close, demonstrating the best of the west, and the fan favorites of the east.

How would you describe the health of the Dota scene?

Fairly strong, I think the active user base is growing, but I hear unrest from competitive players. It feels with how much TI is worth, all other tournaments are just sideshows along the way. There needs to be some way to incite interest again, maybe making tournaments worth seeding points or something.

If you could ask Valve to make one change, what would it be?

Be more transparent with how TI invites are sent, and how tournaments are weighted. Are ones earlier in the year worth less? etc.

In terms of Dota, what do you think was the funniest thing that happened last year?

That I hit 7k before Arteezy.

What is the biggest challenge that the competitive Dota scene faces in 2015?

Probably figuring out how to grow the tournament scene without relying on massive prize pools. It seems the tournaments that pay out 50k+ which is really good money have been left behind or interest is waning for them. I'm not sure how to solve this issue though, just random thoughts.

Who are the players or teams that you think will make the biggest impact this year?

Iceiceice is probably the x factor for VG, think Secret will do well but that isn't really a surprise.

What heroes are you personally enjoying right now?

Storm, Phantom Lancer, Sniper, Lina, all seem really fun and active around the map.

What do you think are the key components of a good Dota stream?

Humor, being able to make fun of yourself/take a joke, being informative, and not letting the chat get to you. Interaction with your stream is also huge, being able to make a personal connection with everyone helps bring people back.

Which Twitch meme makes you secretly smile?

"I sexually identify as an attack helicopter."

Where do you expect the next big innovation or upset in the Dota scene to come from?

Probably a team like Hellraisers or the Koreans, I feel team's like Phoenix/Rave/HR just sort of do whatever fits them without paying attention too much to whatever is popular in other regions.

How would you describe the current state of Korean Dota? Where is it headed in 2015?

Strong, Phoenix and Rave make good cases for being invited from the SEA region, and both can upset top teams, in 2015 I think one Korean team will make it into the main event, but if they make a splash remains to be seen. Maybe one more year till they get top 10 worthy, but with the work ethic it s possible.

CS:GO

Tomi lurppis Kovanen is a writer at HLTV.org and former competitive CS 1.6 player from 2004-2013. Since then, he has been casting and hosting CS:GO tournaments.

What was the highpoint of 2014 for CS:GO?

I believe the highpoint of 2014 for CS:GO was when NiP won ESL One Cologne. The way it happened probably made it the best storyline of the entire year—you really couldn t have scripted it much better. To top that off, CS:GO as a game broke all the previous records (viewership, players, etc.) during that same event, though they were again shattered later on in 2014.

How would you describe the health of the CS:GO scene?

CS:GO is doing tremendously well. There is no question that Counter-Strike as a whole has never been doing better. It seems—though it would be great if Valve could clarify—that we re set to have three or so majors a year now, which allows the rest of the circuit to be built around it. As far as I can tell we re going to have top notch Counter-Strike all-year round in 2015. It s a great time to be a fan of the game.

If you could ask Valve to make one change, what would it be?

In my opinion, and I have written about this in more detail roughly a month ago, the only real issue with CS:GO as of right now is that it is an incredibly counter-terrorist sided game. In my article I have outlined some ideas to make the game more balanced, but if I had to choose just one, it would be fixing the smokes so they d maybe last a second or two less, would be slightly smaller (think 10-20%) and, most importantly, they wouldn t glitch for the player trying to go through them.

In terms of CS:GO, what do you think was the funniest thing that happened last year?

I found it legitimately hilarious when Fifflaren essentially replaced me as the analyst at DreamHack events after retiring from NiP. Contrary to popular opinion there are no hard feelings between us and he actually is my favorite caster to watch.

What is the biggest challenge that the competitive CS:GO scene faces in 2015?

I actually believe the scene is getting slightly oversaturated in terms of tournaments and online leagues, and we are already seeing some top level teams withdraw from many events with a good amount of prize money up for grabs.

Who are the players or teams you think will make the biggest impact this year?

Though  kennyS already is the world s best player individually in my opinion, his team s struggles in 2014 didn t allow for him to have the kind of impact you would expect. I think that will change in 2015 as he continues improving and the team around him will get better.

What weapon or knife skins are you running right now? Is there anything in the Chroma update that you d really like to get?

In terms of skins my taste is far too conservative for the average user, I tend to like skins without any odd graphical features. I like the Night knives, as opposed to the shiny Chroma ones, for example.

