I first watched competitive Dota during the second International. I'd been playing for a few months, and didn't understand enough to follow the tournament properly. My abiding memory of those first experiences was watching the draft: particularly the moment when a team would select a hero, the portrait would flash up on the screen, and a crowd of people on the other side of the planet would go wild. It was baffling, almost off-puttingly so, but I wanted to understand it.

Competitive games always develop their own secret languages—it's not something unique to Dota 2 or even this genre. But drafting sits aside from even these. Learning to parse the drama of a character selection phase is something that comes after picking up basic understanding of the game itself. It requires a knowledge of every character, their strengths, the strategies they fit into and the players they're associated with. It requires knowledge of past results, the current metagame, the history of the competitive scene, and so on. Not all of that knowledge needs to be perfect, but as with any language the more fluent you are the more you understand.

A little over three years later, the pick-ban process has become one of my favourite things about Dota. I'm not sure how unusual that is: it's the precursor to a much more involved and complex game, a phase that you're likely to fast-forward through if you're catching up on a replay. Only a small portion of the playerbase opt to play Captain's Mode regularly. For me it's become its own game, antecedent to Dota proper but interesting, and strangely playable, in its own right.

Drafting feels a bit like a competitive card game from the future. It's the part of Dota that hews closest to Calvinball—and this is game that has an awful lot of Calvinball in its DNA.

For example. EG remove Bounty Hunter and Tusk; CDEC remove Leshrac and Techies. EG first pick Gyrocopter and CDEC take Clockwerk and Lina. EG get Naga Siren, then remove Ember Spirit. CDEC get rid of Dark Seer. EG get rid of Visage. CDEC ban Shadow Fiend then take Winter Wyvern. Storm Spirit to EG, then Phantom Lancer to CDEC, then Earthshaker to EG. CDEC remove Crystal Maiden; EG remove Dazzle. Down to the final two: Dragon Knight for CDEC, Ancient Apparition to EG.

This is either complete nonsense or the dramatic opening moments of the final game of the International 2015. It's probably a little bit of both. Over time however, and exposure, you see the stories contained in every choice. The way EG's Bounty Hunter ban reflects their growing respect for the hero, the way it upset them in the upper bracket final, its gradual ascendance over the course of the event. CDEC's Techies ban, which echoes with the sound of Aui_2000's explosive performance in the group stages (and KuroKy's back at ESL One, arguably.)

The respect shown to Universe with the Dark Seer ban and, likely, the Clockwerk first-pick; similarly, EG's respect for Q's Visage. The confidence in SumaiL expressed by that third-pick Storm Spirit, the shore-up-the-defenses mindset expressed by Phantom Lancer and Dragon Knight. The reason people cheer at hero selections is because they express personality, emotion, and strategy: the thing you see, when you learn to read between the lines, is people, which is a good way to explain the popularity of esports as a whole.

What strikes me is that even spectating a draft phase is, to some degree, participatory. It's fun to apply your own understanding to the draft happening on the screen, to anticipate decisions, share that anticipation, and so on. This is a part of the game that is fundamentally about pattern recognition, but rare in that the patterns you trace go beyond game mechanics and strategy. You consider social, personal, historical patterns too: you are using the part of your brain that might in a different life be forecasting financial trends, or branding, or fashion. Whatever life decisions led you apply these faculties to internet wizards don't matter: you are, at least, using them.

It's the satisfaction of applying years of knowledge knowledge and intuition in combination, simply and keenly expressed—something few games outside of the competitive world manage. For all that gets said about esports being inaccessible, I suspect that the complexity of a hero draft is emblematic of why they're becoming so popular. It's common to assume that a viewer will encounter something they don't understand and turn away: those cheers during the draft are evidence that the opposite is often true. Secret languages are attractive—they draw people in, make them want to learn, and reward them for learning. I can't think of a better demonstration of that than thousands of people screaming at a character select screen.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

After a poor showing at The International 2015, the Cloud9 Dota 2 team has been officially disbanded. Word of the split came first from Rasmus "Misery" Filipsen, who Gamespresso reports revealed the news during a livestream.

