Dota 2 has had an incredible year. A wide range of tournaments, huge plays, and the ever-shifting metagame have resulted in an exciting scene. There have been laughs, sadness, and always some damn good Dota. With the clock ticking and 2016 looming near, let s take a look at Dota 2 s five biggest moments of 2015.

5. Team Secret and CDEC have an epic base race

Some games are a friendly reminder that the key to victory in Dota 2 is to kill the enemy s ancient. It doesn t matter how much farm a player has or if they can stay alive in the enemy fountain, if they don t kill an ancient, they don t win. In this case not only were CDEC fighting for the game, they were fighting for their Dota 2 Asia Championship slot. Unlike The International 2015 s format, a poor group stage performance could have led to elimination from the DAC, and CDEC were struggling among the competition. In contrast, Secret hadn t lost a game (and wouldn t lose one for the rest of the group stage).

Down two barracks and worried about Lycan s pushing power, CDEC had to fight. In an astounding three minutes of fighting (with about 20 seconds of posturing), numerous buybacks, and a skewer into fountain, this was one of the best base races in Dota history.

4. Unknown.xiu taunt their way into Frankfurt Major 2015

Until 2015, South America had little representation in professional Dota 2. This changed with the Frankfurt Major, when Unknown.xiu, a Peruvian team, managed to work their way through two qualifiers to eventually reach the tournament. As you ll see above, they showed some extra swag in their match versus Digital Chaos. Not only did they take a win, but they relished their victory with some good old fashioned bad manners.

On a more serious note, when a region is suddenly represented on the world stage it can bring substantial growth to the area as a whole. Unknown.xiu has unfortunately split, but the experience gained by the players will help cultivate more talent, and the extra eyes on South America can generate much needed sponsorship. Even if Unknown.xi had limited success upon reaching the Frankfurt Major, they were still able to beat Newbee and earn 12th place. The biggest growth of South America may happen in 2016, but the process started two months ago.

3. The crowd rushes in at The Frankfurt Major

The Frankfurt Major brought an interesting question to the table: could new teams do well in the Major format? When the only Valve-run event was The International, teams had time to form, test their merits, and find a way to improve (or disband). This meant that tons of smaller teams, such as Team Tinker, were forming and developing in tournaments prior to the The International. Most of them sank, but a few managed to swim. The Dota Major s faster schedule had the potential to change all that.

And at first glance, it seemed like the newer teams were struggling. At the Frankfurt Major, only a single open qualifier team made it into the winner s bracket. Then came OG. OG had a mediocre performance in the group stages, snagging third place out of four. They looked like the kind of team spectators might read about out of curiosity, but ignore in favor of fan favorites. Once the main event began, however, they gained some new momentum.

Their first win didn t come as a huge surprise, as Fnatic hadn t won a single game. The victories kept coming, although every win seemed to be followed up with an assumption that the win streak was about to end. That they made it all the way to the grand final and won is this year s Cinderella story, and it earned them a lot of fans on the way: fans that rushed the stage as they lifted the trophy. New teams can not only win Majors, it seems, but they can pick up a major fanbase along the way.

2. Natus Vincere releases its Dota 2 squad (then signs it again)

On October 16th, it was announced that Natus Vincere was disbanding its Dota 2 squad, leaving behind fan-favorite veterans like Dendi and XBOCT. This was a short-lived change, and both Dendi and Sonneiko were shortly signed onto a new Na Vi squad. This brief restructuring served as a reminder that the Dota scene is dramatically changing. The expected synergy between Funn1k, XBOCT, and Dendi was a relic of the past, and even if that lineup was well-loved by fans, it couldn t survive in the increasingly tough Dota 2 scene.

This is the flipside to the many underdog stories of 2015, where OG and numerous other teams suddenly appeared and shone. Good tournament results are a zero-sum game though, and as these new teams find their place, the older organizations might just leave the scene altogether. Na Vi and Dendi have stuck around for now, but for how long?

