Valve are up to their old tricks again, concealing tasty teasers in otherwise unrelated blog posts. I like to think of it as Lazy ARG-ing. Bigger announcements would get a scrambled HTML comment that decoded into a website, containing an mp3 that, when run through a spectrograph analyser, would create a map pointing to an abandoned shack in the outer Hebrides, containing a switch that activated thousands of lasers that combined to broadcast a message on the moon. This, the first taste of the GLaDOS announcement pack for Dota 2, gets a hidden link in a full stop.

Right at the bottom of the Dota 2 blog's International 2013 round-up post, underneath a picture of GLaDOS voice actor Ellen McLain, and at the end of the very last sentence, the full stop that closes the whole thing off links to an mp3 of one of the AI's announcements. Here's an embeddable mirror of the line, courtesy of Reddit:



Dammit guys, we've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time!

During The International, McLain revealed that a GLaDOS pack was being made. This brief sample shows that work on the new lines has already begun. So far, no date has been given for the announcement pack's release.

Last night, Seattle's Benaroya Hall hosted the grand final of The International 2013, Valve's humongous Dota 2 tournament. We sent Chris along to report from the event, cheer himself hoarse, and attempt experimental breakdancing moves. You can find his thoughts on the final below.

All of the tournament's matches are available from The International 3 site. Both that link, and this post, contain spoilers.

Before anyone talks about the final itself - and they should, it was astonishing - respect should be paid to Orange for their incredible performance in the lower bracket final. They proved that no-one can stop them when they are at their best and, personally, Mushi is my MVP for the whole tournament: he played more than 18 heroes during the event. Watch the first match vs. Na'Vi for his Queen of Pain; I suspect she is the hero Na'Vi wanted to pick up and Mushi showed them decisively why. Watch the third game however for a crash course in why people fear Na'Vi. It was arguably Puppey's game of the tournament with two of the best Black Holes of his career being pulled out of the hat in late-game.

Orange deserve huge credit for their achievement and I would like to see them make the Grand Finals next year.

So, then - Na'Vi vs. Alliance, round two. I don't think anyone could have predicted just how close this was going to be. Especially after that first match when an unorthodox Na'Vi draft was utterly punished by the Swedes and lead to a 15 minute GG call. At the time I wondered if it was over; if Puppey's pocket strat was all Na'Vi had. Then Alliance picked up a strange draft of their own and threw the second game almost as hard - one thing's for sure, Venomancer is going to slither away from TI3 feeling a bit embarassed.

There was a danger of both teams retreating into safe strats but both seemed willing to continually take risks. They both prioritised each others' most dangerous heroes over standard bans like Io and Batrider and this gave these heroes their most prominent showing at the tournament yet. Io seemed more dangerous though particularly in game three when put into the hands of Dendi as a solo mid. In conjunction with Funn1k's Razor and KuroKy's Rubick he created the space for XBOCT's Alchemist to become a huge problem. Even a well-fed Lone Druid panda with an Ogre Magi buff couldn't overcome Na'vi and they took it to 2-1.

In banning out XBOCT's Lifestealer Alliance gave him Alchemist every game and this was the core of Na'Vi's strength. The hero has had a strong showing in general and Alliance seemed to double-down on the fact that shutting him down early is the way to survive. The first Nightstalker draft of the tournament shocked the crowd but paid off wonderfully in S4's hands, snowballing after an early teamfight to the point where Alliance handily controlled the entire map within the first 20 minutes. They took the game and proved that every hero has its place.

An International Grand Final has never gone to five games before and I was incredibly nervous for the teams before the tie-breaker. They responded with hands-down the best game of Dota 2 I have ever seen: a bloody back-and-forth with new strategies and huge risks taken by both teams. This is the game I won't spoil, because you need to watch it: but what makes it so phenomenal is not just who won but how. Dota 2 creates space for creativity at the highest level of play like no other e-sport, and this'll be the game I show people in the future when I'm trying to convince them to care about it. Massive congratulations to the winners.

Image courtesy of the official @DOTA2 Twitter feed.

This post contains spoilers for The International 3 - Dota 2 Championships.

When I left Benaroya Hall late last night the final three competitors in the tournament had been decided. It's been a really exciting competition, with major upsets and strong showings from teams that few would have predicted would make it this far into the big money. Today promises to be one of the biggest contests in e-sports history. It feels like hyperbole to lay it out like that, but it's hard to see how it could be any different: from the prize pool to the level of play, competitive Dota has never been this strong.

Here's how day four went down.

DK vs. Orange began on Friday night, with the Chinese favourites - DK - taking a game off their Malaysian opponents. Orange responded with an unusual draft that made use of Slardar's damage amplification to wreck Dragon Knight and the push-heavy strategy he supports. Watch game two for the impeccable late team-fight where it all comes together for the Malaysians.

I didn't think Orange were going to take game three at first. They picked up Ursa, a hero who I'm glad to have back in competitive play but traditionally requires an early win to avoid losing ground to the traditional set of carries. Not that it seemed to matter - no matter how late the game went, Mushi's murder bear continued to clean up in teamfights and Orange took the win.

I love watching Storm Spirit play, so I was delighted when Ferrari picked him up in the second game of the IG vs. TongFu series. The first match had been played before, with defending champions IG taking a win. As with Orange and DK, however, the morning turned things around entirely. Many teams have learned to fear the Weaver since TI3 began, but none more so than IG when TongFu.Mu executed the tournament's first Rampage in an incredible teamfight that ended the second game - Storm Spirit or no. IG.Zhou picked up Weaver himself for the final round, but it wasn't enough to lock down TongFu.Hao, whose Anti-Mage's gold-per-minute absolutely crushed the competition. TongFu moved on to face Orange, and the winners of the second International were sent home.

Na'Vi vs. Alliance was the day's banner match - it's the match-up many are expecting to see in today's grand final. Na'Vi's run of unconventional drafts continued into the first match, when they picked up a Skywrath Mage for Dendi in addition to KuroKy's Io and Puppey's Sand King. The amount of magic damage they were able to dish out early scored them some kills, but it wasn't enough to end the game and by the time Alliance had picked up BKB's Na'Vi's potential impact dropped off entirely. S4 of Alliance deserves credit for a great Puck performance that denied Na'Vi a lot of freedom in teamfights, as does Na'vi's Funn1k and his cool, controlled showing as Windrunner.

Na'Vi seemed to make a similar mistake in a different way in game two. They picked up Luna as their carry, a once-popular draft who has dropped off due to severe early-game vulnerability. Nonetheless, her damage aura helped Na'vi take a dominant laning phase, scoring an early first blood on AdmiralBulldog's Lone Druid and wiping out every single one of Alliance's exterior towers with seemingly no opposition from the Swedes. I spoke to Alliance captain Loda afterwards and he said that they knew they could win if they stayed calm and kept farming - and that's what they did. With BKBs up and a Radiance on Bulldog's bear, Alliance started to take teamfights - and, slowly but surely, the map. They took the second game and sent Na'Vi to the lower bracket finals.

The best theory I've heard about Na'Vi's unusual drafts is that they're holding something back. They've always been known for their mind games, and there's a chance that they would prefer to take big risks against Alliance than ultimately give away a strat that might win them the whole tournament. Still, they've given themselves one more game to win to have that shot at the throne.

The day ended with a best-of-three between TongFu vs. Orange that would decide which team would represent Asian Dota on the final day. In the first game, TongFu picked up a draft that specialised in mobility and securing pick-offs with Lifestealer bombs: Storm Spirit, Nyx Assassin and Clockwerk as delivery mechanisms, with Silencer to nullify the disruptive potential of Orange's Bane. What they couldn't counter, however, was the teamfight potential of Mushi's Sven and Ohaiyo's Dark Seer - it's worth watching for the incredible Vacuum/Wall/Storm Hammer combo that they use to counter a Storm Spirit gank attempt.

