Mortalles about Valve and Dota 2: “If desired, they can maintain the interest of players for at least 20 years. If only it was there"

Caster Dmitry 'Mortalles' Arzhilovsky shared his opinion on the main news of the past week in an exclusive commentary.

At the end of the third chapter of “Dark Carnival”, Valve hinted that in the second act a full-fledged game mode awaits us - something we haven’t had for several years. Does this mean that the developers have again begun to pay more attention to Dota and the game is returning to its prime?

In recent years, we have become accustomed to the fact that updates and events in the game are released too rarely. Dark Carnival is great content that players love. Still very simple. Content came out and online grew. Naturally, I would really like to see things like this come out more often. At least a couple of times a year. Once a quarter is already a dream. As for prime, that’s not a fact. Any big update attracts attention, but high online levels usually don’t last long. Everything is in the hands of Valve. If desired, they can maintain the interest of players for at least 20 years. If only it was there.

Satanic became the first player in the world to reach 18,000 MMR. Why do you think Valve is ignoring massive requests to introduce seasonal rankings?

Who knows? Valve is one of the most mysterious developers in the world. I’ll forgive them anything if in the end I find out that 95% of the employees have been making Half-Life 3 all this time)

Virtus.pro has disbanded its youth roster, and rumors of major changes are circulating around the main team. Do you think it makes sense for the club to keep one or two players and build a new roster around them, or is it better to completely rebuild the team, for example, again relying on CIS players?

No, you cannot leave any players. Moreover, you can’t leave the coach. The man did not raise his lineups higher than 7th place for 3 years. If the organization plans to remain in Dota 2, it needs to collect everything from scratch. Follow the example of Team Yandex and look for a new core. Naturally, in modern realities this is much more difficult to do. It was necessary to fuss and, after HEROIC left Dota, suddenly take the entire roster for himself.

Some participants of The International 2026 will play at 1win Essence II and the “Games of the Future 2026” before the tournament, however, for example, Aurora Gaming, Team Yandex, PARIVISION and Team Spirit decided to skip these competitions. Whose approach to preparing for the main event of the year do you think is more correct?

Interesting question. Advantages can be found in any approach. All of the above teams will be or almost will be among the favorites at the upcoming TI. They have nothing to do at such tournaments. They will get practice at KVshki, and everyone else needs to adapt to them. They will set the tournament meta, obviously.

But for others, tournaments won’t hurt. It is on them that you need to try all the most absurd things that were born in the heads of the coach and players, regardless of the result. If you find something strong that will win you a few cards, great. Let the favorites beware. If you lose a dozen cards with some heroes, that’s also good. Better here than at TI.

You can find out about the main news of the past week in our material. Also, all important news events are covered on social networks: Telegram, VK, MAX.