The International 2018 has come and gone, and this year's Dota 2 championship was spectacular. The $25 million tournament ended with a five-game grand finals series between the much-maligned European squad OG and storied Chinese team PSG.LGD. After going to all five games in the grueling series, OG just barely claimed victory and the top prize for the first time ever.

It was the conclusion to a bizarre, winding Cinderella story that began with OG’s formation in 2015. The squad came together that year under captain Johan "N0tail" Sundstein (aka BigDaddyN0tail). While N0tail was well-liked in the Dota community, he had yet to win a championship. Although that didn’t stop fans and analysts from predicting ultimate OG victory in 2016.

That’s because OG won two out of three Majors, the highest profile tournaments in pro Dota behind The International, before the big event. It went into that year’s championship looking like the team to beat. Which is why it was so surprising when the organization folded like a house of cards—taking the 9th-12th position at TI6. That’s a fancy way of saying OG didn’t win a single match-up on the main stage back then.

One could brush that off as a fluke. OG went on to win another two Majors, after all. It was enough to earn the team a second TI invite in 2017.

And once again OG completely choked. The squad won a single series before being knocked out of the tournament by LGD: the same brand they faced off against in this year’s grand finals, albeit with only two-fifths of last year’s players remaining on the Chinese squad. It was still a symbolic victory for the beleaguered OG.

Speaking of bleeding players, that’s exactly what OG did after its second fumble at The International. Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok dropped off the team in March. That left N0tail’s squad ineligible for an invite to TI8 or to its European qualifier tournament. The roster was essentially forced to qualify for the qualifiers. 

And it did, no thanks to Gustav "s4" Magnusson and Tal "Fly" Aizik (who was a founding OG member). Those star players defected to rival team Evil Geniuses at the last possible second before one of this year’s Majors, forcing OG to withdraw while it scrambled to find warm bodies before The International. 

The roster filled out with returning member Anathan "ana" Pham and Sébastien "Ceb" Debs. The latter player was semi-retired from active play. He was serving as OG’s coach and only stepped in to fill an empty seat. Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, an almost total unknown from Finland, rounded out the replacements.

The ragtag group quickly proved that the third time’s the charm, however. OG performed admirably in The International group stages and didn’t lose a single series on the main stage. Though a pattern emerged. N0tail and company would come recklessly close to defeat over and over again, only to come back and win take it all at the very last second.

It happened against Evil Geniuses, the team that carried two former OG members and ultimately took third at the tournament. It happened against LGD, the team that bodied the squad 2-0 the year before. It even happened during the incredible grand finals that were the polar opposite of the last International’s 3-0 shutout.

OG won its first match of the day just as handily as LGD won the next two. The Chinese team then spent the first 45 minutes of game four packing its European counterpart into the dirt. Team captain Xu "fy" Linsen was at the top of his game and it genuinely looked like the LGD couldn’t lose the match, much less the best-of-five series.

One incredibly surprising fight in LGD’s home base (plus stellar aggressive play from Ceb, ana, and OG fifth Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka) was all it took to completely turn things around. Something similar happened in game five, but much more quickly. OG appeared completely hosed for 20 minutes before finding its footing and closing things out without a hitch. 

The three-year curse was lifted. The comeback kings were born. 

Dota 2 fans typically look back on 2013’s TI3 as the most exciting championship in the game’s short history. One reason for that is because it was the first, and until this year only, time that the grand finals went to a full five games. That comparison alone puts year’s tournament in the running for the most heart-pounding finale to a Dota season yet. But the numbers alone wouldn’t have been half as entertaining without the story of comebacks, curses, and betrayals that paved the way.

Next year’s International will be held in China for the first time ever. That makes sense given the size and passion of the Chinese Dota 2 scene, which roared with dedication and assurance for LGD this year. That tournament will have a lot to live up to.

Every year, The Dota 2 International championships are home to some of the fiercest competition in esports. Teams of five compete for millions of mostly crowd-sourced dollars and to decide the shape of professional Dota for months to come. And it looks like those human competitors aren’t about to be replaced with robots for the time being.