1. The $6 million dollar slam

The International 5 managed to both shatter and reaffirm expectations of the professional Dota scene. MVP Phoenix surprised the world by fighting their way into seventh place, and in doing so tied with the suddenly floundering Team Secret. However, the biggest surprise story was the sudden reappearance of CDEC. CDEC wasn t directly invited to The International, but instead took second in the Chinese qualifier. Like the OG phoenix that would later rise in the Frankfurt Major, CDEC couldn t stop winning once the main event began. They easily found themselves in the grand finals, having only dropped a single game to the third place LGD.

Within a few day of losing the winner s bracket final to CDEC, Evil Geniuses faced them again in the grand final. Revised strategies and smart drafting delivered them to a 2-1 advantage, a single win away from the lion s share of an 18.5 million dollar prize pool. These are the circumstances that led to the $6m dollar slam.

EG s victory wasn t really about the single play. The game had already gone haywire for CDEC, and a midgame pickoff on Sumail was their only chance at a desperation Roshan kill. The setup was perfect for Evil Geniuses. PPD used Ancient Apparition s Ice Blast for vision, and the Echo Slam followup from Universe was absolutely brutal. A simple play, delivering a simple statement: Evil Geniuses were going to win The International 2015. CDEC had reached for the prize, but EG had proven they were the best.

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On the morning of Christmas Eve I played a game of Dota. I had an idea—actually, an idea that was supposed to form the basis of this post. It s not so easy to spread gifts around the Dota community, these days, so I d decided to spread the spirit of the season rather simply: I d end everything I said in chat with merry Christmas .

I loaded into a game of solo ranked and picked Witch Doctor. I bought wards and the courier and gave a ward to Kunkka, who was headed to the offlane (because this was a solo ranked game). gave u a ward, kunkka I typed. Merry Christmas.

He said thank you. Somebody else typed lol . Then, our mid said something over voice that did not sound threatening or angry but was certainly not in English. It may have been Russian, I didn t know or mind. Kunkka assumed it was Russian, and made his objections clear over voice chat.

Fucking Russian mother ass fuck you were his exact words. He continued along those lines for a little bit. They started shouting at each other. The zero-minute runes spawned.

The opening few minutes of the game went well. Omniknight, my fellow support, successfully stacked and pulled. We got first blood, and then another kill, and then I rotated mid and helped Pudge kill the other team s mid Meepo. Then I did some more warding, then helped get a kill top. I felt pretty good. The yelling did not stop.

Meepo abandoned. Two members of the enemy team followed. They were left with Keeper of the Light and Earthshaker at ten minutes.

They managed to defend for twenty more.

I spent the rest of that Dota game listening to Kunkka scream at Pudge who screamed at Weaver, our safelane carry. Nobody wanted to work together for long enough to break base, or even take Roshan. It was miserable: Omniknight and I supported in silence while Weaver dove tier four towers and died, Pudge screamed at him, did the same, and so on. I didn t say anything for a long time. Then, as we finally took down a lane of barracks and then a second, I realised that I d have preferred it if the other team had won.

Well defended guys I typed. You probably deserve to win this one. Merry Christmas.

Earthshaker responded in Russian. Kunkka lost it, again.

We won the game, I got my +25 MMR, and I thought: man, why does anybody play this game.

The next game ended with a very salty Tiny throwing his own teammates (me) into the enemy team, forever, until the game ended. The one after that wasn t any better. My hopes of a heartwarming Christmas Dota diary faded. Some communities are Christmas-proof, and I suspect that Dota is one of them.

So instead I m going to write about why I do play this game.

I started playing Dota in 2012 because we needed somebody to write about Dota. I d played StarCraft II for a year or so and PvP in various hotbar MMOs for longer. I d just come off a long Star Wars: The Old Republic habit, and going from three 12-action quickbars to just four abilities per character felt quaint, easy even.

It didn t take long for that impression to be proven staggeringly wrong. The first hero I played was Lion, in an easy bot game along with four friends. We won, but it took forever. We thought we d wait a few weeks before braving actual matchmaking, but we lasted a few days. The first hero I played against other people was Gyrocopter. I bought an Aghanim s Scepter, because global-range Call Down seemed like the most overpowered the thing in the game. It wasn t. This game also took forever. We grouped up and used Treant Protector s Nature s Guise to attempt to sneak into the enemy base and destroy the ancient. It didn t work, because that doesn t work, and we lost. It was brilliant.

