What Your Favorite International 10 Attending Team Says About You
With the regional qualifiers over, we finally have all of our teams that will be attending The International 10. For the first time in nearly two years, all of us will have the pleasure of watching AdmiralBulldog once again utterly fail to make it to an International. Naturally, everyone has a favorite team going into this. But what does your favored team say about you as a player?
You’ve been waiting for this moment for almost a decade. You’re feeling good about this year. You send texts to all your friends every single time Arteezy streams so they can get a glimpse of what real high level play looks like, whether they play Dota 2 or not. You think that if you could just work out the kinks in your farming pattern, you’d be 9k by now. You mute your teammates as soon as they use a hero voice line. There’s a cyanide pill in the third drawer of your desk with a little sheet of paper next to it with “In Event Of Lower Bracket” written on it. You avoid cliffs.
You’ve also been waiting for this moment for about a decade, but with a sense of grim fatalism. You’re going to watch the group stages until VP gets upper bracket, then drink yourself into a hospital for the rest of the tournament. You’re convinced that your team is exclusively sabotaging you and you alone, since you checked their Dotabuffs after the game and they’ve picked normal heroes for the past four matches, why’d they do this shit now? You like playing highly aggressive drafts. Your KDA is either 18–4–10 or 2–19–7, with no in between.
You’ve been angry ever since TI8 where you watched a stack of random European jackasses barely edge out your favorite team in both series they played. You know for a fact that Ame is the best carry player in the world. You know for a fact that Faith_bian is the best offlaner in the world. You know for a fact that XinQ is the best support in the world. You know for a fact that you would be higher MMR if you only had the time to play more. You frequently shout at your team to stay together, no matter if it works or not. Your favorite NA football team is the Patriots.
You know fucking well that you’re the best player in the fucking lobby, and this game would be EASY if people just listened. You frequently begin sentences with “I don’t understand why…” or “Just…”. You have claimed repeatedly that NA is the strongest region and you don’t understand why your friends are laughing at you. You were placed in the gifted education program as a child and you’ve been riding that high into your twenties. You really want to see QC vs OG so we finally get the definitive Hassanbowl. You complain about runes every single game.
You frequently accuse casters and shitpost article authors of having an NA bias. You’re pretty sure LGD is overrated and that Invictus has been saving strats since the Singapore major. You really enjoy playing heroes like Treant or Nature’s Prophet that will fuck off to the other side of the map for the vast majority of the game. You have achieved a state of contentment with your MMR, and simply queue regardless of what happens. You don’t have your headset plugged in at all, since sound is a distraction. You think Storm Spirit should be removed from the game.
You’re happy that SEA is finally getting recognized as a real threat on the main stage. You shout a lot on the mic — not saying anything, just regular shouting. You’re in a pretty good mood after a match. You play 4 and engage in map tourism. Sometimes you like to mix it up and play Puck mid and do the same thing. The laments of your teammates wash over you like rain off a windshield. You’re in low priority again, but it doesn’t really matter. Today is gonna be a great day.
You’re honestly much happier when you don’t have any people around to bother you. You queue for all roles and exclusively pick Elder Titan regardless of what role you get. You think your neighbors have been whispering about you, but you don’t really care. Nobody has come to your birthday parties since your parents stopped making them come. The longest you’ve ever played for is about forty or fifty hours straight — you lost track after awhile. The parakeet in your closet smells like it’s starting to go bad.
You’ve been a fan of Puppey since back in his Na’Vi days. You don’t understand why Chen isn’t the most broken hero in the game right now, since Holy Locket is so good. You play in casual leagues as a captain and are known for picking heroes completely at random. People have told you before that your stare is kind of unnerving. You think that the game would be much better off if people stopped being core mains and support players stepped in to fill the 1/2/3 roles, since they take less brainpower to play. You miss having separate core and support MMRs.
You’re an NA player, but you rabidly watch Tier 2 Chinese Dota because that’s where the real power is. You think that everyone will be copying what Aster and the like do in a few months — just wait and see. You build random shit in your pubs and then claim that the Chinese pros are doing it so nobody complains. You’ve been an Aster fan since 1998. If your friends had just watched the scene, they would know that there’s no possible way Aster is going to lose this year. Everything before six months ago is kind of a dim blur to you.
