Dota 2 news » The coils of life and death now bind us all

Today’s update continues the expansion of our training experience for new players.

Play as Sniper in an all new lesson and defeat Tidehunter as you learn more advanced game concepts. Also introduced is the Archronicus, a tome of knowledge containing various artifacts and lore from the Dota universe, which are revealed by completing additional training lessons. Who knows what words of forbidden power are contained within?

Afterwards play the new Limited Hero mode where players choose from a pre-selected set of 20 heroes, designed to help introduce you to the wealth of mechanics Dota has to offer. You can play offline, with friends, or match make with similarly skilled players in the Dota 2 community allowing you to learn at your own pace. We hope this mode will provide a good training ground for new players that are ready to experience the game that is Dota 2.

This week, thanks to our friends over at Twitch, you can now link your Steam account to their service. This link makes you eligible for tournament item drops while watching Twitch streams as long you own the ticket for that tournament. We realize that people have different reasons why they prefer to watch in game or via streams and wanted to bridge the gap of features they were missing out on by choosing the service that works for them the most. We hope to expand on the features available via this system and would love to hear what you think we should work on next.

One last thing we want to mention is Beyond the Summit’s new courier El Gato. What makes this little guy so special is that it is the first courier that evolves by watching games that involves a particular brand. You can unlock El Gato’s second style by watching 60 games the Beyond the Summit crew is in. El Gato can evolve forever as more styles are added to it, all you have to do is continue to spectate.