Memes

This is a list of popular Memes amongst the Dota 2 community.

James is an ass. FIRED
Relating to a reddit post by Gabe Newell firing the host of the Shanghai Major, James "2GD" Harding and calling him an "ass". "FIRED" is used as a reaction to personalities cursing or using any mildly suggestive language.

2GD's "exile" would be put to an end when he returned to participate as part of The International 11.

PLS MR LIZARD
The community uses this meme whenever the current gameplay version gets too old or unbalanced, "Mr Lizard" relating to IceFrog.

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give DIRETIDE
A meme commonly used during the Halloween season asking the developers of Dota 2 to bring back the Diretide event. First used in Diretide 2013. It has also been used to ask for different things, under the form of "つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give X". A notable incident of this was during TI6's arcana vote, where people kept spamming ""つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Giff Io Arcana".

Relax, game is still in beta
Relates to the folder name of Dota 2 in the steam library which is "dota 2 beta", this meme gets used when someone complains about game issues or bugs.

Literally nothing
This meme gets used when a patch changes only unimportant or insignificant things. Alternatively, "literally something" is used when a patch makes a change of any significance.

Free game so no bitching / What rules?
Used when Valve release a cosmetic that breaks their own workshop rule: "Never break the color scheme of the hero". Used in conjunction with this image for maximum effectiveness. Originated from a common response to complaints about cosmetics ("Why are you complaining when you didn't pay for this game?"). It has to be noted that there are custom-made nohats mods which allow removal of cosmetics, despite Valve trying to fight this.

The technology just isn't there yet
This meme gets used when the game developer doesn't deliver the highly requested, easy to implement features to the game. This is a reference to Starcraft 2 not implementing LAN play at launch because "the technology just isn't there yet", despite the fact that previous versions of the game had supported the feature for over a decade.

OSfrog Nothing wrong here / Balance in all things / Looks fine to me / My finest creation OSFrog
Spammed by the community whenever a hero they deemed overbuffed gets a kill or makes amazing plays, while simultaneously poking fun at the frog's idea of balanced. "OSFrog" is still in current use though the twitch emote affiliated with it has been moved to OPFrog. On April 14, 2018, the emote was moved again to OSFrog. Balance in all things is a reference to a voice line by Ember Spirit.

322
Originating from the player 'Solo' who won $322 after betting $100 against his own team. Originally used to suggest that a team might be throwing a game, and matchfixings. However, today 322 is also used whenever a player makes a questionable play, a player gets picked off for no reason, a team loses a teamfight while they are in the lead, or if the enemy team manages to make a comeback. In cases of back and forth throws 644 (322*2) and 966 (322*3) may also be used.

17%
The RNG percentage roughly approximated to "literally always". The meme comes from 's having a 17% proc rate while usually permastunning the enemy with no chance of retaliation. The meme started to die out when Greater Bash began using Pseudo-random distribution.

?
The most tilting thing to type in all chat after a misplay on the enemy's part. Usually used after every little enemy mistake. Since 2017, the International Battle Pass contains a "?" icon for denies as opposed to the usual "!" as a level reward. Additionally, when the system clock is set to April 1, all deny symbols are replaced with "?".

CS LUL
Spammed on twitch whenever a player misses a last hit on stream.

B-God's Dynasty
Arguably the most popular player in China, Burning, according to Chinese players, has his own Dota dynasty, which includes multiple family and court members consisting of the top Chinese players. Some examples include Fy being the crown prince since he and Burning share the same surname and Rotk being the royal concubine, due to his long-standing relationship with Burning. Burning's most trusted men also include Team DK's TI4 squad.

s4head
A combination of s4 and the 4Head Twitch emote, the term is often used sarcastically whenever s4 or his current or former teammates (most notably AdmiralBulldog and Alliance's TI3 squad) make a terrible or questionable play.

Babyrage Arteezy
Arteezy is often known for having loud outbursts during stream, occasionally reporting people for bad plays, being annoying to deal with, picking Techies and other miscellaneous reasons. Due to his younger age, and his relationship with the "old man", Fear, Arteezy's whining has been compared to that of a baby.