I had discovered a game that wasn t a set of fixed strategies that had to be mastered and repeated, as most competitive games I d played were. Dota 2 is a sandbox, an opportunity to be creative, and although there is a lot to learn, the purpose of that learning is to expand your options—not close them off. And when you start to apply that creativity, the solutions you come up with are solutions that you own. There are orthodoxies, yes—what role a hero plays, what items they should probably buy—but no rules, in the way that games traditionally enforce rules.

This was a game where you were really responsible for your ideas, your performance, your moments of success (and failure.) There s something specifically compelling about that: the knowledge that the only thing stopping you from improving is your own willingness to improve, and that when you do get better your friends will watch it happen.

That was what prompted my deepest-ever investment in a competitive game, compounded by this sense that Dota is—no matter how toxic the community—unavoidably social. You need to work with others, and so you need to learn with others, and it s hard not to make friends as you do that. This is a game that is essentially very human, from the professional scene down. It inspires jokes, arguments, friendships, rivalries, dumb songs, anxiety, tryharding, shitposting, unlike any other game I ve played. It s not just an ARTS, or a MOBA, or whatever: it s a giant social sandbox, a stage for people to play on which uses strategy as the basis for a shared vocabulary.

Don t get me wrong. There are some really shitty people playing Dota. There are a lot of shitty people playing Dota. And sometimes, like yesterday, it doesn t really feel worth it. The lesson here is partly the same old: solo ranked is a disaster, play with a group. But it s also helpful to remember why I ve dumped so much time (and hat money) on this ridiculous game. Because Dota is unique. And there are a lot of games that try to be a bit like Dota, and they don t succeed, because this is the only game in the world where a first-time player can try to use a talking tree s tree magic to sneak an invisible helicopter into a fortress.

Merry Christmas, Dota. You re weird.

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Yesterday, Alliance drew a line under a bleak year, beating LGD Gaming 3-2 in the World Cyber Arena grand final to win $370,000. Almost as if this were choreographed fan service, Alliance clinched victory with the same line-up that won The International 2013: Loda, s4, AdmiralBulldog, EGM and Akke.

After the team's disastrous elimination from The International 5 qualifiers in May, this win has to be all the sweeter for beating Chinese team LGD on their home turf. After two matches, it looked as if the visitors were going to embarrass LGD with a clean sweep, but MMY's Lion bought LGD time in game three, forcing Alliance to concede by the 30-minute mark. A 22-minute stomp in game four brought the score to two-all. The simmering final bout boiled over with a spectacular counter-push from Alliance which claimed two lanes of racks without casualties and all but decided the game, despite a stylish Aegis steal by rOtK on Clockwerk.

Unfortunately, the tournament was marred by what many perceived to be poor and sometimes baffling quality. The only Dota to be played on-stage was the final—the rest of the matches were streamed. Players were seated on plastic fold-out chairs, padded with their own jackets. There was nowhere to buy food at the venue, and Alliance manager Kelly Ong ended up relocating the team to a net caf to train. Meanwhile, another Chinese team, Newbee, decided to forfeit their matches two hours before they were due to start—they didn't even get on the plane. To top it off, a Tweet from Erik Barge claims that LGD got wind of an Alliance Rosh attempt because the booths weren't soundproof.

Apparently the Chinese casters called out the Rosh attempt by us and the booths aren't soundproof.

— Erik Barge (@ErikBarge) December 20, 2015

When a teaser image for Dota 2 s 6.86 patch appeared last Sunday, it felt like Christmas had come early. Dota 2 patches are a big deal: they have a chance to redefine the game and most changes are totally unpredictable. This patch didn t disappoint, and some of the new additions have fundamentally altered how Dota is played. With that in mind, these are eight of the biggest changes in 6.86.