What do you think are the key components of a good CS:GO stream?

Since my personal appetite for streams is so inconsistent with that of the public, I will answer for what I believe makes for a popular stream. You need positive personalities who can kill some time while waiting for matches, preferably some players as guest analysts sometimes, and you need to be consistent in streaming. As for my personal preference, to me it s very important that CS:GO itself looks default I dislike custom crosshairs, odd-colored HUDs, etc.

What Twitch chat meme makes you secretly smile?

My friend allu, who currently plays for Finnish 3DMAX, has a ridiculous looking meme of a face I made around eight years ago. It s pretty funny.

Where do you expect the next big innovation in CS:GO to come from?

Well it wouldn t be very innovative if I called it out right now, would it? One thing is for sure—it will not come from Valve, who have never been very innovative when it comes to the game. Hopefully a governing body of some kind could be put together by some people to help better organize the tournament circuit. That would be good for the scene.

Is item betting helping or hurting CS:GO?

To be honest I have never bought the argument for how betting could potentially be hurting CS:GO. There is so much evidence in terms of viewership growth that betting is great for CS:GO that this really should not be a discussion. It is easy to blame DDoSing only on betting, but it was already taking place in the CS 1.6 days when betting didn t really exist. Some people just want to see the world burn.

If you could pick the competitive map pool, what would be in it?

Out of the maps that are currently available, I would keep de_cache, de_dust2, de_inferno, de_mirage and de_overpass. I would then bring back de_train instead of de_nuke—which is basically never played—and replace de_cobblestone with de_season. I would also look into bringing on de_tuscan, maybe instead of de_mirage, if that becomes popular—and gets finished—at some point.

League of Legends

Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles is a caster for the Korean OnGameNet Champions league. He was also previously a coach for team Counter Logic Gaming in the NA LCS, and is frequently brought on to cast international tournaments.

What was the highpoint of 2014 for LoL?

I look back fondly on the series between KT Arrows and Samsung Blue in the  Champions Summer finals. Not only did this best of five deliver high quality gameplay, but also some of the most exciting and gut-wrenching games of the year. This was undoubtedly the high point of LoL in 2014.

How would you describe the health of the LoL scene?

Viewership for League continues to grow on average for broadcasts around the world, so it seems to still be going strong. Riot's changes to balance at the end of 2014 and the new Rift should keep the game fresh and strategically interesting as 2015 unfolds.

If you could ask Riot to make one change, what would it be?

I think the main aspect of competitive play currently lacking resides in the limited amount of international competition in the current format. Cross-regional competition provides the most exciting matches for fans and helps fuel rivalries that otherwise remain untapped in a region-locked system.

In terms of LoL, what do you think was the funniest thing that happened last year?

As an analyst there are many moments of comedy gold, but the hope that springs eternal for Western teams from fans at Worlds perpetually provides amusement.

What is the biggest challenge that the competitive LoL scene faces in 2015?

Given Riot's stellar production and ambitious multi-country Worlds circuit in 2014, I believe that the most formidable challenge lies in somehow topping Riot's production from last year.

Who are the players or teams you think will make the biggest impact this year?

The obvious choice given performance and rosters look like SK Telecom, Najin, and OMG. Faker seeking his second World Championship should form the core of storylines in 2015, though it is nearly impossible to predict a winner at this early stage.

What Champions are you using personally right now, and how are they performing?

I don't play the game much. I watch film.

What do you think are the key components of a good LoL stream?

I do not watch player streams but instead prefer professional matches. For me, a pro game relies on quality casting rather than production wizardry.

What Twitch chat meme makes you secretly smile?

ognTSM ROTATIONS ognTSM gets me every time.

Where do you expect the next big innovation in LoL to come from?

Until they are dethroned in a convincing manner, Korean teams will reign supreme in terms of innovation and quality of play.

What are the consequences and benefits of Riot expanding their e-sports broadcast to the Eastern Hemisphere?

Given Riot's stellar production quality, their expansion into more leagues likely benefits the majority of fans. The consolidation of English broadcasts onto a single channel will likely boost viewership for all leagues and therefore increase sponsorship opportunities for individual regions.

How would you compare the current state of Korean LoL to how it was last year, now that you're a couple weeks into the spring split?

Balance seems great so far, with many more interesting facets of the game unexplored to date. The new jungle remains relatively untapped and itemization options continue to expand.

