We did not get drawn to the fantasy Dota 2 models that have been promoted in such a heavy matter in the past 6 months. We believe that it was mostly because going through the rules, setting a team, securing the inside information that is needed to do well, all of this felt like a chore rather than making the experience enjoyable.
Recently, we came across ESP (eSportsPools), and we were immediately sold, and it is not only because it is completely free, but it took us only one minute to own a fantasy team from the second we opened the site: this included reading the rules, signing up and making our picks for the International.
We did not analyze the prizes, however, off the top of my head, we would say that they are worth approximately $300 – but it is free, and it takes a minute, so we are not going to complain.
The concept of Fantasy Dota 2 league was initially introduced by the Valve Corporation in the summary for The International 2013. Owners of the summary were able to make an extra fantasy DOTA 2 team and were rewarded with different in-game prizes.
In 2014, the new patch expanded on the idea and included a Fantasy 2 League, where friends join together to create teams made of the current professional players. In order to enter the league, users would initially buy a ticket, make a league, invite people, and arrange an in-play draft. Then the fantasy league would automatically make matchups to win points against the other members of their league. Dota 2 Fantasy points got awarded when pro players on your roster took part in the tournaments. The winner was awarded different items in the game itself.
The Daily Fantasy DOTA 2 game concept is relatively new. It takes the traditional model and compresses it in a daily, and maybe a weekly game. Fantasy DOTA 2 is currently playable at AlphaDraft and Vulcun. Moreover, eSportsPlus has already launched and is currently offering free $10 for signing up.
How to Play
Here are 3 quick steps to get in the DOTA 2 Fantasy game.
- Pick a Contest
- Pick Your Team
- Score the Most Points
Usually, the games last only one day or week. From the lobby, you can pick the daily contest you want to enter. You are able to play for free, or you can make things quite exciting by playing for money. You are able to enter as many games as you like to increase your possibilities of winning.
Once you have chosen your contest, you will need to choose your fantasy team for that day’s games. All you have to do is stay under the money cap and watch the players you choose to destroy the competition.
When the games start your athletes accumulate points based on the way they perform in the in-play games. If your team gets more points than your opponents on that day, you will take home the winnings instantly. You do not have to wait for the season to end, the payouts will be instant.
Strategies
Here are a few strategies that we recommend you to try.
- Point Distribution
- Choosing the Proper Players
- Researching to Consistently Win
Initially, you have to understand the way users earn points in Fantasy Dota 2. Imagine that there is a tournament with three teams: Evil Geniuses, Team Secret, and CDEC Gaming. Every one of them consists of five players. The teams will play against one another. There are also the users who pick their personal fantasy team.
The usual rule for calculating the score for an individual user is:
Kill: +2 points
Death: – 1 point
Assist: +1.6 points
Creep: +0.01 points
Now let us say that an athlete got a score of 10/6/5 KDA as well as 100 creeps. His final score is going to be (10*2) – (6*1) + (5*1.6) + (100*0.01) = 23. While this particular athlete had a decent game, his teammate struggled and ended with a KDA of 3/12/10 and 60 farms (creeps). His score would be (3*2) – (10*1) + (10*1.6) + (60*0.01) = 12.6.
When choosing the players, the initial thing to look out for is the money you receive for salaries. This cap means that you cannot spend over that particular limit when adding athletes to your team. Every user has his personal salary that is usually determined by the average points he receives per season, player popularity and last week points. For those with a lot of knowledge of rosters, picking the most valuable athletes for their team will not be a problem at all.
The other thing is that a team must be balanced very well. For instance, choosing four mid laners for a team is not the best idea since one of the teams has to lose. Moreover, not everyone can have a decent score when the game ends. There is no need to mention that choosing four mid laners will take a huge chunk of your salary cap.
It is crucial that you know what is going on with the league. Doing this will give you an edge over the opponents who do not. So do your research and win.
The Sign-up Process at ESP
Creating an account with ESP is painless, and it is completely free. All you have to do is press the sign up button, type in your email address, and pick a username and password.
Do not forget to verify your email once you have received a validation email, and you will be in business.
ESP System and Rules
Here is the simple part as you choose five players who will are going to make your points. Every assist or kill they add to their name during the game you sign up for one point. Each time they die, you lose one point.
The system will not let you choose more than 2 players from the exact same squad. You can alter your choices up until 5 minutes prior to the event you signed up.
And then again there is the tiebreaker.
It is possible that 2 or more users end up with the same number of points, so you have to make sure that they do not leave anything to chance, ESP uses a tie-breaking question. For the TI5 pool, the question is “How many seconds until the initial tower is destroyed in the last map of the tourney?”
You should mind that this is secondary to the number of points and only applies if there are 2 or more users end up with the same amount of points. However, in the unlikely case that after points and the tiebreaking question, there are users that end up in the same spot, the winner is the person who signed up first.
Once you are done with everything, you have to end up with a 5 men roster that you are going to put to work in this year’s International. A nice feature is the possibility to share your picks with a link.
General Information
- Users can create a Fantasy League every time after you buy a ticket.
- Users who have such a ticket can join any league.
- Every league can hold up to ten members, thus ten teams.
- After a league has been made, users can invite their friends for a timed In-Play Draft to choose pro players for their Fantasy Teams.
- Every professional player can be drafted by only one person.
- Users who do not make it to the drafting time are going to have randomly chosen team members.
- Users who miss the In-Play Draft will have random athletes chosen by the system.
- Users that have been kicked out of a league are going to have their ticket refunded.
- The system will match teams automatically in the same league against each other each week.
- The team that has the most points at the end of the week will win that round.
- The settings, including scoring, could be customized by the league commissioner.
- The Valve Corporation provides an official interface for tracking Fantasy statistics.
Team Roster
Roster and scores:
- Every team is able to have up to eight players.
- Rosters are able to be altered once a day.
- Team users are locked for the day once the individual has begun scoring.
Roles
- Pro players are categorized into Support and Core roles.
- Core: Mid-lane, off-lane, and Carry.
- Support
- Roles do not have an effect on the scoring.
- Every Fantasy Team has to include this combination of pro players by roles:
Active Roster
- Two Core
- Two Support
- One Any
Bench
- Three Any
Free Agents
- Teams are able to drop a pro player from its roster and pick up another one that is not owned by another team.
- These requests are processed during the evenings.
- There is only one request that can be active at a time.
- If several teams attempt to choose the same athlete, the priority is given to the team that has the worst record.
- Trading is not supported yet.