The Weekly CourierTeam Secret Wins Chongqing Major, Dendi Fills In For Team Tigers, Patch 7.21 Releases This Week
Team Secret Wins Chongqing Major
By taking down Virtus.Pro 3-1 in the Chongqing Major grand finals, Team Secret secures $350,000 and a guaranteed TI9 slot based on their DPC points so far this year. They'll join VP as being the only teams clinching their TI9 slots, which is still seven months away.
So far VP and Team Secret have dominated the circuit, with both teams playing top 2 in the Kuala Lumpur and Chongqing Major. They even faced each other twice in both events. In Kuala Lumpur, Secret knocked VP out of the upper bracket then fell to them in the grand finals. The opposite happened at Chongqing, with VP taking Secret out, then losing to them in the grand finals rematch.
It will be interesting to see how involved VP and Secret will still be on the circuit, now that they've secured their TI9 slots. With the next Minor just a month away, they might pull a page from Team Liquid and take a small break down the line to physically and mentally reset.
Dendi Joins Team Tigers
A long time rival to our players, now ally. Let’s welcome Danil "Dendi" Ishutin as the 5th member to join the Tigers family today! Bringing the team to a full roster. Fans of Tigers, we want to share this experience with you. Meet the new members of @tigers_dota . #roartigers pic.twitter.com/w75zbAg7yZ
— Tigers (@tigers_dota) January 22, 2019
Team Tigers announced their final addition to the roster in CIS legend and former Na'Vi franchise player, Dendi. The move follows last week's shuffle that saw the removal of Ahjit and inYourdreaM, while adding another Dota legend in Mushi. However, Dendi is still on contract with Na'Vi, so for the moment he's on loan to Tigers and acting as a stand-in. That makes Dendi's stay with Tigers quite tenuous, especially since Tigers' elimination from the first open DreamLeague qualifiers.
Patch 7.21 Releases This Week
The new ranked season is coming next week, and alongside it a balance focused 7.21 patch. We are aiming to release Mars sometime between the end of February and early March.
— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) January 25, 2019
While it was expected that a patch would arrive soon after the completion of the Chongqing Major, Valve quashed any doubt with a tweet that announced not only an impending patch, but the release of Mars in another few weeks. It didn't seem too long ago that the meta felt stale, from the post-TI lull and even the rotation of heroes in 7.20. But with 7.21 and a new hero around the corner, perhaps players will migrate back from playing Auto Chess.
I think autochess is here to stay, a meta change won't influence player numbers, making the game attractive to new players will...
Autochess is basically a card game within Dota 2. It caters to card games players, but it's not clear at all that its appeal for Dota 2 players will survive undimished in the upcoming weeks.
3rd...Yeahhhh!!
Auto chess is just a hero pool and item-drop random generator. While you can slightly increase your chance to win by learning a few basic tricks, it's still worse rng shit than Hearthstone. There I said it.
Ye nobody can tell if auto chess is really here to stay... on the other hand I believe no change is gonna drive in a ton of new players... imho dota 2 reached its maturity as a product a while ago and who was interested in this kind of product already bought into it... new players can come for sure, but it will be in small numbers... and going through any drastic change just for the CHANCE of getting new players is not feasable, and I def wouldn't want that, as it would simply mean make a new game.
sugoi
Nisha do Boju! :)