7.20 so far seems to leave the community with feelings of the first kind. There is, however, a pinch of disappointment as well, especially if one of your favorite heroes got heavily reworked for no apparent reason. There are many major changes to heroes that seemed to work perfectly fine. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

The fact is, there was a time in Dota when the balance in the game reached an almost perfect equilibrium. There was a rather large period when ~90% of heroes were picked and were viable competitively.

If you think about it, however, probably your fondest memories of the game aren’t of this time period. Rather, they are of the time when you discovered new things, stumbled upon imba heroes, combos, and strategies and got to share them and test them with your friends. As the game grows older and its players more experienced, this sense of discovery fades away.

It’s probably not a coincidence that some of the changes in 7.20 feel a bit like Dota 1 (the Drow instant kill mechanic, etc.) – for many of us, these fond memories of discovery date back to Dota 1.

In that sense, it’s not a surprise that 7.20 tries to shake up Dota fundamentally!

All the chaos (and all the imbalances that come with it) make it fresh and bring back the sense of wonder.

We talked with a couple of immortal players to try to deduct some of the most significant changes in the game and to try to get a grasp of where things are headed: