You could say r/dota is the de facto voice of dota 2 community. If the game is suffering, their voice will be heard and pitchforks will be raised and what can I say, it seems to work.

In this age of Snipers and Trolls, lack of new heroes and the occasional server hiccup, the relationship has been kind of... unhappy.

But Valve appeared with news of change, tournaments and compendiums and all is forgiven. The rekindled flames of old love burn bright again. The tsun turn into dere and upvotes fly high again.

It's a cycle which starts as the international approaches and reaches it's maximum at the event itself, and slowly falls back to indifierence and eventually hate as the meta gets stale again and people demand new heroes and Diretide.

But for now, enjoy the hype!