Additionally, any baby that appears on stream is referred to as "Arteezy".

Arteezy's 3rd Curse
A joke at how many of Arteezy's placings at events would be 3rd or top 3-4. Examples cited would be his performances at TI4, TI8, the Shanghai Major, the Boston Major and the Frankfurt Major. This would imply that Arteezy's curse will only bring him up to 3rd place in valve events

Scientists Baffled
A phrase used to make fun of EternalEnvy's tendency to throw games, or make ridiculous plays that lead to him, and his team, losing games. Originated from a parody of an Onion article of with the title, "Scientists Baffled by Man's Incredible Ability to Fuck Up Every time", but with Envy's mug shot being photoshopped into the article.

Jacky Mao, the Artist
One of EternalEnvy's nicknames in the Chinese community is "The Artist". The reasoning is primarily due to how people often struggle to understand art, much like EternalEnvy's decision making skills.

FiftEE / FiftEE
Known for playing high risk, regardless of the reward, EternalEnvy is known for either being able to make huge or efficient plays or making mistakes in a horrible and humiliating fashion. As a common trend in Reddit, the usual format is as follows: "[50/50] EE makes a x play | EE makes a y play".

ASSFAGGOTS
An acronym for Aeon of Strife Styled Fortress Assault Game Going On Two Sides. Used to make fun of people trying to fit Dota 2 into genres like ARTS or MOBA.

KA LE
KA LE (卡 了) is a Chinese term for game stuttering / Lagging. Often spammed in chat whenever the stream lags.

Fuck Slacks
During a segment in the Boston Major, Purge and SirActionSlacks interviewed the Major's host, and he was asked what the community says whenever they wanted something to be fixed. While the correct answer was "Volvo plz", Purge mused that he would've accepted "Fuck Slacks" as well. Whenever SirActionSlacks performs something, people may spam "Fuck Slacks", be it on online threads or forums or during streams.

Purge still reading patch notes
A joke made whenever Purge makes a patch analysis video whenever a new patch is released. As his videos are obscenely long (7.00 patch video was more than 9 hours, while 7.07 exceeded 10 hours), the community generally believes that Purge will endlessly read the patch, occasionally even long after a new patch is released. Humorously, a post containing his 7.00 patch was released to Reddit ASMR, and quickly reached the subreddit's front page.

Another note is how he points out that his guides for the previous patch can be rendered instantly worthless by major changes such as the removal of Ring of Aquila.

Gods of Dota
Dating back to the Warcraft 3 Dota days, the Chinese, who went on to dominate the competitive scene, were famous for giving the "God" nickname to outstanding players. These players were highly respected for their skills and knowledge regarding the game, and held real-life influence towards the direction of the scene. Ironically, some of the first gods were foreign players, which included Merlini, Loda and Vigoss. As time went on the south-east asian and Chinese scene grew, the list would also extend to players like Burning, Yaphets and Yamateh.

The influence of the "Gods" would eventually spread to the west, and if a player makes a skillful play either during a fight or throughout the game, that person will use the "God" nickname.

A nickname often uses the first letter of the player's id followed by the suffix "God". e.g (Merlini = M-God, Burning = B-God.)

MMR is just a number
A term made by Dendi during an interview at Malaysia in 2014. Over time, due to Na'vi's slump as well as the rise of pubstars to the pro scene such as w33 and Miracle-, the term has been used sarcastically by twitch chat whenever a player with notably high MMR is able to escape a gank or make a skillful play and is occasionally accompanied by DendiFace emotes.

The TI Sequence
Refers to how every odd numbered International was won by a Western team, and how China has won every even numbered International. The sequence was finally broken with OG's victory in The International 2018.

The TI Curse
A "curse" that afflicts all International winners, seeing the team have a sharp decline in results leading up to future Valve events.