You still haven’t realized that AdmiralBulldog is no longer playing for Alliance. You love it when you get to make killer plays on a hero with a big AoE stun. You consider yourself a fairly versatile player, but all of your heroes are based off an AoE stun. You’re completely convinced that Aeon Disk needs to be removed from the fucking game. You were really hoping that Alliance would be the first org to win two Internationals, but you’re okay with OG, you guess. Your MMR graph resembles the path of a boomerang.
You’re sick and tired of hearing Peru jokes in your games, and you wish the Dota community would be a little more tolerant. You queue for US East regardless of where you happen to be on the globe at the moment. You think that the South American scene has been slept on for years, and this year everyone’s gonna learn. You don’t understand why you keep losing on Mirana. You really wish Madara had stayed on the team. You think that high ping gives you way more time to react.
You hear the same jokes that Beastcoast fans hear, but you don’t give a shit. You think South America needed seven slots. You haven’t slept in about thirty-six hours. You queue at 3 AM and pick your 10% winrate Pudge in ranked for no reason other than to punish people for queueing at 3 AM. You think the Kiev Major was the most important event in Dota 2. You have bought Dagon in at least a third of your games. You carry a knife so you can stab anyone who admits they play Dota 2 in public. You just bought a bear trap for the mailman.
You post frequently about the necessity of supporting the CIS Dota scene, citing events from almost a decade ago. You think that the qualifiers were a waste of everyone’s time, since Spirit was very clearly the strongest. You don’t think they’re going to win this year, you’re just praying that they don’t get knocked out in the group stage. You frequently look out your window to see if anyone is looking inside. You start fighting at the 8 minute mark and don’t stop until the game is over.
You also think the Kiev Major was the most important event in Dota 2 history, but with a far more desperate air about it. You frequently screw up and ask your friends for second and third chances. You owe money to at least four different organizations. You really do think your life is going to turn around soon, just wait and see. You mostly pick Medusa and Spectre and then plug your ears for about thirty minutes. Your lifetime winrate is 48%, but you think that’s above average compared to most Dota players.
You really don’t understand why everyone gets so fussy about different regions for Dota. You think the system would be a hell of a lot simpler if they just picked the top 18 teams in Dota and then sent them to the International. You’re confused as to where EternalEnvy has gone — what team is he playing for these days? Most of your clothes are clearly labelled so you don’t get confused when picking an outfit. You’ve been using the default Dota+ guide for all your heroes since it was released, and you get frightened when the build changes. You just heard a loud noise from the attic.
You don’t know what the hell is going on with this International business, but Undying is your favorite Dota 2 hero. You’re just happy to be here and playing some Dota 2 with your friends. You got convinced to play Dota by your best friend, but he’s a QC fan and you didn’t want to intrude. You frequently get your belt on backwards. You’re somewhere in the Crusader bracket and you think you’re finally getting your teeth into the game. Your chair is painted bright red so you don’t forget where it is.
You believe strongly in the Dead Yang strat. You’ve been following fy and Somnus for their entire Dota 2 careers. You’re incredibly happy that you get to see both of them at the International again. You just pick whatever’s in the meta right now, you’re not too picky about hero choice. You think the other Chinese teams are too cocky and that Elephant is going to give them what’s coming to ’em. You’ll be happy regardless of where these guys place. You meticulously keep your winrate at 50% because you like looking at the round number.
You think that psychological warfare is the most important aspect of Dota 2, not heroes or items. You go out of your way to piss off the enemy carry as badly as possible in every single match. You use all chat quite frequently, and you make fun of people who get angry at sprays. You respond to anyone tipping you with an eight-paragraph essay with five cited sources. You own a coffee mug with your own face on it and you use it every single morning. You haven’t even considered the concept that OG might lose this year, because it’s simply not going to happen.
DISCLAIMER: I am a terrible NA player