Hearthstone

Dan "Frodan" Chou is the voice of Hearthstone, with his easy charm and laconic wit heard casting back to back tournaments around the clock. He s also the man with the unenviable job of keeping Reynad s salt at optimal levels, as manager of team Tempo Storm. We asked him about the state of play in the Hearthstone scene.

What was the highpoint of 2014 for Hearthstone?

From the fan side, the biggest part of 2014 had to be the release of Hearthstone and the Naxxramas adventure. It was exciting to see how Blizzard would take their first step into expanding beyond the core set which is key to keeping the player base active. From the competitive side, the high point was the World Championship. It was the first time that I got to see a legitimate crowd of 2000 people showing up for the event, getting hyped, cheering for their favorite player, and going nuts.

How would you describe the health of the Hearthstone scene right now?

Hearthstone is in a great spot. It is baffling to think about what this game can do once it releases on mobile phones and gets consistent content out there. Dozens of other game developers and communities would kill to be in a similar position to where it is now relative to e-sports and Twitch.

If you could ask Blizzard to make one change to the game, what would it be?

Content! It's important to keep the game fresh. I also would like more social aspects of Hearthstone to develop. Clans, chat channels, tournaments, spectator mode. They all have one thing in common—interacting with other players!

In terms of Hearthstone, what do you think was the funniest thing that happened last year?

Funniest moment had to be sharing the couch with Ben Brode. His laugh is a real life version of Patch Adams.

What is the biggest challenge that the competitive Hearthstone scene faces in 2015?

The biggest challenge is spreading the wealth of fandom and storylines. We need more people with different kinds of backgrounds and personalities to cheer for. I believe there are a strong batch of Hearthstone players that are undiscovered, great at the game, and fun to follow.

Who are the players or teams you think will make the biggest impact this year?

If I may be biased for a second, I really do believe Tempo Storm will turn heads this year again. Last year, we hit a few rocky patches, but the team has really taken off as we are starting to turn out incredible high quality content on our website  tempostorm.com for all skill levels (beginner to legend). Archon also has strong potential with Amaz at the helm and I wish them the best of luck.

What sort of deck are you using personally right now, and how is it performing?

My favorite deck to play right now is Fatigue Mage. I love the feeling of desperation when a player has literally run out of options and are completely hopeless. When they hover over their Hero Power and realize they will die faster than they can kill me, my heart skips a beat.

What do you think are the key components of a good Hearthstone stream?

A great Hearthstone stream involves a good mix of personality, information, and interaction. Some streamers have natural charisma. Some are good looking. Some have fun gimmicks like cosplay, showmatches against other streamers, etc. The whole point is that one isn't better than the other, but there are all kinds of streams to enjoy. I personally love watching Reynad for the laughs, Dog for the education, and Trump to calm me down for a nap.

What Twitch chat meme makes you secretly smile?

Too many, but my favorite involve all of the variations of Kripp's excuses. Too good. This guy's interview questions are CRAZY! He needed precisely those 13 questions to ask me. I answer the question perfectly.

Where do you expect the next big innovation in Hearthstone to come from?

It's hard to say. This is primarily what teams are for—to help refine and practice decks in secret. Hearthstone's primary innovations come from unknown players who inspire the well known innovators. Kolento and Firebat for example often have people behind the scenes helping them with their wacky decks. True innovators like StrifeCro and Reynad will definitely keep coming up with their own material.

What s your opinion on BM ing in pro matches? Do we need more?

I don't think we need more of it, but I think it's great to showboat a little. There's a difference, however, in trying to be mean-spirited versus having fun. I think its a fun element where it sets up natural storylines: see Savjz vs Realz in ESGN fight night!! :D

Do you think Goblins vs Gnomes has had the desired effect in terms of increasing deck diversity at tournaments?

Absolutely. Contrary to popular belief, Hearthstone has an incredible amount of diversity at the moment. There are so many ways to play classes that its hard to keep track of them. You have to be highly advanced in order to tell from one or two cards and even then, you can still make mistakes. People who moan about the unpredictability are often the people who care the most about winning and not having fun. They will have their time in the sun once the metagame is figured out.

Which card deserves to be nerfed most: Dr. Boom, Mech Warper, or Wisp?

I don't want them to nerf Wisp or my budget Dr. Boom will be useless on EU!