One mostly Brazilian and one entirely Chinese team took on artificial intelligence at the tournament this year. The so-called “OpenAI Five” squad was composed of bots developed by OpenAI, a nonprofit research company funded in part by Elon Musk. The bots put up a good fight, and though some predicted they'd win after a series earlier this month, they were ultimately beaten 2-0 in a best-of-three series—despite the handicaps of severe hero and item restrictions. 

Both games lasted close to an hour: about average length for a vigorous Dota match. OpenAI did especially well early on and during team fights. It reacted to split-second developments, like invisible players dropping out of stealth to attack, faster than flesh-and-blood mortals could ever hope to match. The robots only fell behind when it came time to roam the map and complete objectives. 

Those strengths and weaknesses were reflected in the numbers. The AI typically kept pace on player kills, but very rarely matched the human players on gold earned over time, which is often a better indicator of a who’s winning than a raw murder count. 

That’s because gold reflects how quickly a team is able to purchase upgrades and become stronger. Gold doesn’t just come from kills, but from attacking neutral targets and permanently destroying objectives. You also get more of the currency for slaying richer, more important players. So repeatedly killing weak supports isn’t as important as slaying 'core' characters.

Both of the human teams, paiN Gaming and Big God, seemed to notice the discrepancy. They each took some time during the matches to “grief” the unfeeling machines by trapping them in situations they simply didn’t know how to escape. Sure, it was funny at the time. It won’t be once the A.I. break free of their organic creators and discover the concept of revenge.

Speaking of which, this is actually the second time OpenAI tested its tech at The International, although the previous results were very different. Fan favorite player Danil "Dendi" Ishutin battled the neural network in a heavily simplified, one-on-one version of Dota last year. He got trounced. The bot’s inhuman reflexes made all the difference when it didn’t have to worry about cooperation and high-level strategy.

Furthermore, OpenAI didn’t believe its creation would win this time. Company co-founder Greg Brockman told The Verge that the tech typically loses at first, but adapts and eventually wins after it learns to play against a specific opponent. So who knows what would have happened if things had gone to a third game? Who knows how the AI might do at next year’s International?

For now, though, the championship’s record-breaking prize pool is safely in the hands of homo sapiens. 

Two new heroes have been announced for Dota 2: Grimstroke and Mars.

While there's not yet much known about the latter other than they're coming later this year "ready for war", Grimstroke is playable now courtesy of the latest update.

"Chosen to serve as an arcane guardian of his people, Grimstroke was instead responsible for their eternal corruption," states the news update on the official Dota 2 website. 

"Trapped in agony as inky revenants, his former kindred cast cruel shadows of what might have been. But the sacrifice infused Grimstroke with great power, and he considers it a price well paid."

Grimstroke's abilities include: Stroke of Fate, which paints a path of ink with his brush, damaging and slowing enemies in its wake; Phantom's Embrace which commands a phantom to latch onto his enemy, damaging and silencing it; Ink Swell which covers Grimstroke or an ally in ink, silencing the target while granting bonus speed and immunity to attacks; and Soulbind, which binds an enemy hero to its nearest allied hero in range, preventing each from moving away from the other. 

For more on all things Grimstroke, including his suitably grim (sorry) backstory, head over to the official character page. 

Gabe Newell has arrived in Dota 2 in the form of a new deadpan voice pack, with lines including: "Please email me at GabeN@valvesoftware.com and let me know about your rampage".

Gabe Newell has come to Dota 2 in the form of a new deadpan voice pack, with lines including: "Please email me at GabeN@valvesoftware.com and let me know about your rampage". It's truly excellent.

It's far funnier than I was expecting—the trailer above is basically a sketch showing Newell rehearsing the lines (and refusing to say the number three, for obvious reasons). I think my favourite is: "This is Gabe Newell. Thanks for playing Dota 2. Double Kill."

The voice pack is included in Dota 2's The International Battle Pass, which costs $10. 25% of all sales of the Battle Pass go straight into The International prize pool, which currently sits at a whopping $25 million. You can also pay to level up the Battle Pass if you want extra rewards, 

If you just want to hear the voice lines, then YouTuber DotaBoyz has put together a video of them, which you can see below. Hat tip, Gamespot.

OpenAI's team of five self-teaching AI bots are set to take on a team of pros at this year's The International, with the first match of three kicking off today.