Heroes that depend on passives are in for a tough time

Phantom Assassin got a nice little intelligence boost this patch, but she s probably feeling down in the dumps due to one specific change: Silver Edge s break can no longer be purged. Break is a mechanic that disables a hero s passive skills. This includes Phantom Assassin s Coup de Grace and Blur, Huskar s Berserker s Blood, and Anti-Mage s Spell Shield. While Silver Edge is expensive and the break is still prevented by spell immunity, any passive-dependent hero has to play with incredible caution. A Black King Bar will be needed to deter any would-be breakers. Bristleback with broken bristles is incredibly squishy, and a broken Phantom Assassin feels like a really bad Anti-Mage.

Aether Lens redefines how some heroes play.

Aether Lens provides two bonuses that were almost never seen in Dota: more cast range on targetted spells/items and a slight buff to all spell damage. At first glance that may not seem impressive, but the 200 cast range buff can redefine heroes and totally alters mid-game scaling. For instance, an Ogre Magi with Aether Lens may suddenly have the range on Fireblast to make him a constant threat in team fights. For Bane, Fiend s Grip would have whopping 825 range.

For many heroes that can use the item, Aether Lens will compete with an early Blink Dagger, Force Staff, or Aghanim s Scepter. A hero dependent on getting a quick initiation will probably invest in items that provide faster movement. Though anyone that doesn t need to start a fight in the blink of an eye might pick up an Aether Lens: heroes like Witch Doctor, Lina, or Zeus. In the case of the former, his positioning can become ridiculously safe with the extra range. In the case of the latter two, the bonus damage supplements the range for some major pain.

Dragon Lance opens up options for ranged carries.

Dragon Lance is another cool addition, providing modest stats and a 130 attack range boost for ranged heroes only. While it will be great on certain heroes, like Enchantress, its effects aren t as pronounced as those from the Aether Lens. It can be disassembled, so it might see play in tower pushes before being put away for a Black King Bar. This could be extra effective with heroes that outrange towers with a Dragon Lance, and lead to way more early pressure.

The laning item possibilities are insane

What if players could start the game with 12 bonus damage, 200 spare gold, and the ability to pop a small heal every 5 seconds? Four new items were added in 6.86, and two have a direct impact on the early game. For 75 gold, Faerie Fire provides 2 damage and can be instantly consumed for a 75 HP heal. Combine this with a Mango, and it s possible to lane entirely off of consumables. Or maybe mids want to start with a spare Iron Branch, which can now be consumed to drop a happy little tree. This can be used defensively to escape, or even offensively to trap heroes in abilities like Tusk s Ice Shards. Early game item builds have always had some divergence, but now there are some very noticeable active effects that cost less than 125 gold. Expect some sick tree-planting plays.

once Pudge snags a Scepter, he ll have a potential burst combo of 950 pure damage, at least 450 magic damage, and whatever damage trickles in from Rot

There s a ton of new potential in the jungle...

The laning gimmicks are great, but what if players wanted to try a previously slow jungler, like Legion Commander? Quite a few poorly-paced jungle heroes have had their potential jungling speed dramatically increased with the addition of Iron Talon. Iron Talon is a 500 gold item that has an active ability to damages any non-ancient creep for 40% of its current HP. It s not going to provide a massive amount of sustain, but rather provide a new option for survivable junglers that lacked speed.

Legion Commander and Lifestealer look like stronger candidates for jungling now, but the options are just being explored. Ogre Magi, boasting his ridiculous 3.5 HP regeneration, can find himself jungling with relative ease. My personal favorite is Mirana, and not for the gimmicky ancient farming. Rather, a roaming Mirana who can easily alternate between securing kills and picking off creep camps for easy experience and gold. It won t be a normal jungling experience, but many possibilities have been opened up.

...and some of the classic junglers might be even better!

The oldies-but-goodies weren t left behind, and classic junglers like Enchantress and Chen have some new tricks. Chen has some handy new options available if he finds himself stealing ancients, and a new magic resistance aura found on Hellbears and Centaurs could have a huge impact on early pushes. An enchanted Centaur Courser or persuaded Hellbear might be able to keep creep waves alive through a barrage of spells. I d expect to see some almost unstoppable early pushes in pro games with either Chen or Enchantress leading the charge.

