Dota 2’s brief hiatus is coming to an end, as teams emerge from their cocoons ready for the first of Valve’s new Majors in Frankfurt. Joining them in metamorphosis is the game itself, fresh out of the latest raft of changes made by mage-in-chief IceFrog in the 6.85 patch. With such a plethora of changes happening in such a short period it can be hard to keep everything straight, so here’s a recap on Dota’s summer vacation with some meta insight from moonduckTV’s Andrew “Zyori” Campbell.
Starting with the teams, there was some furore over International champions Evil Geniuses kicking support player Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling in favour of Team Secret’s divisive carry Artour “Arteezy” Babaev. After this change, Secret’s entire team structure fell to pieces as Ludwig “Zai” Wåhlberg also left to finish his college studies, while Kuro “Kuroky” Salehi Takhasomi and Gustav “S4” Magnusson decided to branch off on their own.
All this means the reigning champions have a mostly unchanged team while their fiercest rivals were left with just Clement “Puppey” Ivanov holding the fort. To fill the ranks, Secret have recruited a number of free agents including the recently dissolved Cloud9’s Jacky “EternalEnvy” Mao and Rasmus “Misery” Filipsen. Other members of Cloud9, scattered to the winds by their final bad performance knocking them out in the first elimination match of The International, have found places among old friends.
