Dota 2 News

Between a massive 7.36 update and Act II of Crownfall, there were a lot of big announcements vying for your attention last week, so we decided to give everybody a few days to process everything before we posted any more big Dota news. But now a new week is upon us, and we're happy to turn our focus from the in-game experience to pro Dota, with the the announcement of the six direct invites to this year's The International!

Read on for that unveiling, as well as details on the qualifying road for those still fighting to earn the last ten spots in Copenhagen.

From Dubai to Birmingham to Bucharest and beyond, the year has been packed with top-tier Dota tournaments. Befitting their dominant performances across the year so far, we're happy to invite the following teams directly to The International 2024:

• Team Spirit
  [expand]
  Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk
  Denis "Larl" Sigitov
  Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov
  Myroslav "Mira" Kolpakov
  Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov
  [/expand]
  
• Xtreme Gaming
  [expand]
  Wang "Ame" Chunyu
  Guo "Xm" Hongcheng
  Lin "Xxs" Jing
  Zhao "XinQ" Zixing
  Ding "Dy" Cong
  [/expand]
  
• Team Falcons
  [expand]
  Oliver "skiter" Lepko
  Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak
  Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf
  Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen
  Wu "Sneyking" Jingjun
  [/expand]
  
• Team Liquid
  [expand]
  Michael "miCKe" Vu
  Michał "Nisha" Jankowski
  Neta "33" Shapira
  Samuel "Boxi" Svahn
  Aydin "Insania" Sarkohi
  [/expand]
  
• Gaimin Gladiators
  [expand]
  Anton "dyrachyo" Shkredov
  Quinn "Quinn" Callahan
  Marcus "Ace" Hoelgaard
  Erik "tOfu" Engel
  Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp
  [/expand]
  
• BetBoom Team
  [expand]
  Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko
  Danil "gpk" Skutin
  Matvey "MieRo`" Vasyunin
  Vitalie "Save-" Melnic
  Alexander "TORONTOTOKYO" Khertek[/expand]

The remaining ten slots will be awarded to those worthy teams able to battle through the daunting Regional Qualifiers, with the final slot breakdown and dates for each region set as follows:

• China and North America - June 9th to 13th
  [expand]
  China (2 slots)
  Azure Ray
  G2.iG
  LGD Gaming
  Team Bright
  Team Zero
  Dark Horse
  (+6 teams from Open Qualifiers)
  
  North America (1 slot)
  Shopify Rebellion
  Nouns
  La Correntada
  (+5 teams from Open Qualifiers)
  [/expand]
  
• Eastern Europe + South America - June 14th to 18th
  [expand]
  Eastern Europe (1 slot)
  Natus Vincere
  Virtus.pro
  1win
  L1GA TEAM
  Night Pulse
  Nemiga Gaming
  One Move
  Yellow Submarine
  9Pandas
  (+3 teams from Open Qualifiers)
  
  South America (2 slots)
  HEROIC
  beastcoast
  BOOM Esports
  Midas Club
  Infinity
  Leviatán
  (+6 teams from Open Qualifiers)
  [/expand]
  
• Southeast Asia + Western Europe - June 19th to 23rd
  [expand]
  Southeast Asia (2 slots)
  Aurora
  Blacklist International
  Talon Esports
  Neon Esports
  Execration
  Bleed Esports
  MANTA Esports
  Salvation Gaming
  (+4 teams from Open Qualifiers)
  
  Western Europe (2 slots)
  Tundra Esports
  PSG Quest
  OG
  Team Secret
  Entity
  MOUZ
  NAVI Junior
  Nigma Galaxy
  Rest Farmers
  JustBetter
  (+2 teams from Open Qualifiers)[/expand]

For those of you now making plans to spectate or compete in said qualifiers, we've also got some important dates to keep in mind. The Road to The International will officially kick off with Open Qualifiers for all six regions June 3rd to 8th, followed by the Regional Qualifiers as described above.