Natus Vincere: The curse hit Na'vi much later than most of the other winners. While the team was able to take go to a grand finals series in the next two Internationals, the team saw a rapid decline during TI4 where they only finished 7th-8th, last place at the succeeding Internationals and failing to qualify for Frankfurt, Shanghai, Boston and Kiev Majors.

Invictus Gaming: Invictus Gaming shared a similar fate to Na'vi, where they also only finished 7th-8th at TI4, which saw declining performances with a 9th-12th place at TI5, and failures to even qualify at all the succeeding Valve events until the Kiev Major. Notably, TI2 member, Faith, was caught in a match-fixing scandal as part of Newbee and became the first TI Champion to be indefinitely banned from Valve events.

Alliance: Despite dominating TI3 and the season leading up to TI4, Alliance failed to even make it to the main event during TI4, and did not qualify for TI5. The team later finished 7th-8th at Shanghai while also finishing bottom half of TI6, Manila and Frankfurt Majors before failing to qualify for Boston and Kiev Majors.

Newbee: Newbee suffered a horrible season for most of 2015 and early 2016, where the team saw a sharp decline in performance to TI5, where the defending champions finished last. After another last place finish at Frankfurt, the team ended in the bottom half of TI6 and Shanghai, though the team had a resurgence at Manila, which carried on after TI6. After the team's poor slump in 2019-2020, the organization was caught in a match-fixing scandal and became the first TI-winning organization to be indefinitely banned Valve events.

Evil Geniuses: By far the least scathed of the winners. EG suffered a last place finish at the Manila Major; the team has since recovered. The team once again hit a brick wall during TI7, however, where the team finished at a highly disappointing bottom half finish. In the new Dota 2 Pro Circuit, EG failed to make enough points to qualify for TI8, and were forced to undergo open qualifiers once again. After changing the roster by adding S4 and Fly, the team has made another recovery and defeated then-champions, Team Liquid, at TI8.

Wings Gaming: Going into The International 2017, Wings Gaming showed a drastic decline, finishing bottom half of the tournaments on their way to defend their titles. In the lead up to the Kiev Major 2017, the squad held many conflicts with the organization's management, and subsequently departed to form, which placed poorly at the Kiev Major. Shortly afterwards, amidst rumors of disbandment, shadow revealed that all 5 players had been banned by ACE (Association of China E-sports), which prevented all members from participating in any tournament held within China, but y丶 and Faith bian had sold out the rest of the team and broke the promise of not cooperating with Xie, Wings's owner, anymore. The meltdown that ensued later led to y丶 and Faith_bian's departure from the team. By the time The International 2017 invites were being given out, the squad had completely disbanded, and it became the first International, where the previous year's champion were not present to defend their title.

X [Player], Win TI
Common posts by members of the community regarding notable roster changes in the lead-up and after The International, though the very first set of examples revolved completely around EternalEnvy. The very first example of the meme was after The International 2013, where Alliance, who had kicked EternalEnvy for EGM, had won the tournament, and the result was "Kick EE, win TI".

In the conclusion of Evil Geniuses's victory at The International 2015, the meme shifted into the form of "Kicked by EE, win TI", which refers to the decision to kick Aui_2000 from Cloud9. This was later altered into "Win TI, kick Aui", as a jab to ppd's decision to kick Aui immediately after the International for Arteezy.

During Wings's victory at The International 2016, it was revealed that Shadow had been a great fan of EternalEnvy, and the quote "Fanboy of EE, win TI" was made.

At an AMA after The International 2017, Kuroky was asked about how he would deal with the TI curse. In response, he replied that he followed Digital Chaos and Evil Geniuses's example of kicking Bulba and getting a good result during the next International and would counter-act one curse with another.

In 2022, Tundra Esports notably had a sudden shake-up. In order to bring Saksa to team, the members considered kicking Sneyking in order to make room, but team captain Fata was against this. In response, the team opted to kick Fata to have Saksa join while moving Sneyking to Fata's former position as captain. The team would later go on to win TI11 with a clean sweep against Secret.

