A lot of people were confused when Paul 'Redeye' Chaloner was not selected to host The International 2017, the premier Dota 2 tournament, last year.

The veteran esports host and commentator, who also has roles for Code Red Esports and Luckbox, had done an excellent job in the years preceding, but Valve decided to go in a different direction.

Redeye is back for 2018 though, and he puts it down to a year of hard work.

The International 2018 kicks off next week, and Redeye is back commentating after a year out

'I was disappointed last year, no doubt about that,' Redeye told me. 'I vowed to myself last September that I would work harder, work more on Dota than I'd ever done before, I'd prep harder, I'd spend more time working on my hosting and make sure that I can deliver the best job I can possibly do.

'I've worked very hard with the goal in mind that I wanted to get back to TI this year.'

At TI 2017, Valve decided they wanted to have more pro players on the desk, and they wanted it to be hosted by Sean 'Day9' Plott. It was an experiment which many believe didn't pay off, but Redeye isn't resentful towards Day9, and doesn't even believe it's his fault that people didn't enjoy the new direction.

'Sean in my opinion is one of the best esports hosts, one of the best hosts full stop. He can pretty much do anything, on stage, on desk, a fun event, a serious event, the whole range. I wasn't disappointed that he got TI because I knew it was in good hands and he would do a great job. Unfortunately he got dealt some rough cards in doing it.

'There's a lot of criticism about how he hosted it, but it would be easy for the novice to look at it and go "Redeye did 2015, 2016, did a good job, and then Day9 came in 2017 and did a terrible job." That's the simpleton's view, that's not what happened.

'What happened is, it's a different style of broadcast. Did it work? My honest opinion is no it didn't, but to blame that on Day9 is incredibly naive and wrong as well. Sean is a consummate professional, a fantastic host, but wasn't given the best opportunity to perform at his best. He did the best with what he had.'

Valve went with Day9 as the host last year, but they've brought Redeye back in for TI 2018

Redeye says he's thrilled to be back this year, and I also asked him to think back to when he first found out he would be hosting The International.

'In 2014 I'd heard some whispers. I'd only just started hosting Dota at the time, but that didn't pan out for whatever reason, but that was already flattering. It was the first time I thought "oh it's nice to be mentioned."

'I did a bit more in 2015, and I really got into the game by then. I really started to love the game and the scene itself including the pro players and the teams. So when I got asked to do TI5 it was comparable to anything I've had happen in my career before. Like the first time I got WCG, or ESWC, or Quakecon. Those were a decade or more before, so it was an absolute thrill to be invited to The International, something I'd only ever enjoyed from home.

'That excitement was the same as it was this time around, I don't think it gets any less exciting no matter how many times you host it.'

While he was in a reminiscing mode, I asked Redeye to pick out his favourite moments from hosting The International so far. He said it's tough to pick, but the moment that's currently depicted in his Twitter banner came to mind.

'A lot of things that happened at TI6 were fantastic. I think it was just that perfect storm of all the talent team knew each other, we'd worked together a lot already, everyone was in a good frame of mind, the sun was shining. That matches were exceptionally good as well.

'If I picked one thing out it would be the muppets segment. For crying out loud, Valve made muppets of all of us. We're behind the desk talking normally about the match ahead, but to the viewer at home there are four puppets at the desk that all look like us.

'My favourite moment was GoDz's [David Parker] puppet started rubbing my hand. I could see this and I said "GoDz, what are you doing?" He said "your skin is so soft, what moisturiser do you use?"

'I thought about it for a moment, and I said "it's a personal brand." He kinda looked at me, and no one could see this because we were hidden behind the desk, he looked at me with an aghast face going "what the hell?" He didn't want to say anything.

'Then Ted, PyrionFlax, at the other end was like "guys, come on what are we doing here?" There was this awkward silence as people's brains figured out what I'd meant by "personal brand." Then I thought "that's a bit risky, I might get into trouble for that," but luckily Valve were very cool about it.'

