LiveInternational
18 OCT — 5 NOV
EPL Masters III
A long-form online event with plenty of drafts and series to study.
Current calendar ↗
Dota guides · tournament watch · Malaysia
Learn the game.
Learn the game.
Follow the scene.
Play better.
Dota got plenty going on, but the explanation can still be simple lah. Impulse88 breaks down heroes, items and pro matches in plain English, with a Southeast Asian point of view.
28 hero guides · 8 item primers · Updated event watch
HomeMalaysia
FocusDota 2
LanguagePlain English
StatusCommunity project
“
From the editor
Kelvin · Impulse88 Malaysia
Dota is hard enough. The explanation doesn’t have to be.
We write the guide we wanted when we first queued on SEA: what matters now, why it matters and what to try in your next match. Can learn properly without reading one whole encyclopedia first.
Why we built this
Learn with a plan
Ranked is feedback, not your identity.
Pick one thing to practise, review the moments that changed the game and keep the useful lesson for tomorrow. The medal follows better decisions — not the other way around.
Open the learning plan- 01Learn one role
Know your lane job, first item timing and where you should be when nothing is happening.
- 02Review the turning point
Find the first decision you could change, not the last fight everyone remembers.
- 03Watch better players
Follow drafts and map movement, then test one idea in your own matches.
Tournament desk
Open the tournament desk
What the scene is playing now.
Current and upcoming Dota worth following, checked 25 October 2026.
LiveInternational
22 OCT — 1 NOV
PARI Universe
Ten teams in another useful snapshot of the post-TI competitive field.
Current calendar ↗NextBLAST
20 — 29 NOV
BLAST Slam IX
The next major global checkpoint, played online with sixteen teams.
Official event brief ↗
The rest of this site
New to Dota? Can start here.
Two teams of five. One map. One building at the back of each base that the other side is trying to knock down. Everything else serves that one sentence.
Start with the basics
28 heroes · 8 items · no prior knowledge needed
First time? Start here.
No need memorise everything. Get these three ideas first.
5v5
Two teams
Radiant on the bottom left, Dire on the top right. Five players each, every one controlling one hero for the whole match.
MAP
Three lanes
Three paths connect the bases, with a forest between them. Towers guard each lane, and a river cuts across the middle.
WIN
One objective
Destroy the Ancient in the enemy base. Kills, farm and items are ways of getting close enough to do that.
One hero from each attribute
Every hero has a primary attribute — Strength, Agility, Intelligence or Universal — which shapes how they grow.
STR
Axe
Off lane · pos 3Walks in first, and wants to be hit.
Strength
Initiator
Durable
Disabler
AGI
Juggernaut
Safe lane · pos 1Spins away from trouble, spins into it too.
Agility
Carry
Pusher
Escape
INT
Lina
Mid · pos 2Two spells, one dead hero.
Intelligence
Nuker
Carry
Disabler
UNI
Windranger
Mid / off lane · pos 2-4Pins you to a tree, then reads the patch notes at you.
Universal
Carry
Support
Disabler
Why anyone puts up with it
Dota is famously unfriendly to beginners, and the reason is the same as the reason people stay: almost nothing has been taken out. Over a hundred heroes, hundreds of items and interactions that keep changing what matters right now.
That is also why no two games feel the same. The same hero can be a farming carry in one match and a roaming support in the next, because the thing that changed was not the hero — it was the other nine people.