Literally taking no damage
A crude comic with poorly-photoshopped text and images whenever a hero's base armor is increased slightly or when a hero is given a new survivability tool (e.g Necrophos' Ghost Shroud, Clinkz's Strafe being reworked to avoid projectiles). Originated from a tumblr comic about 6.77, where Doom's base armor was increased by one.

LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE
An overly exaggerated response to small issues, primarily grammatical errors, certain texts and images not being updated to new patches, aspects that are worthless (e.g: Refresher Shard having a counter even though it is not possible to stack them together) and inconsistencies in the map (the river of the map flowing from the northwestern portion to the map mysteriously passing the high ground of the southeastern portion without any point of entry or exit.)

The Chinese Dota 2 Team and Lebron James Relation
It is unlikely coincidence about any Chinese team and Lebron James win title or lose title at the same year in The International/NBA Finals except 2013 and 2014. Start from 2011, while Lebron James lost against Dallas Mavericks and in the International 2011 Chinese team EHOME lost against Na’Vi. In 2012 Lebron James lift the NBA title 1st time and Chinese team Invictus Gaming won the International 2012. Only in 2013 and 2014 this effects are reversed. In 2013, Lebron James lift the NBA title, while non-Chinese team, Alliance won The International 3, and 2014, Lebron James lost the NBA title, while Chinese team, Newbee won The International 2014. Starting from 2014, it happens again the relation about Lebron James and Chinese team in The International. While Lebron James lose in Finals or not reaching Finals, the Chinese team does it too, and vice-versa.

Another reason the relation of Lebron James and Chinese Dota 2 Team is on NBA/The International runner ups. It happens in 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018 while Chinese teams are runner up in The International Finals and Lebron James lost in NBA Finals at the same year. In 2012, 2013, and 2016 non-Chinese teams are lost in The International Finals and Lebron James win the NBA Finals at the same year. In 2019 and 2021, Lebron James were not in NBA finals, and still no Chinese team won the Internationals (Note : TI10 is held in 2020, but because of COVID-19 pandemic, it delayed into 2021, and in 2021, LBJ are not in Finals, and Chinese teams lose finals too).

Chinese Retirement
A "trend" for the older members of the Chinese players to announce their retirement from active play, only to return after a few months to a year from said statement. Notable examples include the "retirement" of Burning and ROTK after The International 2014 only for both to return by the next year.

Bulldog being kept out of the International.
After his retirement from professional play in 2016, Bulldog would be invited over to TI7 as a guest talent. He was, however, unable to secure a proper visa and was unable to attend. In the next year at TI8 in Vancouver, Bulldog once again failed to earn a visa to enter Canada and was denied entry. Gabe Newell referenced Bulldog's failure to attend at TI8 in the event's opening day.

In the following year, Bulldog would not attend TI9 due to conflicts thanks to the handling of Skem and Kuku's punishment after their racist remark controversy.

Come 2020, The International was cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19, denying Bulldog a shot to attend the event even though it's being held in his home country of Sweden. In 2021, the tournament was moved to Bucharest, Romania instead.

"Lakad Matatag!" ("Walk Steady!")
A famous line from a pair of Pinoy (Filipino) casters: Dunoo and Lon; the full line ("LAKAD MATATAG!" "Normalin, Normalin"), in original context, referred to somebody charging in with a BKB, and being hit heavily by right click attacks, which BKB does not protect against. Became a meme when it was included as an in-game voice line with the TI 8 Battlepass, and was repeatedly spammed in both pubs and pro games. This meme is first mentioned during the FNATIC vs Secret during the ESL ONE Katowice 2018 which ends with Underlord teleporting the dire to end the game. Alongside the quotes "NEXT LEVEL PLAY." and "EASIEST MONEY OF MY LIFE." The latter reason means that Filipinos can be millionaires by playing Dota due to the exchange rate of the country which is $1 is cost to Php 50.00. By 2021, it can also be considered a legacy due to Dunoo's passing.