Orange lost momentum in game two, however. Mushi was forced out of his comfort zone with a Doom pickup that favoured utility and patience over his customary aggression, while TongFu's Hao was very much in his element with a farmed Anti-Mage (sound familiar?) that the Malaysians just couldn't stop. They fought their hearts out to secure the series 2-0, but just couldn't seal the deal. In game three, however, Orange shifted gears and simply dominated, denying TongFu the freedom to capitalise on any advantage they might claim and pushing them back, inch by inch, until the GG became inevitable. They go on to face Na'Vi today: a phenomenal showing from the team and from Malaysian Dota in general.

Image courtesy of the official @DOTA2 Twitter feed.

Another day of Dota 2 that'll be talked about for a while. At the beginning of the day, every team left in the tournament had made it into the top eight and was guaranteed to walk away with a payout equivalent to the entire prize pools of other competitions - but the reduced risk didn't prevent teams from fighting bitterly for a space at the top.

The moral of Alliance vs. DK seems to be 'don't let S4 pick up Batrider'. Alternative bans by DK - particularly getting rid of AdmiralBulldog's Lone Druid - allowed Alliance to pick up on-the-spot initiation power that no-one seems able to counter. That said, The Swedes' unstoppable streak ended in game two when Burning proved, with Anti-Mage, why he's one of the best carry players in the game. Alliance seemed unshaken however and took the third game with another set of incredible initiations by S4 - but, as ever, they're not a one-man team. Watch it for the coordination between EGM and Akke as Keeper of the Light and Naga Siren.

Na'Vi vs. TongFu proved, over the course of three games, just how varied in tone Dota 2 can be. Na'Vi often play best when they're showing off for the crowd and that was definitely the case in game one, when they demonstrated ably why teams started banning out the Dendi Pudge in TI2. Hooks, hooks everywhere: it's an incredible show of confident play, and the crowd loved it.

In game two, however, Na'Vi's Ursa pick-up forced them into trying to secure an early win they they just couldn't seem to nail down. They were eventually outfarmed - and, honestly, outplayed - by TongFu, who picked up a deserved win and pushed it to three games.

Game three remains controversial. Na'Vi drafted Pudge again, this time in conjunction with Chen, but didn't play the dominant game they did in the first round. Whether due to nerves or tiredness, Dendi wasn't the unstoppable early-game presence that he can be and this pushed Na'Vi onto the back foot. They responded by pulling out one of their pocket strats - the fountain hook trick where Pudge's hook and Chen's Test of Faith teleport is used to send an enemy flying across the map and into the fountain. They used this in conjunction with a Force Staff to threaten TongFu with what amounts to a 3000-range kill button, and this changed the tone of the game entirely.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether Na'Vi deserved their win, which they picked up after a fountain hook eliminated SanSheng's Visage. To my mind, they did: they chose a strategy that could deliver them a victory and they stuck with it. One the other hand, I don't think they earned the adoring praise that was lavished on them in Benaroya Hall or online: the fact is, their execution was all over the place. They constantly screwed up their hooks and every time Dendi teleported back to base for no reason it was embarrassing to watch. The impression I got was that they were rolling the dice until they got lucky, and then they did. I would have been a very different game if every Na'Vi fountain hook had been flawless, but it was a mess. Na'Vi are dangerous because they will try anything to stay in the competition, even pub-match cheese strats at the highest level of pro play. That's great to have, in a tournament like this, but it sometimes seems like they're positioning themselves as the bad guys.

Later in the day, Fnatic vs. Orange felt like two very similar teams facing one another. It ran long and low on kills as both teams avoided conflict (and elimination) but ultimately Fnatic couldn't overcome Mushi's Anti-Mage. It's nice to see Shadow Fiend and Morphling make tournament appearances, but the aggression wasn't there to make best use of them.

Then, TeamLiquid vs. IG pitched the last US team in the contest with the Chinese defending champions. Liquid came out swinging and picked up a very early - and impressive - first blood on Zhou's Weaver. The crowd in Benaroya went absolutely insane. Liquid also seemed unthreatened by Batrider, which was interesting to see. That said, the game dragged on and Bulba couldn't pick up enough farm on Lifestealer to stay competitive against Ferrari_430's Shadow Fiend. Solo safelane Outworld Devourer meant that Liquid had a dominating laning phase, but he became far less impactful when BKBs started to appear en masse: another feared hero knocked down a notch as Liquid's tournament came to an end.