Once all the initial dust has settled and the tournament field has been filled out, the Road to the International will continue when all sixteen teams meet in Copenhagen. The two-day Group Stage will commence Wednesday, September 4th, immediately followed by the five-day Playoffs, a studio production that will run through Tuesday, September 10th,

The International itself will be held in Copenhagen's Royal Arena, with the top eight teams slated to take the main stage from Friday, September 13th through Sunday, September 15th. Fans hoping to attend in person will be able to purchase tickets starting Monday, June 10th. Set your reminders now, and we'll see you when qualifiers start next Monday, June 3rd.

Patch 7.36a is out now. You can check out the patchnotes here.

Additionally, a few non-gameplay bugs were fixed:

• Fixed Some Crownfall empty dialog lines
  
• Fixed Crownfall paths changing their token requirements
  
• Fixed Dragon Knight Griffin Knight set having Facet-based coloration swapped
  
• Fixed various issues with cloth stretching
  
• Fixed watching replays from Broadcaster perspective not displaying heroes
  
• Fixed an issue with post-match rewards being delayed
  
• Fixed Crownfall Pit Fighter encounter dialog
  
• Fixed Crownfall Fishing Spear not being available
  
• Fixed Crownfall Graphical issue with Pineapple clickable on Crownfall map
  
• Fixed Crownfall Graphical issue with Questing Hearts sign not showing
  
• Fixed issue with Act 2's Riki's attribute token being wrong type
  

Dota 2 has gotten a particularly game-bending update this month. Despite its simple name, Gameplay Update 7.36 has changed how all 124 heroes in Dota 2 play by fundamentally tweaking the structure of a character: Every single hero now has an innate ability of some kind, up from a mere... 7 heroes before. To boot, every single hero now has two Facets, a binary choice of gameplay styles or bonuses that you choose before the match even starts...
Read more.

People have been asking about it. They've been waiting for it. They've been guessing for months what would be in it. And now... we're finally shipping it.

That's right: Crownfall Act II's fishing game is LIVE!

For those of you who didn't just die of adrenaline shock, we also shipped a massive new gameplay patch, which you might want to read up on. Go find out more about 7.36 here.

We also shipped the second part of Crownfall, this time taking place in the unforgiving deserts of Druud. There's a new overworld map, a new story, some new characters (and some familiar favorites), new cosmetic items, new minigames, and more than a few surprises.

Lastly, in case you got busy last month (it happens) and were wondering if you'll still be able to play Crownfall Act I now that Act II's shipped: You can. All of Crownfall's acts will be available as new acts come online, up to the conclusion of the event.

OK, that's probably enough fishing and fishing-adjacent (7.36, Crownfall Act II) news for one update. What are you waiting for? Boot up the game and get angling!

[h2]Dota Labs Updates[/h2]
We announced Dota Labs a couple months ago, and since then we've continued to iterate quietly on the features in it as we get feedback and data. "Quietly" is fine, but sometimes it can be useful to be a bit louder so today we're turning up the volume a little:

• We're happy to announce the first promotion of a Dota Labs option out of Labs and into the game itself: high-visibility hero health bars, under Options -> Interface.
  
• Over the last weeks (and today), we've shipped a variety of updates to the other features, including additional controls for the overlay map, new data in the pre-match analytics, and the ability to treat targeting modifier keys as toggles rather than holds.
  
• Lastly, because we've gotten so many useful submissions from the Feedback button built into the Crownfall map, we've added one to the Dota Labs UI as well.
  

As always, please continue to tell us which parts of the still in-development Labs features you like and which you think need improvement.

[h2]Collector's Cache Voting Begins[/h2]
Our community of artists have also been hard at work. Hundreds of item sets have been lovingly crafted, lovingly polished, and lovingly uploaded to the Workshop, and now it's up to you, the Dota community, to lovingly vote on which ones you'd like to see in the next Collector's Cache!

In the spirit of Dota Labs experimentation, this time voting is open to everyone. From the dashboard, simply click the Collector's Cache Voting button and then upvote or downvote the sets you're the most passionate about. Voting runs from now until May 21st, with the most popular sets getting released as part of a future Crownfall update.