I feel like Lion Shard is broken but no-one cares
On Reddit, a user created a post claiming Lion's Aghanim's Shard upgrade was broken and being slept-upon. The user posted an unorthodox build where Lion would tank up with stacked Plate Mails and raw HP, then use Blink Dagger to jump into the middle of the fight and start draining mana with Mana Drain. With over 3,000 HP and 20 armor, Lion would be too tanky to kill, so they would forced to use Black King Bar and/or disengage.

The post was quickly dubbed as a funny copypasta, spammed in Reddit and Twitch chat (when Lion was picked):


 * i feel like lion shard is broken but no one cares. i almost never buy ags or things like that. just ather lens, dagger, shard into plate mails and raw hp. i jump at middle of 5 man and just drain them. they either panic and use all spells on me or they try to stay and right click me but ive got 3k hp and 20 armor. they quickly run out of mana and have to force bkb or go back. my team can easily take the fight.

Reddit began to copy the format for other Aghanim's Shard upgrades:


 * : i feel like legion shard is broken but no one cares
 * : i feel like skywrath shard is broken but no one cares
 * : I feel like lycan shard is broken but no one cares

The original poster returned and saw the memes, and created a post claiming they were serious. Naturally, this post itself became a copypasta too.


 * just woke up to see my post has turn into copy pasta, i didnt say the hero is broken i said the shard itself is broken and beyond 1400 gold value. and you don't 1v5 with lion by any means, most of the times i die doing that but in expanse of enemy losing all their mana and spells and bkb.

The original poster also noted that there was a small uptick on the pick-rate (and, in fact, win-rate) of Lion on Dotabuff after the original meme post.

A meme post containing AI-generated voices of the likes of Gabe Newell and Kaci Aitchison around Lion's Aghanim's Shard also became popular, although it was later deleted due to subreddit rules on AI-generated content.

In the 7.35 patch, Lion's Mana Drain ability gained a huge buff, with his level 25 Talent being partly-incorporated into Mana Drain's core skill, allowing Lion to drain health at 100% of the mana drained. This led to Lion quickly becoming a meta hero, even in professional games. Samuel "Boxi" Svahn, of Team Liquid, played Lion in a professional match and began stacking Wraith Bands (slightly more cost-efficient for armor beyond 25 minutes than Plate Mail, albeit not as slot-efficient), and winning against BetBoom Team. Lion would also quickly become one of the most-contested heroes in professional-level pubs.

Can you pick a real hero? (Quinn on Pangolier)
Since the 7.34d patch, Pangolier had been nerfed multiple times, with the hero persistently being strong no matter how many times it was nerfed. In a pub match, Quinn "Quinn" Callahan, notably an outspoken and eloquent professional player, saw his opponent, Ilya "CHIRA_JUNIOR" Chirtsov, pick Pangolier, and proceeded to flame the pick in all-chat, claiming CHIRA_JUNIOR was ruining the game (by simply picking meta heroes, nobody would learn anything new. and matches would become predictable). Quinn went on to lose the match, also giving up during the match, itself another meme.

The flaming made it to Reddit, where Quinn was mocked for "policing" his pubs. However, it quickly took to new heights during The International 2023, where Quinn, with most of his usual heroes nerfed, was forced to resort to Pangolier multiple times. Fans then turned his rant into a meme and a copypasta.


 * Dude can you pick a real hero HOLY crap why are we picking pango in 2023? Arent you tryign to play pro or soetmhing? How about we play heroes that arent the objective best heroes in the game? You're genuinely a horrible horrible player. You just draw aggro off cooldown. I lost all respect for you. Imagine trying to play pro and picking pango every game in pubs. Truly disgusting. Your'e just a coward tbh. You dont know whats good against lesh so you pick pango cause its easy. Every game you pick that hero you get worse. And you're already horrible.

This is not Quinn's first rant against Pangolier. In 2020, Quinn (also known as "CCNC") ranted about lukiluki, a prominent Pangolier spammer, picking Pangolier again and again. This was quickly turned into a rage comic on Reddit, and Quinn referenced this in jest during an interview.