Pro Pudge plays are back

There were a slew of Aghanim s Scepter changes this patch, many of which focused on normal abilities rather than ultimates. Sand King gained massive range on Burrowstrike, Magnus has an Empower cleave aura, and most importantly, Pudge s Meat Hook has a four second cooldown when he has a Scepter. Not only is the cooldown shorter, but Meat Hook s damage is also increased to 475. To make the butcher even more dangerous, Dismember now scales innately and heals Pudge for the damage done, all without requiring a scepter. This means that once Pudge snags a Scepter, he ll have a potential burst combo of 950 pure damage, at least 450 magic damage, and whatever damage trickles in from Rot. He won t have the mana to infinitely spam hooks, but he s always a threat now. Supports beware.

It s time to relearn Dota while playing Dota

Almost everything has changed—even the map is a completely different place. While relearning terrain and routing is going to be rough at first, a lot of the awesome changes from 6.86 require an item or two to fully appreciate. This means that Dota 2 is going to be changing dynamically from game to game, and even during games. An early Aghanim s Scepter on Sand King will have significantly different impact than a Blink Dagger. While this has always been true to a certain degree, it s never been so easy to directly adjust heroes at such a fundamental level. This means that every game of Dota is going to require a new degree of adaption, whether it s playing carefully around break effects as Phantom Assassin, or watching for a Dragon Lance Sniper chipping away at you from across the river.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Let s keep this one quick. As Christmas approaches, our pro gaming options get thinner. Even so, there are two major LANs this weekend: World Cyber Arena 2015 in China and StarCraft II s HomeStory Cup XII in Germany. WCA has been running behind schedule rather a lot, and English-language streams can be a bit thin on the ground, but switch on at the right time and you will find games to watch. Or paused Dota 2 matches. One or the other. The production struggles have been real with this one, but the games have been fun when they ve happened.

Dota 2: World Cyber Arena 2015

If you travelled to China for the event itself, you're out of luck: Dota 2 isn't showing on the main stage at this year's WCA. The tournament is being broadcast online, however, with a healthy prize pool of $650,000 set to be split between a cross-section of international Dota 2. This is a good chance to watch professional players experiment in the new 6.86 update, which has thrown the metagame into serious disarray. The schedule has been uneven all day today, so I don't feel particularly confident telling you when matches are going to start: best check GosuGamers for that. You can watch English-language streams from both JoinDota and BeyondTheSummit.

Hearthstone: World Cyber Arena 2015

There's a massive $110,000 waiting for the first place winner of the WCA 2015 Hearthstone tournament. There are a lot of Chinese players in contention, as you might expect, but also a fair few players from elsewhere: including 2015 World Champion Ostkaka. The games are being streamed on TempoStorm s Eloise s Twitch channel. The schedule isn t listed, but expect games in the morning in Europe and very late in the evening in the US.

StarCraft II: HomeStory Cup XII

The legendary low-fi StarCraft II tournament returns for the first time in the era of Legacy of the Void. An international cadre of players compete in a relaxed atmosphere over four days with $25,000 on the line. It's been ongoing for a couple of days already, and ends on Sunday. Find the livestream here.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

After weeks of community-wide hysteria,  we have our patch notes. We have our test client update. We have our new hero, our anticipated map changes, our new items, our hero revamps, buffs, nerfs, and so on. We are entering the era of 6.86, and I m definitely still struggling through the is this real life stage of patch absorption.

Clockwerk s cogs form a circle. You can plant and eat happy little trees , an inclusion that I d love to be able to  take credit for but almost certainly can t. Riki has a Riki version of Omnislash, Magnus has an absurd Aghanim s Scepter upgrade, and boosting ability power with items has finished its fretful immigration process and is now a fully nationalised citizen of the kingdom of Dota 2.