Redeye's favourite TI hosting segment was when Valve made puppets out of all the talent

Looking ahead to TI2018, which starts up on August 15, Redeye is fully prepared for what's ahead. He told me he's spent at least 100 hours on a spreadsheet with all the information he needs on every single player at the tournament.

With all the preparation he's done for Dota 2 this year, he must have a pretty good idea of who's going to win it. I asked him to give me a run down of the favourites, and also a mini guide for new viewers.

'It's a $25 million tournament, so we will get an awful lot of new viewers. The first thing is to enjoy the commentary and listen along. Pop onto Reddit. Dota 2 people on Reddit are generally quite friendly. Tell them you're new, you're enjoying the game and you want to learn about it, and they'll point you to a ton of resources.

'If you want to tune in and follow a team, there's a number of different teams to look out for this year. For those who don't know, there's never been a two time winner of The International. No player has ever won it twice, no team has ever won it twice, and here we are in year number eight. The fact we don't have a double winner is a big story this year, because there are 11 previous winning players who'll attend, and they all have a shot. The fun thing for me is that those players are split among six different teams.

Could Team Liquid make it two wins in a row?

'If you want to follow a team that will have a repeat winner, follow Team Liquid because all five of their players won it last year.

'Of the other six players, there's SumaiL [Sumail Hassan] and s4 [Gustav Magnusson], both fantastic players. SumaiL has won it before with Evil Geniuses, s4 with Alliance. Both now play for EG, so they both have the chance for a double, and EG could win for the second time after they won in 2015.

'Their captain that year was ppd [Peter Dager] who now plays for OpTic Gaming, who have been playing fantastically. I think they're slightly less favourite than Liquid, same with Evil Geniuses. They're a bit up and down because of the roster changes, but they're fun to watch.

'The other one to watch is Universe [Saahil Arora], he's playing with Fnatic this season. They probably don't have the best shot, but they've got the lineup to do it.

'A good one to watch is Puppey [Clement Ivanov]. He won the very first TI with Na'Vi, then finished 2nd at TI2, and 2nd at TI3. He's back this year with Team Secret, and they've been one of the top four teams the entire season. Their form coming into it wasn't quite as good, but I know they were a bit burned out. Now they've had a break, they can come back very strong.

'A final double winner could be Faith [Zeng Hongda], playing for Newbee, who got to the final last year and lost to Liquid, but he has also won it in the past.

'The other team we haven't mentioned but have a genuine chance of winning, but it's more because of the style of play and I think you'll really enjoy it because they're a bit meme-y, a bit BM, they're a bit lairy in game, they spam chat commands all the time, and that's Virtus.pro.

'They've had their contracts extended to 2019, they've been phenomenal all season long, so they're in a really good place right now. I felt at the end of the season they were just toying with their opposition like a lion with its food.

'If there's a real favourite for this, it's actually VP or Liquid, and that for me would be the dream final.'

However, despite all these top players and teams, Redeye has a surefire method for predicting this year's winner.

Redeye is picking LGD to win The International 2018, but only because of curses and memes

'My pick is this: LGD. They also go by PSG but I don't tend to call them that because they don't spell esports properly.'

Redeye is a fierce advocate of not capitsalising the s in 'esports.' No one can really argue with him, especially now that it's in the AP Stylebook.

'They've never won TI, but they're a legendary team when it comes to Dota 2. They've been around almost from the beginning, they feature prominently at TI, often finishing in the top three like they did last year. It's odd that a top organisation like LGD has never won it. None of their players have won it either, which means it'll be an 8th consecutive TI with no org and no players winning it for a second time.

'Finally, there's the Chinese curse, which is that they only win TI in even years. Invictus Gaming won it in 2012, Newbee in 2014, and Wings in 2016. Therefore, it's 2018, it's a Chinese team, we can't have anyone that's already won it otherwise the streak is broken, so it has to be LGD this year.

'...Unless you're not superstitious. Maybe you don't believe in curses or memes, in which case don't follow LGD.'