Can throne
In many Dota 2 matches, one player often gives up, either going away from their keyboard, or passively giving up (e.g. farming and ignoring the team). This type of behaviour is common on the US East server, and is typically associated with NA Dota. The phrase "can throne" (or variants such as "can end"/"end mid"/"end fast"/"won't defend") is commonly used in Twitch chat when a streamer gives up, or mockingly when a player famous for giving up dies or makes a bad play.

Quinn "Quinn" Callahan is a Dota 2 player who is highly-skilled, but somewhat-prone to giving up early when he feels the game is unwinnable. While Quinn is not the first player to do this, he is infamous for being eloquent and having a wide vocabulary when he flames. Quinn helped take the phrase "can throne" to new heights in 2023, when he moved to Gaimin Gladiators, and they became the most dominant team in the DPC that year, focussing the spotlight on their outspoken midlaner. Additionally, a BTTV emote where Quinn all-chatted "can throne" became popular on several streams.

Is this what SUNSfan warned us about?
During a We Say Things podcast, SUNSfan and syndereN talked about a "negative shift" within professional Dota, such as the panel of The International 2022 being hosted remotely in Norway. SUNSfan later mentioned that he had heard some bad news that would upset the community further, that would arrive after The International 2022, but could not give further details.

Due to the mysterious nature of the statement, fans began to speculate on what that bad news would be. As the next DPC season rolled around, fans began to meme every single negative incident that occurred, no matter how small, even when it was clearly not possible to predict, as "This is what SUNSfan warned us about" (or as a question: "Is this what SUNSfan warned us about?"). SUNSfan himself remained silent on the issue, adding to the mystery.

Some things the community has claimed SUNSfan was talking about:


 * PGL having the broadcast rights to the Western European and North American DPC regions, and ESL not getting any (context: PGL is seen as the primary reason why there was a remote panel for The International 2022, with reduced production value due to cost-cutting).
 * This specific point was later denied by SUNSfan as not being the bad news he talked about.
 * Evil Geniuses leaving the North American region
 * Beyond the Summit shutting-down
 * Talent such as Sheever, Ephey and Gareth not getting DPC work
 * Arkosh Gaming disbanding
 * Lima Major production issues

SUNSfan later walked back this statement, saying it was blown out of proportion, and that life would go on (naturally, this has not stopped the community from continuing it as a meme). SUNSfan also embraced the meme, pre-emptively confirming that the Dota 2 Arcade monetisation controversy was not what he warned about, and using the phrase as his voiceline for The International 2023.

Wash your face
A meme that originated from TI10 held in 2021, where PSG.LGD's soft support player, XinQ was found yawning during the drafting phase of the Game 1 of the TI10 Grand Finals, which PSG.LGD went on to lose. The coach of the team, xiao8 asked XinQ to wash his face after the game, but XinQ insisted that he was fine, but xiao8 insisted harder, going as far as to say that "it would give him peace of mind if he 'washed his face'.". The passive aggressive tone of the coach became a meme in the dota community.

It's all my fault
A meme originating in China as a response to The International 11's Swag Bag, which awards players who have played at least 10 games in the last season with a free arcana of their choice. Because of this generosity, players would once again thank Valve and the development team by worshipping them as gods. The translated copypasta is as follows:

''DOTA 2 is the best PC game I have ever played. The game has no shortcomings. The constant updates are for a better game experience. The red and blue screen of death (server disconnect messages) are also normal, it is my fault because I don't have enough life experience to understand it. The game stuttering issue is because I got bad computer, game server is Silky smooth. Not only that, there are also a lot of updates with handsome cosmetics and beautiful Arcana, The game rewards are rich as well, I can't open anything good from those treasures is because I didn't wash my face(Chinese memes, wash hand and face before open the treasure to wash off all the bad luck, also related to xiao8 TI10 memes). The constant disconnection from server is because I didn't buy the right router. In short, it's all my fault!''

Kuku's fault/Kuku's Venomancer/Kukumancer
During 2020, professional player Carlo "Kuku" Palad, then playing for Geek Fam, began playing Venomancer in professional matches frequently. Despite not being a popular meta hero, he would pick up several wins on it, including an 8-game win streak.