Image courtesy of the official @DOTA2 Twitter feed.

This post contains spoilers for The International 3 - Dota 2 Championships.

Yesterday proved a number of things. First and foremost, that the best teams in the world are the best for a reason; second, that the crowd in Benaroya Hall is capable of keeping up their energy and morale pretty much indefinitely.

Here are a couple of thoughts on yesterday's matches.

Alliance vs. LGD.cn was a stunning start to the day. Alliance emerged from the group stages undefeated but met firm resistance from LGD in the first game. The Chinese team can construct a teamfight like no other, in my opinion: steady, impeccable plays that come together one by one to take teams apart. Alliance's inability to crack LGD's defences caused the game to go long, ending on a thrilling base race. In the second match, however, LGD learned that Alliance have teamfight chops too. LGD secured a multiple kill advantage in the early game, but weren't prepared for outright Alliance aggression later on. Watch for the great S4 Puck play when Alliance cracks the Radiant top barracks before the end of the game. The Swedes maintain their winning streak.

The second round of IG vs. DK will go down in history as the longest game of competitive Dota 2 ever played. It ran for a massive 98 minutes and also set the record for most gold farmed on a single hero, Burning's Lone Druid. After neither team could secure a proper late-game advantage, both settled into farming: endless, endless farming. Even a Divine Rapier pick-up by Zhou couldn't prompt the game to end, and the crowd took to cheering any play at all to pass the time. Placed a ward? Standing ovation. Killed an ancient camp? Mexican wave.

I wandered up to the Korean and Russian casting booths to stretch my legs and the atmosphere was the same there - I'm pretty sure the Korean casters were having a competition to see just how long they could maintain an insane level of enthusiasm. Afterwards I was speaking to one of the devs from Valve who observed that, unlike most sports, Dota 2 currently has no mechnic in place to force it to end: technically, a game might one day go forever. Let's hope it doesn't.

The last great hope for American Dota came out swinging in Liquid vs. TeamMUFC, the first of the day's best-of-one elimination rounds. Liquid were the favourites given MUFC's losing streak but being knocked into the loser's bracket had shaken their confidence. Not that it showed: they brought out the big guns, including the tournament-first appearance of everybody's favourite murder bear, Ursa, in conjunction with Wisp. To say that there was a patriotic fervor in the room after Liquid's victory is an understatement: I'm pretty sure Ursa/Wisp 2016 is a safe bet for the next Presidential election.

Zenith vs. Virtus.Pro was also a crowd-plesaer, with Zenith's iceiceice picking up the first Invoker of the tournament and Virtus.Pro picking up Anti-Mage. Contrary to a popular idiom, this actually causes the fun to start. I really enjoyed watching the crowd react to live Sunstrike snipes - particularly a fantastic midgame kill on KSi's Clockwerk.

Due to the late running of the IG/LGD game I had to duck out of the main hall for the next two matches to make an appointment, but the upshot is this: Liquid is back, and LGD is out. The Americans will go on to play another Chinese giant, IG, today, after they took a game off Zenith to stay in the tournament.

I got back in time to watch a bit of the final of the solo tournament, which pitched Mushi vs. iceiceice in midlane. Iceiceice took it, in the end, and it's worth watching the second round - the Timbersaw match - for a fantastic blind kill. I did find that Puck vs. Puck matchup kind of boring, though, much as I love a good Phase Shift.

Image courtey of the official @DOTA2 Twitter feed.

The following contains spoilers for day one of The International 2013 - Dota 2 championships.

I sat down with a friend to watch the first game of TI3 and it struck both of us that the event's incredible production values make you feel like your hobby is being legitimised right in front of your eyes. It's not flashy - Benaroya Hall is a concert value, and wouldn't allow for rotating stages or fireworks - but it's very, very slick.

Information from the game is displayed in ways that are impossible in regular streaming. The large central screen displays the game in the centre with match information - graphs, charts, and an enlarged minimap - off to the sides. Below, there is live footage of the inside of the two sound-proof booths where the teams sit. Below each player on the front of the booths are screens displaying that player's hero - complete with any cosmetic items they may have equipped - and their status. If they die, it switches to greyscale and a respawn timer appears. If they have an Aegis of the Immortal in their inventory, that appears as an icon in the corner.

It's definitely a room full of fans. A few technical hitches with the switchover between the analysis desk and interview team have been met with warmth, and during matches the crowd has a tendency to explode - as anyone listening to a steam will be able to tell. The American teams present get a more substantial welcome - as well as chants of "USA! USA!" - but every team has its supporters.

Despite spending 12 hours in Benaroya Hall yesterday, it feels like there's a huge amount still to come. Here's how the matches went down.

Na'vi vs. Orange

An explosive start - four kills in the first fifteen seconds of the game. I was worried that the opening salvos of TI3 would be tentative, given that there's so much on the line, but this wasn't the case. Orange represented the Malaysian scene phenomenally well in the first match but couldn't overcome a resurgent Na'vi in the second and third. It felt like this came down to the draft - Orange intelligently countered Na'Vi in the first game, but crucially they were countering a team that wasn't quite playing like itself. Dendi always seems trapped when he's playing a hero like Dragon Knight: moving on to Puck gave him the freedom he needed to make big plays in teamfights.

Fnatic vs. TongFu

A dominant 2-0 win for the Chinese team. A really strong core capitalised on the weaknesses in Fnatic's draft in the first game, and the double initiation power of Batrider and Storm Spirit made them incredibly hard to counter in the second. That said, Fnatic deserve credit for some incredible attempts - solo mid player H4nn1 in particular was playing the Dota of his life, landing an incredible Dream Coil right outside the Roshan pit. It was a great day for Puck fans, if you couldn't tell that already.

Dignitas vs. Rattlesnake

The first of the best-of-one matches that would determine which Lower Bracket teams would head home first. Everyone was expecting conservative play given the high stakes of these matches, but that wasn't the case here: Dignitas picked up a Timbersaw/Wisp/shotgun Morphling combo that wrecked house despite the presence of solid defensive heroes (Naga Siren and Keeper of the Light) in Rattlesnake's draft. If you watch one game from yesterday, watch this one.

Mouseports vs. LGD.int

A convincing win for LGD.int. Mouseports picked up a strong set of heroes - including the unpopular Phantom Lancer - but couldn't take the game late enough for Black^'s potential as a carry to come online. Early kills that should have come from FATA-'s Puck and paS' Nyx Assassin simply didn't - the same nerves that affected them in the prelims seemed to come back with a vengeance on the main stage. The man of the hour, however, was LGD.int's Brax and his phenomenal Clockwerk play. The man can land a Hookshot on anything: enemies behind trees, moving enemies, invisible enemies - and even, in one case, an invisible Nyx Assassin moving behind a tree.



Dignitas vs. Orange

It felt like Dignitas went into their final game overconfident. The instant pick-up of Timbersaw - the hero that had been so effective against Rattlesnake - allowed Orange to instantly counter with Mushi's Queen of Pain, who proceeded to clean up in the early game. Lacking a Wisp, Dignitas didn't have the mobility to execute the same confident plays that got them through their first match - instead, they built a much more conservative team that couldn't hang on long enough to come online.

Fnatic vs. LGD.int

This game belonged to Fnatic's Trixi. As Bounty Hunter, he spent the entire early game in the enemy jungle blocking camps, harassing supports, and preventing LGD.int's Brax from pulling off an ancient-farming strat with Puck. This allowed the rest of Fnatic to capitalise on their lane advantage and when they all came together LGD.int looked helpless. Era's racecar Lifestealer build - combined with the movement speed bonus from Track - made teamfights incredibly entertaining to watch.

The All-Star Match

Okay, maybe there's another essential game of Dota 2 from yesterday. The All-Star Match was a stretch goal from the Compendium where teams are assembled based on player voting. The match pitched Loda, ChuaN, Dendi, Hao and ARS-ART against Burning, Puppey, Akke, Mushi, and Ferrari. It was hilarious, and easily the most fun I had watching Dota 2 yesterday. So much so that I don't even want to spoil the drafting phase. Needless to say, it's worth watching for what happens when players leave the booth doors open and can hear what the commentators are saying. It's also worth watching for the moment when Dendi kills Puppey, pauses the game, and Gangnam Styles accross the main stage.