Filipsen didn't go into detail about the breakup, saying only, "I can't say anything more than that. It's for the better, guys." But fellow Cloud9 member Jacky "EternalEnvy" Mao effectively confirmed the news on Twitter, where he posted a link to the Cloud9 Dota 2 poster from The International and wrote, "In memory of the old C9 roster. Please note that any player on the poster may not be in C9 next DotA Year."

Cloud9 had a rough couple of days at The International earlier this month, where it was quickly knocked out of the competition with an 0-2 record. The team fell first to CDEC and then to Vici Gaming in a match Chris Thursten said "felt as if C9 had forgotten that they were up against some of the very best, most coordinated support players in the world."

The breakup of the roster does not mean that Cloud9 is out of Dota 2 for good, however. "Yes, Cloud9 will remain in #Dota2," team owner and manager Jack Etienne tweeted. "I'll miss our old team but I'm excited to create our new squad. TY EE, Misery, Fata, Bone, & BigDaddy!"

The remaining members of the team—Pittner "bOne7" Armand, Adrian "Fata" Trinks, and Johan "BigDaddyN0tail" Sundstein—have not yet publicly commented.

Cloud9 remains one of North America's biggest esports organizations, with teams for CS:GO, League of Legends, Hearthstone, and several other games.

Dota 2 matchmaking is a strange place to be in the aftermath of an International. There are a lot of new players, a lot of returning players, and a lot of people trying to imitate what they've just seen play out on the world stage. I'm fascinated by the way these influences interact with the existing habits of the Dota population.

International grand finals have an impact on Dota matchmaking equivalent to the release of a new Arcana or Immortal cosmetic, which is telling because one of those is a million-dollar tournament featuring the best players in the world and the other is a special hat. Regardless, this impact is shaped by the kinds of things the average Dota player is already interested in: i.e, playing core heroes, usually a midlaner or a farming carry. Of the heroes that really shone at the International, supports like Rubick and Bounty Hunter have actually been picked less since the tournament ended; meanwhile, Storm Spirit, Gyrocopter, Leshrac, Phantom Lancer and other cores have all seen growth (massive growth, in Storm's case.) The best place to observe these shifts is on Dotabuff's hero trends page.

Dota was ever thus. That pubstomping heroes are popular is one of the game's fundamental patterns, like blaming other people or spamming '> We need wards' when anything goes even slightly wrong. Your average player just wants to build the big items and make the big plays. Everybody else works around it. That's how things are, and how they'll always be.

There's a single, massive, totem-swinging exception to this rule, and it's Earthshaker. He's the only support in the top 10, and only Storm Spirit has seen a bigger spike in popularity. The inference is clear: the Dota community just watched Universe land a $6,000,000-dollar Echo Slam in the TI5 grand final, and that's been enough to rocket a support hero up the popularity food chain.

To put it another way: Universe slammed CDEC so hard he altered the nature of reality.

I'm really happy about this. I love that this play is being interpreted as the moment the International was won, because it's a moment orchestrated entirely by a gold-starved support and a utility-focused offlaner. In a metagame that often revolves around on aggressive carries and snowballing midlaners, that it was PPD and Universe who pulled off such a massive upset is a timely reminder that Dota is a team game and that every role offers opportunities for glory.

CDEC's Roshan attempt began with a well-coordinated kill on SumaiL's Storm Spirit, and the assumption from both the casters and (presumably) the players is that this opened up Roshan for an uncontested kill. The logic is that without their supremely talented midlaner, EG would have to either concede the Aegis of the Immortal or try to drag the encounter out long enough for SumaiL to respawn.