There will be analysis to be done for a good while yet, and I wouldn t expect the pro metagame to settle for months. The jungle changes alone will see to that: the offlane as we knew it is dead, with new pulling and farming options available to both Radiant and Dire. In the meantime, the rest of us are going to be living through the post-patch period where everybody wants to try the new hero and everybody wants to show off their new cosmetics. With that in mind, my survival guide for the early days of 6.86 boils down to five words:

Buy a Black King Bar

I know, I know. Nobody actually ever wants to buy a BKB. Everybody wants their damage items, their mobility, their lifesteal, their whatever. I have been telling people (including myself) to buy a BKB for as long as I have been playing Dota. BKB is the boring safe option, Dota s equivalent of putting your Christmas bonus into a savings account. But I could buy a new PC is an equivalent train of thought to but I could buy a magical crossbow that explodes people. Both are tempting. Both are, probably, unwise. You need to bank that cash. You need to invest in the magic stick that makes you immune to wizards.

Reason one: we are going to see a lot of Arc Warden mid. Arc Warden is an agility hero, but nobody is going to build him as an auto-attacker in pub games. The potential to abuse his ultimate is simply too great, too appealing. Tempest Double allows him to create a temporary duplicate of himself that can use all of the main Arc Warden s items with their cooldowns refreshed. This means, in the first instance, double Hand of Midas. And all of that double-gold is going to go on double Dagons. All of it.

No no no. I hear you saying that double Necronomicon is better, and that double Scythe of Vyse is better, and so on. I hear you. You re probably right! But have you ever played a pub game of Dota 2? Have you ever played against Dagon Bounty Hunter, Dagon Riki? You are going to play against Dagon Arc Warden. A lot. Every game, probably, for a while.

Still don t believe me? Fine. I ll spell it out to you in terrible Photoshop.

This is Dota now. This is Dota for a while.

Who will Arc Warden face in mid? Zeus. He is going to face Zeus because Zeus has an Arcana now, and people are going to buy it, and they re going to want to show it off. Zeus is also going to benefit from new itemisation options—Aether Lens making sure that no, you can t run from heaven—and from Arcane Runes, which boost Lightning Bolt obnoxiousness by 30%-plus.

People are also going to figure out how fun and horrible core Venomancer is, with the buff to Venomous Gale. You re going to get Gushed on from 1800 units by Tidehunter s crazy Aghanim s upgrade, or kidnapped by Kunkka s new upgraded Ghost Ship. You are going to encounter Earth Spirit in Captain s Mode, god help us. Bristleback will be sneezing on you and all of your friends in a 600 AoE. Disgusting magical nonsense is coming. It is already here.

There is a solution to this problem, as Gyrocopter or Sven or Phantom Assassin or whoever it is that you want to play, and it s called buying a BKB. Seriously. You should have been building it previously, and you should definitely be building it now.

Supports: buy a Glimmer Cape and pray.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Valve has finally detailed update 6.86 for Dota 2, following reported leaks earlier this week. Dubbed 'The Balance of Power' update, it ushers in the Arc Warden, a hero you might remember from the original Dota. He's finally made the jump to Dota 2, and as the image above demonstrates, he wields energy in a variety of ways: he can build energy barriers for defence, and even summon duplicates to help out on the field.

The Arc Warden is only a small part of what's new in the patch, though.There's a new desert skin and map for Custom games, as well as a host of tweaks to the main competitive map. These include new camps and paths which "may determine whether your return to the fountain is by means of teleportation or from beyond the veil of the dead", according to the patch blog.

There's a host of new items, tweaks and graphics options, and there are new stats available in the client as well. Check out the full notes here, and stay tuned for some analysis of the patch in coming days.

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Dota 2 fans, mark your calendars, because ESL is continuing its drive to take ESL One beyond an esports tournament into a full-blown festival. From June 18-19, ESL One Frankfurt will be returning to the Commerzbank-Arena, with the organisers aiming to top this year's record of 30,000 visitors through an increased variety of side activities. I'm informed that 2015's event included archery and bull riding, which is quite the change of pace from watching virtual wizards blow each other up. If, however, you care nought for anything other than exploding wizards, ESL vice president of pro gaming Ulrich Schulze has reassuring words for you.

