I’ll make one thing abundantly clear right at the start: captaining is, by a significant margin, the best way to improve your odds at having the enjoyable experience you envision in the moment you sign up — and this is chiefly because it allows you the opportunity of choosing exactly…

Frankly, you were right to expect it. I settled on the choice to go on hiatus after Season 8 a few months back, but I wasn’t really sure I’d actually do it until I pressed send on the message informing the staff of this. I wasn’t sure, because I’d settled…

Clarity League Season 8, Division 1 — Madsen | Draagaan | Arian | Calli | Nsphere Draft My general take on player drafts is that you either splash cash on a big name player and then hunt down the best cheap role fillers, or you aim to get multiple somewhat-expensive players that you’re confident make up a competitive…

They’re not back gang, this is a one off. Actually, while I’m tempering expectations, let’s do so fully: I only intend to do Div1 — I don’t feel like I have as much to say about Divs 2 and 3, and from having written a couple dozen of these over…

The idea behind this series of blogs was to share my perspective on the overarching considerations that go into assessing any given part of a Dota league; as such, this entry is sorta out of place, as it deals with a specific event — but I figure it’s appropriate to…

This tome of the manifesto (and perhaps the next few) deals less with overarching abstract considerations on a league, instead focusing on whining about some of the very real logistical nightmares of league organization. I often speak on issues of burnout and the general thanklessness of the gig, but rarely…

People keep asking me for my thoughts on the changes Valve implemented to the rating system, so in lieu of rehashing it every time I’ve opted to go over it here. I’ll admit that most of this comes from my perspective as a participant in ranked matchmaking, but will touch…

Monetization in the space & the monolith of the head admin I’ve recently been encouraged by a couple of people to make public the many drafts I have, and I’ll admit that I get the itch to do a bit of writing fairly often. My hesitance comes mostly from the fact that this isn’t the content I’m usually known for, or…

I wasn’t intent on writing anything for this, for a number of reasons — but I see some value in describing the experience as a whole for people who might be interested — particularly in the concept of a long-term event in which you play with a pre-made team, as…