Dota Immortal

I’m writing a bunch of blogs so I thought it’d be worthwhile to document this. I was given access to the Dota 2 beta 12 years ago.

I installed it and fed as Chaos Knight because I had no idea what was going on (I was only 13 years old to be fair) and I never played Dota 1. I grew up on games like Counter-Strike: Source… I didn’t play many MOBAs. Valve was also beta testing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive at the same time so I sent in a steam support ticket asking Valve to swap my beta access for Counter-Strike but they refused.

I left Dota 2 to rot in my steam library until a friend started playing it two years later. I decided to try it again and found it frustrating beyond belief. There was so much to learn and I was constantly getting stomped by smurfs. I must have uninstalled and reinstalled the game at least five times before it started to click.

From there on out I was playing Dota on and off throughout elementary school, high school, and college. It was the game my friend group played and it slowly became my most played game. The friends I played Dota with I still keep in touch even 10 years later. One of them even helped me get multiple software jobs.

Every single year Dota 2 would hold “The International” which always had the largest esports prize pool. If you won one of these events you would be set for life. Typically, since Valve is based out of Seattle they would always host it at the Key Arena. It was under heavy construction during 2018 so they decided to host it in Vancouver. I ended up going and it was a fantastic event for the cost of the tickets. It was even more hilarious to see the Rogers Arena employees watching a computer game instead of the typical Canucks game they are used to.

I decided to come back to playing Dota towards the end of 2023 and I started grinding ranked solo queue. The way I approach games was a lot different than before. I realized that remaining positive was one of the best things you could do. I’ve had so many games when I was a kid where I was either toxic or someone was being toxic towards me. It had a net negative impact on the game. Alongside this I would constantly think about the mistakes I made and how I could improve if the same situation happened again.

Well somehow after a few months I ended up hitting Immortal rank which is probably top 1% of players. I think the highest I ever achieved before this was about top ~8% of players.

Dota 2 somehow has managed to retain a large player base over these last 12 years. It is honestly shocking to me because it is one of the most inaccessible games I have ever played. You have to learn so much before it even starts to make sense. I was one of the rare players that decided to stick through it and I’m glad I did.