Just watch it, okay?

The main event of the Dota 2 International kicks off in a few hours, but a lot has already happened. Four days of preliminary matches have seen some serious upsets in terms of both team performance and the overall metagame – most of the players I've spoken to are expecting real drama when the matches move to Seattle's Benaroya Hall today. If you have even a vague interest in e-sports, you should be watching. In this post, I'm going to go over the basics and suggest the best ways to find matches, updates and analysis throughout the event.

How do I start watching?

Valve's official site for The International is excellent, and provides a rolling spoiler-free schedule of matches with listings for commentary in different languages. It should be your first stop for anything match-related. Remember that you can link your Twitch.tv and Steam accounts to have a chance of receiving item drops while watching the game in a browser.

If you opt to watch using the in-game spectator tool, it's really easy. Valve have removed the tutorial requirement from new accounts so if you don't play Dota 2 you can download the client and get watching straight away. Watching in game has the advantage of letting you check hero inventories, ward ranges and stat screens independent of what your chosen caster is looking at – in the latter case, this is a recent addition from Valve.

Where do I find analysis and discussion?

Expect the Dota 2 subreddit to explode when matches start. The moderators have done excellent work already compiling a Survival Guide for the tournament and running official discussion threads for each day of play. Head there if you want to discuss the games with other players; Twitch chat is going to involve a lot of kappa, a lot of missing Rares, and a lot of people demanding the dissolution of Swedish car manufacturer Volvo. It'll be a lot like reading Twitch chat, is what I'm trying to say.

It's also worth keeping an eye on JoinDota. Their write-ups of the prelims have been great, so if you miss a day check there to get up to speed. They also produced an impressive series of team profiles in the run-up to TI3: if you've got a few hours to spare, dig in.

What the hell are you doing, then?

I'll be at TI3 every day watching matches and talking to players, the community, and Valve. After the day finishes I'll be posting my impressions here - the hope is to give a sense of what the atmosphere in the room was like, who is hanging around, and where it looks like the tournament is headed.



What's the state of the game?

Since the Western Qualifiers in May the Dota 2 metagame has changed substantially, and it's still changing. We've seen western strats and hero picks influence the Asian teams and vice versa, and there have been substantial shifts in the last week. If you felt like you knew competitive Dota 2 two weeks ago, prepare to make some adjustments.

The heroes to keep an eye out for are Alchemist, Dragon Knight, Lifestealer, Outworld Devourer, Visage and Weaver. Competitive staples like Lone Druid are still a major presence, but expect to see teams capitalising hard on the push potential of those initial three strength carries. Outworld continues to win pretty much whichever 1 vs. 1 match-up he's put in, and Visage is too useful for most teams to ignore.

Europe has dominated the preliminary rounds but that's not the whole story. Na'Vi and the undefeated Alliance will be confident going into their games today but upsets are always possible, particularly when teams are fielding players who haven't played in front of a roaring audience. It's very much worth following Chinese team DK, the current trendsetters of the east Asian scene.

The USA had a good start and a rough end to the prelims, with both Liquid and Dignitas finishing in the lower brackets. Both of these teams have the potential to turn themselves around, however. I spoke to Dignitas team captain Fogged yesterday and he seemed calm and focused on preparing for their upcoming match with Rattlesnake.

Which games should I watch today?

All of them. Obviously. But if you have to choose, it's worth keeping an eye on the lower bracket matches. These teams will be playing best-of-one games to stay in the tournament, so not only is it your last chance to see half of these guys play but they're under more pressure than anyone else. I'm particularly excited about Mouseports vs. LGD.int – mouz haven't lived up to their potential at TI3 so far, but when they're on form they can take games off anyone.

I'm at TI3 and I have strong opinions

Then say hi! I'll be wandering around throughout the event talking to people. I'm short, British, and carrying a bag that says PC Gamer on it.

GL HF!