Towards the end of 2020, Kuku had begun to pick the hero last in the draft, often after a game loss or during a deciding match, such as this match against PSG.LGD at The International 2021. However, he was no longer winning on the hero (as of April 2023, he is on a 9-game losing streak), leading the SEA community to poke fun at Kuku's last-pick Venomancer. This meme spread internationally, being applied to other teams, where a last-pick Venomancer would be dubbed as a "Kuku Venomancer" or "Kukumancer" (especially when it had little impact).

During 2022, Kuku would join T1. During The International 2022 Last Chance Qualifiers, Kuku would not play Venomancer, but his teammate Xepher would, playing it 9 times out of their 18 matches, winning 5 of these 9 matches. Ultimately, however, the hero became less effective as the tournament went on, as they were knocked to the Lower Bracket by Team Secret and then eliminated by Vici Gaming whilst picking the hero, enforcing the meme's aspect of Venomancer being picked in a key match, but not winning.

Because Kuku had largely stopped playing the hero, the "Kukumancer" meme had lost momentum, but had instead slowly evolved into blaming Kuku in general. Questionable drafts and plays by his team (or Kuku himself) would be memed as "Kuku's fault". Kuku would also be occasionally be memed as the CEO of T1.

"Kukumancer" is still a meme, particularly by the SEA community, and still sees moderate usage as of 2023. On the other hand, the current popular form of the "Kuku's fault" meme is a copypasta, often found in Twitch chat:


 * Who is KUKU? For the mistake, He is the creator. For the fault, he is the maker. For the fall, he is the pusher. If KUKU thinks, it's KUKU's fault. If KUKU speaks, it's KUKU's fault. If KUKU has one fault, It's his. If KUKU has no fault, fault doesn't exist.

vtFaded in
Cheng "vtFaded" (stylised "vtFαded") Jia Hao is a professional Dota 2 player who has found himself disqualified twice from professional play. The first instance was in April 2021, for breaching the Dota Pro Circuit registration rules. The second, however, was much more serious: He was banned for matchfixing and account sharing, alongside the rest of Team Orca. vtFaded himself maintains his innocence.

Due to his past controversies, after the second ban, the SEA community began using the meme "vtFaded in" whenever a pause and disconnection occurred in a match, which happens frequently in SEA due to poor Internet connection quality, implying that vtFaded was logging into the account.

A much lesser-used meme is to use the corresponding position of Team Orca when such a disconnection occurs. For example, if the midlaner disconnects, "AhJit in" may be used, as Lai "AhJit" Jay Son was Orca's midlaner.

Te Quiero Mucho Arturito
At the 2021 WePlay AniMajor, EG with Arteezy eliminated Team Nigma, securing a spot for TI for the SA team Thunder Predator. The phrase, according to some posts made on Twitter, translate to 'Love you so much, Arteezy'.

CEO/CEO Moon
Kam "Moon" Boon Seng is a professional Dota 2 player who played for Fnatic between September 2019 and June 2021. During this time, Fnatic's performances were often inconsistent, and as is frequent in Dota, resulted in multiple roster shuffles. However, Moon would avoid all these shuffles, including a strange shuffle where ChYuan, usually a midlaner (Moon's position), would replace Masaros in the offlane (ChYuan has since reverted back to mid).

These led to the community suggesting that Moon was the true CEO behind Fnatic, as he could not be fired, no matter how badly the team performed. This was also embraced by fellow SEA professional player iceiceice. A copypasta where Moon was assumed to be CEO, firing the rest of the team, also became popular:


 * "We would like to thank Raven, ChYuan, Jabz and DJ for their contribution to the team, and we wish them well in their future endeavors. - Fnatic CEO, Kam "Moon" Boon Seng

In 2021, Moon would finally leave Fnatic to join Team SMG ahead of The International 2022 Last Chance Qualifiers. Team SMG would announce this by embracing the meme.

