The most recent update to Dota brings excitement for players across the entire Dota scene. The fourth Winter Treasure has been released and there have been significant updates to the Winter Compendium, including the announcement of the Shanghai Major group stage brackets.
With only days to go until the group stages of the Shanghai Major begin, Valve announced the details of the most recent update to Dota on their blog. Most notable amongst these updates were the release of the Winter Treasure IV, updates to the Winter Compendium, and the announcement of the brackets for the group stage. Finally, the range of cosmetics that will be available will soon expand, as five new heroes are available for customization on the Workshop.
With the Shanghai Major drawing near, features of the Winter Compendium have become unlocked. These include predictions for the group stages. You can pick your choices in a number of individual and team categories, with Battle Points for your Winter Battle Pass as the bounty for predicting correctly.
Who will have the highest gold per minute across all players? Which team will pick the highest number of different heroes? Which hero will be banned the most? Correct choices could help you power-level your Winter Battle Pass.
Finally, the brackets for the Group Stages have been announced, and are as follows:
Two teams from each group will progress to the Upper Bracket at the Main Event with the remaining two teams falling down into the lower bracket. How the progression works is that there are two GSL matches in each group. The winner of each GSL match progresses to the Qualification #1 match. The loser of each GSL match falls into the Loser’s Match.
The winner of the Qualifier #1 match progresses to the Upper Bracket at the Main Event. The winner of the Loser’s Match progresses to Qualifier #2, with the loser falling to the Lower Bracket at the Main event. The loser of Qualifier #1 has to compete in Qualifier #2, where they face the winner of the Loser’s Match. The winner of Qualifier #2 will join the winner of Qualifier #1 in the Upper Bracket. The loser of Qualifier #2 will drop down to the Loser’s Bracket.
The final piece of information divulged in the update is the addition of five new heroes into the Workshop: Arc Warden, Shadow Fiend, Winter Wyvern, Zeus, and Undying. This means that the community can now design cosmetic items for these heroes. Whilst Zeus, Undying, and Shadow Fiend all have Valve-created cosmetics already, it will be intriguing to see how the community can re-imagine all of these heroes and give them shiny new outfits. Let’s just hope they don’t make them cowboys.
There is much for Dota fans to be excited about with the latest patch. Whether you need some new hats for your heroes, like testing your knowledge of the competitive scene with predictions, are excited to see which teams will face off in the Group Stages of the Shanghai Major, or are a cosmetic artist looking for a new hero to work on, there is something for almost everyone in the latest update. If you want to see all of the details, head here for the complete changelog.
Source: Valve's Dota 2 Blog
