Can't say I saw any of the ending as a "twist" — all of that was pretty clearly telegraphed throughout the episode, right from one of the first shots, namely of a box of photos — but this was a pretty damn terrific pilot. The entire cast is solid and, especially for a first episode, the actors already feel like…

I can't wait to watch this and cry and then make fun of it publicly while secretly pining for a new episode each week.

This years production was absolute top-notch. The fact that all downtime between matches was filled with content was just amazing. It actually made it difficult to go outside the stadium and get food/go to the bathroom because you wanted to stay and watch everything!

I watched this, I’ve never installed Dota before or seen a match. I had no idea what was going on. It was freaking exciting as hell. I now have Dota installed and am doing bot matches to learn to play.

Nobody. The money is raised through sales from Valve to the community of in-game items or direct donations from the community. Obviously one big sponsor is Valve, but they own the game and put on the tournament and that makes sense.

Valve funds a majority of the tournament through crowdfunding.

Despite both teams playing it really safe with the drafts - which I mean, I guess I can’t fault ‘em for - I thought this year’s finals were pretty good. Was rooting for DC, but damned if Wings don’t deserve their victory with some of the great stuff they pulled.

The fans. I got a compendium and probably spent $300 on upgrades to it so I could get free stuff. On top of that got an HTC vive so I could watch the matches in real time and VR. I know I'm not the most hard core valve/Dota2 fan either I saw a lot of people in VR watching too (you can see other viewers) plus all those…

Weatherman Purge is the best TI6 meme.

If you actually know how to play Dota 2 specifically, you’d know that it’s not really slow at all. It’s actually many moves and decisions made in a matter of split seconds.

Imagine a Dungeons & Dragons all nighter happening in one match. While playing ping pong.

If they like spending money and progression systems, the Dota 2 Battle Pass is a great place to start.

Everyone sucks at Dota when they start, and they still suck 2000+ hours in. That’s the point, you never not suck pretty much, but you always continue to get better, and that’s part of the fun, working to improve and learning something new with each match. It’s free, give it a shot!

It’s getting harder and harder and harder and harder to defend LoL as it continues its slide toward mediocrity and Dota keeps doing shit like this. Why anyone would pay for heroes is beyond me anyway, but the kids love to spend mom's money on them anyway.