Clement “Puppey” Ivanov, one of Team Secret’s founding members, has been with the organization since its inception. But in a recent post on FaceIt, Puppey’s former team, NAVI, showcased him as an active roster member, leading to speculation about the player’s future.

In a recent Reddit post, Puppey appeared on NAVI’s active roster page, which led to a discussion on forum sites. Puppey’s Team Secret roster has seen numerous reshuffles throughout the last decade, but if there was one mainstay on the team, it was Captain Puppey himself.

The 2024 edition of The International has wrapped, and you know what that means: It’s Dota 2 rostermania time. Teams will be looking to adjust heading into the next season, which kicks off just weeks after TI wrapped up in Denmark.

There’s no better time to make necessary roster changes than after TI, and we’ve seen some pretty huge swaps come out of the post-TI season. 2024 has been no different already; teams that didn’t qualify for Dota‘s pinnacle tournament didn’t even wait for the event to end before pulling the trigger on a swap or two. Without the DPC in place, there’s no hard date on roster locks, but with qualifiers for the likes of BetBoom Dacha and DreamLeague creeping ever closer, teams won’t be waiting too long to lock in their five players for the season ahead.

Twenty-five heroes went unpicked at Dota 2’s The International 2024—21 of whom went uncontested, setting a new record in the event’s 13-year-long history. But why did these heroes not see the light of day?

With the variety in Dota 2’s hero pool, every hero has a place within a certain meta, making them viable in specific lineups. This year’s event saw the meta develop in a particular direction, with ranged carries dominating the scene in favor of melee heroes.

This year’s The International has come and gone, and you’d think one of the best heroes at the pinnacle Dota 2 tournament would see an uptick in pick and win rates as players replicate the pros in their Herald matches. Not so this time, it seems, with this year’s top support Naga Siren floundering.

Naga Siren was the most contested hero at TI 2024, notching an impressive 96 percent contest rate according to stats site Spectral. She only made it through draft 12 times but in three-quarters of her matches her team won thanks to her adaptive kit and the all-important Deluge Hero Facet. Yet, despite all of this, her needle’s barely moved in ranked; she sits in the bottom 10 for win rate as casual players keep plugging her in as a carry hoping for a miracle.

Viewership of Dota 2‘s The International has dived for the third straight year, with stats indicating a drop of 17 percent for 2024’s premier tournament despite a near-identical peak in yesterday’s epic grand final between Team Liquid and Gaimin Gladiators.

Liquid finally broke Gaimin’s stranglehold over the pair’s Dota 2 head-to-head record in yesterday’s TI 2024 grand final, ending a remarkable loss streak that stretched five finals in two years. A touch over 1.4 million Dota 2 fans tuned in to catch the grand final according to Esports Charts, and while this number matches that of 2023’s final between Gaimin and Team Spirit, viewership over the course of the tournament was far below par.

The Dota 2 meta changes by the day as-is, but when a tournament like The International comes around the event develops its own bubble where the best heroes in ranked don’t even get a look or an untouched pick at Divine becomes a TI-defining hero.

2024’s edition of the pinnacle tournament is no different. Here’s a look at the best and worst Dota 2 heroes of TI 2024 so far, as well as a list of those who went totally uncontested at the event.

Every new Crownfall Act has introduced exciting new content like quests, minigames, and skins—and the anticipation for Crownfall Act four’s release in Dota 2 increased tenfold after Valve confirmed the new hero’s launch will be tied to the event.

Valve recently abandoned the traditional battle pass system introduced around The International yearly to focus more on Dota 2 gameplay updates. The Crownfall event kicked off in April and was set to have multiple acts over several months. Now, shortly before The International’s grand final, the developer confirmed Kez—the game’s next hero—will be released with Dota 2’s Crownfall Act Four, leaving many to wonder when the final act will unlock.

Dota 2’s The International 2024 is the pinnacle event in the Dota competitive calendar. The undisputed top 16 teams in the world converged in Denmark for two weeks, battling it out to become the 14th team to lift the Aegis of Champions.

The Aegis has belonged to Team Spirit for two of the last three years; however, the Russian squad was unable to continue their dominant TI run after a shock upset in Copenhagen, leaving just eight contenders to claim victory (and of course the lion’s share of the crowdfunded prize pool) during the finals weekend in the Royal Arena on Sept. 13.

Never in doubt, right? Ultimately, a 3-0 sweep decided the fate of the Aegis of Champions in a topsy-turvy iteration of The International in Copenhagen, where Team Liquid capped off their dominant run in imperious fashion to make Neta “33” Shapira the first-ever player to win TI with two different teams.

In the end, only Team Spirit found a way to lay a glove on Team Liquid—but only in the group stage. From that point onwards, Nisha and co. went from strength to strength with every passing round in yet another dominant year for European Dota.

One of the fan favorites fell agonizingly short at Dota 2‘s The International 13 as Tundra Esports lost out on a grand final spot after a spectacular 68-minute game three against Gaimin Gladiators, ending Topson’s TI dreams.

The star midlaner of Tundra Esports, made it all the way through the group stages to the upper bracket of TI13, only to get knocked down to the lower bracket by Gaimin Gladiators. After a few upset wins, including knocking out China’s last hope, Xtreme Gaming, things were looking up for the Finn until they reached the lower bracket finals, facing their nemesis again, with elimination on the line.