PPD and Universe proved that assessment disastrously wrong, and didn't need the rest of their team to do it. Fear threw a Call Down into the pit after the fact, but it wasn't necessary: four members of CDEC were dead after Universe cast his follow-up Fissure, with only agressif surviving on half health. It was a perfect play, entirely conducted by the bottom third of the farm priority pyramid (Aui's Naga Siren can be safely considered to have moved up somewhere beyond position 3 by this point, as often happens when EG run the hero.)

They're not the only players to do something like this, of course. Zai was the Dark Seer that Secret needed in their darkest hour; DDC's Winter Wyvern was the hero that sent Secret to the lower bracket. fy's Rubick remains, for many, the single best hero-and-player combo of the entire event. Supports matter. Supports win games. Everybody who takes Dota seriously knows this, in one sense or another, even though it can often be hard to parse from Dotabuff's metrics or from the average pub game.

This truth is rarely expressed visibly enough to influence the people playing Dota 2 every day, but that's what has happened here. That this moment occurred in such an important match in front of so many people is brilliant for the community. If only 3% more players are deciding to play support as a result of it, that's still more than were volunteering for the role before the tournament.

The dream is that the trend sticks: that this dunk-to-end-all-dunks was somehow so impactful that the people you solo queue with will be falling over themselves to play position 4 Earthshaker. Honestly? I'm not hopeful on that front. The sudden rise of Storm Spirit demonstrates that the majority of eyes are still on mid, on SumaiL, on the starpower connotated by a tough 1 vs. 1 and the snowballing power that follows. Pudge will ever be on the rise, seemingly in step with the growing popularity of the game as a whole. But there's no better reminder that skill and playmaking impact is available to everybody on a Dota team. It might have been a disaster (read: 'diiiiisaaaaaaasterrr') for CDEC, but it was a triumph for everybody else.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here.

It s over! After six days of competition, the International has its champions. Here s what happened on that amazing final day. Highlights in the sidebar once again, but seriously: watch the entire grand final.

Lower bracket final: Evil Geniuses vs. LGD

A surprise Enigma pick led to an electric first game of the final day. LGD countered with Earthshaker and Silencer; EG clearly had some kind of plan for it. It may well have been that this plan amounted to 'Aui_2000 is very good at Enigma'. A dead-on first blood attempt on SumaiL was abruptly turned against LGD by Aui s sudden arrival, and from there EG slowly started to roll out map control and a farm advantage. LGD are a phenomenal team, however, with one of the world s best strategists in xiao8. A few successful smoke ganks and a disastrous fight for EG evened the game out and established the danger posed by Silencer s Global Silence.

EG struck back with their own pickoffs and LGD.MMY! was forced to deploy Global Silence defensively—the opening that the Americans needed. Facing Maybe s thundering Storm Spirit, EG s PPD and Universe were able to prolong fights with amazing Shallow Grave-Snowball mutual saves. Game down came to crushing teamfight after crushing teamfight, with buybacks and huge plays on both sides. EG.Aui_2000 held a Black Hole through an entire siege in order to counter Storm Spirit; LGD attempted a heroic push down mid but gradually, dazzlingly, EG outplayed them.

EG marched into game 2 with momentum and one of the best drafts I ve seen this tournament: Leshrac—LGD are so afraid of Aui s techies that they let it through—with Clockwerk, Winter Wyvern, Clinkz and Aui s Visage. LGD s draft was standard for this meta: Gyrocopter, Earthshaker, Rubick, Shadow Fiend, Tusk. They recognised the threat posed by EG.SumaiL on Leshrac and killed him twice within the first four minutes. Then, EG.Fear s Clinkz got aggressive very early, threatening LGD s cores across the map. They simply weren t ready for the veteran carry to leave his lane so early. This was a game of highlights: Universe s amazing escape at 12 minutes, MMY! s stolen Winter s Curse at 26 minutes that completely remove EG s gold and experience advantage.

It ran late. It got tense. LGD moved into Roshan and EG flanked to contest them. The ensuing fight was fierce and mutually destructive, with EG forced to back off and their captain, PPD, stranded on the wrong side of the river as Winter Wyvern. Juking through the trees, he got away and dragged LGD.MMY! s Rubick out of position as he rushed to secure the kill. EG closed the trap; Universe landed the hook of his life on Maybe s fleeing Shadow Fiend; the game opened up to EG. With a final incredible fight on the top lane, EG took the game, the set, and became the first ever American team to reach the International grand finals.

The Grand Final: CDEC Gaming vs. Evil Geniuses

After EGs loss to CDEC the day before, EG.PPD called CDEC.Q a genius . This means something coming from EG s famously unfiltered captain, and spoke to the respect that EG had for their opponents. EG s fans were hoping: I hope PPD has a plan.

EG had identified that their loss had been due to their inability to deal with Bounty Hunter, and so they banned it over the now-traditional Leshrac. This was a gamble, based on a hunch that CDEC didn t actually want to run Leshrac but didn t want to play against it either. Of the toppest of the top-tier, EG took Gyrocopter and Storm Spirit for themselves and gave Leshrac, Winter Wyvern, Phantom Lancer and Queen of Pain to CDEC. CDEC focused on punishing SumaiL in mid, killing him three times to open the game. But losing mid is a situation that EG invite and are surprisingly good at fighting back from. On the safelane, Fear s Gyrocopter got all the farm he needed. On the offlane, Universe s Clockwork reached a fast level 6.

With a 3-0 turnaround at 6 minutes, EG started to push back against CDEC s early aggression. They anticipated multiple attempts to pick off individual heroes with smoke ganks, scoring three further 3-0 teamfights between the 10 and 20 minute mark. SumaiL came back despite his bad start to build the fastest Orchid Malevolence at TI5. Universe played absolutely extraordinarily, as did Fear and Aui_2000 on Skywrath Mage. PPD was the only member of EG to feel the heat in the lategame, but he was playing Crystal Maiden—that sort of thing happens to Crystal Maiden.

SumaiL s Storm Spirit is rightly feared and the end of game 1 demonstrated why. My last note reads simply SUMAIL IS EVERYWHERE : think that episode of Futurama where Fry has too much coffee, but with a 16-year old thunder god.

Q, however, is a genius. EG rolled into game 2 with the same plan (why wouldn t they?) but, with SumaiL focused in the banning phase, a Windranger in the midlane. CDEC countered with a mid Broodmother on CDEC.Xz, a rare draft that EG were taken totally off-guard by. This time, they ran Leshrac as a carry rather than as a support and found far more success with it. This time, the pressure was applied to EG across the map rather than just in mid, forcing them onto the defensive and giving the Broodmother the type of space she thrives in. They underestimated CDEC.garder s Tusk, too, with Snowball and Ice Shards causing a lot of problems for EG in teamfights. Moving CDEC.agressif away from the safelane didn t slow him down, with a flawless offlane Queen of Pain performance—10 kills, zero deaths, 12 assists by the end of the game. EG found themselves outdrafted, outlaned, and outplayed.

Game 3 might have been the best Dota game played this year. EG anticipated CDEC a little better in the draft, picking up SumaiL s hero earlier (Ember Spirit) along with Clockwerk, Gyrocopter and another Skywrath Mage. CDEC once again took Leshrac and once again swapped it into a different position, this time mid. They surprised everybody with a final pick of Slark, once of agressif s best heroes.

A dramatic first blood counterplay by SumaiL led to a fantastic display of Dota by both teams. EG got aggressive but were rebuffed, with a run of fights going heavily in CDEC s favour despite one or two pickoffs on the Leshrac. CDEC.Q s Visage tore EG.Fear apart early, and the Chinese team pulled ahead on gold. Then, at 20 minutes, SumaiL things: dodging Visage s Familiars with his ult, single-handedly turning a bad situation for EG into a 3-1 victory and a 2k gold swing. The game settled into a long, cagey standoff, as both teams prodded the other to make a mistake and neither did. CDEC.agressif lived up to his name again with daring dives and a willingness to 1-on-1 Fear s Gyrocopter—and the ability to come out ahead.