"This year we re looking to make the event the biggest and best yet: on-site visitors will be able to watch the best in competitive Dota on the industry s largest screen. Measuring in at over 500m2 and easily one of the top 50 largest video screens worldwide, the viewing experience will be on par with that of the Yankee Stadium."

Should you want to sear Dota 2 onto your retinas in memory of this special event, tickets will be on sale from December 17 from Ticketmaster. In keeping with ESL One Cologne, a 3,000 'Aegis Experience' is on offer, but tickets start from 29. If Frankfurt is a bit of trek, though, it seems likely that ESL will be paying special attention to its livestreams too—this year saw peak concurrent viewership surpass one million.

Eight Dota 2 teams have battled it out since Wednesday till just one remained standing: last night, Evil Geniuses won The Summit championship for the second time, besting surprise finalist Virtus.Pro to take home $49,000.

VP was far from the favourite, but nonetheless ploughed through the lower bracket, showing signs of fatigue only as it entered the third round against EG. With Fear on Bounty Hunter, EG were able to out-farm VP's line-up—a surprising turnaround considering that VP took the second game in a devastating 27 minutes. A fourth-game rampage in the Dire base from EG's Arteezy on Gyrocopter ensured a final, decisive match.

It's been a busy year for Evil Geniuses, who placed third in last month's Frankfurt Major, second in the MLG World Finals, and of course took home the Aegis at The International in August.

It s almost the middle of December you might think. Surely there s no more digital sport to be had in 2015. It s too late! The players are too sleepy, cold, and vastly wealthy.

You d be wrong! You d also be a rhetorical device! Dota 2, CS:GO, Hearthstone and League of Legends are all in full swing this weekend, at varying degrees of seriousness. Want a big prize pool and glossy production values? CS:GO. Want to watch the best teams in the world play in somebody s house? Dota 2. Want to watch amateurs go up against the pros for $30,000? Hearthstone. How about viewer-voted teams drawn together from across the globe? League. Merry Christmas! Except you don t get Christmas, because YOU RE NOT REAL. I INVENTED YOU FOR THIS INTRO, AND I CAN DESTROY Y-

Dota 2: The Summit 4

The Summit is top-tier competitive Dota 2 in a more relaxed setting. After a year of competing in arenas for millions, a cross-section of the world's best teams play in a house in LA for a share of over $100,000. The tournament has been going on all week, but you can catch the remainder of the lower bracket games on Saturday and the grand final on Sunday. Play starts at 10:00 PST/18:00 GMT on Saturday and at 14:00 PST/22:00 GMT on Sunday. You can find the games on the official BeyondTheSummit Twitch stream.

CS:GO: ESL ESEA Pro League Season 2 Finals

More west coast CS:GO this weekend. The four teams left at the top of the ESL ESEA Pro League's European and North American divisions (all of which happen to be European) will enter a playoff bracket for their share of $250,000. You'll get to see Fnatic, EnVyUs, Natus Vincere and ? (formerly TSM) in action over the course of two days. Play begins at 16:30 PST/00:30 GMT on Saturday/Sunday for the semifinals, with the finals beginning at a more-palatable-in-Europe 10:00 PST/18:00 GMT on Sunday. Find the official stream here.

Hearthstone: Insomnia56 Truesilver Championship

$30,000 on the line as eight top-tier Hearthstone professionals descend on glamorous Birmingham, UK to mingle with the locals. Today, a Swiss tournament at the Insomnia56 LAN will determine which eight lucky (or skilled) players will get to compete with the pros for a serious prize. There's not much available by way of a schedule at the moment, but expect games on UK time across Saturday and Sunday. You can watch the main stream here.

League of Legends: All-Star Los Angeles 2015

After the seriousness of Worlds, the All-Star is a for-fun tournament with fresh teams assembled in each region by a fan vote. In addition to the All-Star tournament itself, games will be played in a variety of other game modes: role restrictions, viewer-voted drafts, and so on. On top of that, there's a 1 vs 1 tournament too. This is an opportunity for the scene to let its hair down. Play runs all weekend on Pacific time. Find schedule info and the official stream on LoLesports.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!