They are not bad. But they are not exceptional either. There’s nothing extraordinary or special about them worthy of our attention.

There is a pattern that always exposes itself in TI. 

The team who picks Medusa in TI 2025 wins. 

The team who picks life stealer in TI 2026 wins. 

If Yatoro doesn’t pick Terror Blade, he will severely underperform. 

If the enemy team picks Shadow Fiend, they will be impressive on him as the guy we thought was the best Shadow Fiend player of all time. 

It doesn’t matter who is playing. All that matters is who picked the handful of heroes that always win. And there’s nothing particularly special about ANY of those heroes. They are all profoundly mediocre. Weak heroes, or average at best. And their performance with those heroes is okay at best, even though they are TI not just players, but winners. 

I’ve seen a GAZILLION Shadow Fiend players who are pure torture. Infinitely better than Yatoro on this hero could ever be. 

If I see his performance and say, not bad, but I’ve seen better. You should give pause. Seconds should go by. 

This is a three time TI winner. 

Tells me everything I need to know, about the skill level of people at the top. To me, nothing is more inspiring than that. They won TI, but they can still be stuck in guardian for life. They don’t know DotA. They don’t understand how to own 1 v 9 with every single core hero in the game against any matchup. With a KDA that looks like 33/2/25 every single game. 

And it’s not that people who are 10k MMR below them are any better. They are a disaster. 

This is the same inspiration I felt once I calibrated Archon, and found the difference between speed, talent, game knowledge, skill, and everything between Archons and heralds to be something like one percent. They are just highly coordinated good heralds with less mistakes. That was.. inspiring. 

I got there while trying to unlock ranked and just get there, without trying to necessarily win every single unranked game along the way. I was trying to learn and improve along the way, because there was nothing else to do. Nothing you can do can get you there faster. You have to complete one hundred hours, not one hundred games, to unlock ranked. 

It is not that unlocking Archon is groundbreaking, and means I’m better than low immortals. It’s the fact that I, almost felt no difference. 

Nothing has changed. 

Not when it comes to my happiness, but when it comes to the quality of players on both sides. 

And if things are gradual, and the more you climb, the better players you’d get, I’m not sure that at this rate I’ll see any significant difference even after another 3k MMR above Archon. If the difference between every rank and the next, even up to 3k above, is almost non-existent. 

And the best part is, I haven’t started boosting myself yet. I’ll do that when I’m 12k behavior score ONLY. 

So when I check out TI and STILL find nothing special, except substantially better team coordination, that tells me everything. And that is inspiring, like no other. 

The team who picks certain heroes wins. The other team who fails to pick those heroes, and run out of options, ends up losing, WITH disregard to who’s behind the wheel. 

Meanwhile, on the other hand, every time I test all core heroes after every major change or patch, I also can’t help but notice a consistent pattern. 

Every single core hero, including the agility carries, are all way better and stronger than they ever were before. 

And not just compared to TI 8 or 9, but even compared to three years ago, before the introduction of facets and innates. All of them. Perhaps the only exception to this rule is Drow Ranger. Otherwise, all other heroes are infinitely better, stronger, and faster than they ever were before. You will notice the difference if you played over ten years ago. 

Now when I see TI players, even the chosen ones who won TI three times struggle with hero picking, and when their one or two main heroes get banned, they ALWAYS lose and hugely disappoint in performance, I realize that they don’t understand the new game. In short, they don’t understand DotA. They are still playing DotA of 2013, with advanced farming speed and good team coordination. 

They still don’t realize why DotA, currently, is superior to any game that has ever been created, BECAUSE of the changes that have been introduced since the new frontiers update of 2023 and beyond. Especially the overhaul that took place when innates and facets were introduced. 

The changes that made the game transform into DotA 3, so to speak. 

And every single time I see TI players play like it’s still 2017, my smile grows bigger. They have no idea. 

They don’t understand how powerful cores have become. They don’t know how to play the game the new way with the new powers. 

And that, to me, will always be inspiring. More inspiring than winning TI three times.