The game exploded around the 50 minute mark, first with a fierce fight around Roshan and then with another on the Radiant offlane. EG forced a run of buybacks, but then lost several of their own trying to force their way into CDEC s base. A few minutes later they tried again, but caught CDEC also trying to push across the map. The resultant fight took place backwards, with EG chasing CDEC into EG s own territory—but it was a magnificent fight for EG, particularly for SumaiL but also for Universe s Clockwerk. And with it, EG found themselves one game from the title.

In game 4, CDEC finally conceded the Leshrac ban, opening up one of EG s most feared supports: Naga Siren. They paired this with Gyrocopter, Storm Spirit, Universe s offlane Earthshaker, and a rare PPD Ancient Apparition. CDEC got their own run of favourites: Clockwerk, Lina, Winter Wyvern, Phantom Lancer, and Dragon Knight.

All three lanes went well for EG from the start of the game. CDEC s supports couldn t find Universe s camp-blocking wards, giving him the good start that an offlane Shaker badly needs. They hadn t drafted to kill SumaiL in mid. On the safelane, Fear had room to farm. Then, at just before the 9 minute mark, both teams chose to smoke gank the other at the exact same time—but EG had a highground positioning advantage and the resulting fight ended with a double kill for SumaiL. EG went hunting for kills from this point, willing to commit ults to single pickoffs if it meant staying ahead. Meanwhile, however, CDEC.agressif s farm went uncontested: and his Phantom Lancer is one of the reasons CDEC reached the grand final.

CDEC started to find kills on SumaiL, but it didn t seem to dampen his confidence. PPD landed Ancient Apparition s global ult, Ice Blast, on garder s Lina in the jungle. It looked like an inconvenience—a throwaway play. Then, from nowhere, SumaiL: and another kill for EG. Another EG smoke led to a triple kill for Universe despite heavy casualties, and another fight afterwards went EG s way: but CDEC were still farming, and were still ahead. At 28 minutes, they scored a beautifully-coordinated kill on SumaiL, chaining their disables carefully to stop him from escaping.

Feeling unthreatened, CDEC went for Roshan—and EG countered with the play of the series, the tournament, and possibly the year: a Ice Vortex/Ice Blast/Echo Slam combo that devastated CDEC in seconds. It was bone-and-morale crushing. Meanwhile, a split-pushing Aui_2000 cleared out CDEC s outer towers. The next major fight, at 36 minutes, took place in the Radiant jungle. EG took casualties early but SumaiL fought back hard, turning it 3-1 in EG s favour with agressif dead without buyback. ShiKi s Dragon Knight was forced to flee into the trees with his town portal scroll on cooldown. EG saw their opportunity and stormed into CDEC s base, taking another fight at the foot of the Dire base, retreating, and then striking back hard in midlane. There was no repelling them at this point.

Evil Geniuses defeated CDEC Gaming 3-1, becoming the first North American team to win the International. Fear, who was featured in Free To Play—the documentary about the first International—finally got his title. PPD, Aui_2000 and Universe shook their second-place curse. And SumaiL, a 16-year old from Pakistan, achieved the highest accolade in professional Dota—and a share of $6.6m—within the first year of his career. This is as close to a fairytale finish as the International has ever seen.

But it s important not to forget CDEC, a young team who had to fight their way into the International by first the qualifiers and then the wildcard, the longest possible road. They didn t drop a game on the main stage until they faced EG in the final. They are resolutely a force to be reckoned with, the new giants of the Chinese scene, and I m confident that they ll be back. As much as second place has to sting, what they ve achieved is extraordinary.

Afterwards, deadmau5.