The "CEO" meme would be repurposed by the SEA community to describe any player that stays on a roster despite multiple shuffles, or seemingly has more sway over a team's composition than others. As of 2023, Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong is a frequent target of the meme, as he is often the captain of his team, has shuffled through multiple roles (in meme terms, avoiding being kicked by switching role), and often takes a large amount of farm despite not being a carry.

TP Scroll Hoarding
In patch 7.25, the Town Portal Scroll's price was massively increased, nearly doubling the price per scroll. As the patch coincided with the Corona virus outbreak, where it was reported that various people had amassed unnecessarily high amounts of toilet paper to sell online, people are now hoarding TP scrolls due to the hyper-inflated price.

The Great Firestorm of 2020
In June 2020, a Twitter user exposed NA streamer and personality GrandGrant for being sexually abusive to women in the past. This was followed up with claims that he had successfully harassed former Dota 2 caster LlamasDownUnder into eventually quitting the scene entirely. This was backed with how Llamas had actually obtained a legal restraining order against Grant. This eventually caused Grant to excommunicate himself from both the Dota 2 scene and esports in general. Grant's departure would lead to several serious accusations against the various personalities for their past behaviours.

Shortly after Grant's outing, Tobiwan was revealed to have acted disturbing towards female members of the community. This included a serious case of stealthing against Meruna, which led to him being fired from CodeRed and Beyond The Summit, majority of the community's casters, including long-time partners Synderen and Capitalist, to disassociate themselves from him, and all his Battle Pass lines being removed.

Following Tobiwan was Redeye, who was called out for physically assaulting many community members, most notably by the CS:GO community. In spite of fighting these claims, the backlash from the entire matter as well the resurgence of an old court case between him and his ex-wife and children soon led to Redeye departing from esports in general. Like Tobiwan, Redeye's Battle Pass lines were also replaced.

Aside from the three, there would also be accusations against many other personalities and players, including but not limited to: Zyori, Demon and Singsing.

BOOM India Pride/India Pride/Fake Indian biographies
BOOM Esports, formerly BOOM ID, is an esports team based in Indonesia. During 2020, the team fielded an all-Indonesian team, leading to a large number of Indonesian fans cheering for them. Indonesians call themselves "Indo" for short, so "Indo Pride" became a popular chant for the team, commonly spammed in streams and social media. The SEA community decided to troll these fans by calling BOOM ID "India pride" instead. Very soon, this started spreading, with other SEA teams being seen as Indian, and several players being seen as Indian, despite having no such connection.

Eventually, a set of copypastas began appearing in chat, describing a fake biography of a non-Indian esports player, with an Indian name and stereotypical Indian job or trait, and/or making fun of Indian English. For example, a copypasta about Pakistani-American player Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan:


 * Sudeep "SumaiL" Vernakulum Muthu Sanjeev is an Indian professional DoTA2 player who currently plays for OmGuru (OG), an Electrical Sports (E-Sports) team based in Nagapattinam, Tamilnadu, India. He's currently also working as a tech support at Dell Systems, and is looking for a core engineering job in a hardware company.

This became a very popular meme on Twitch during 2020, with several copypastas flooding tournament streams. It was also embraced by Team Secret's social media team.

Conversely, when Indian player Krish "Krish" Gupta began his professional career in the SEA region, the SEA community decided to troll him and his fans by claiming he was not Indian.

A derived meme involves calling players and teams Filipino instead of Indian, with a corresponding fake biography. Other nationalities can also be employed, but are less common. For example, a biography about French-Lebanese player Sébastien "Ceb" Debs:


 * Cebu Pacific "Ceb" Dimaano is a Filipino professional Dota2 trashtalker who currently trashtalks for Olongapo Gaming (OG), an E-sports Team based on Zambales, Philippines. He is currently embroiled in a trash-talking battle with random twitter trolls and hopes that in the future, people would take him seriously. He also aspires to be an airplane in his latter years.

An incomplete list of these fake biographies was posted on Reddit.

In 2022, the meme spread beyond Dota 2, into Valorant. BOOM's Valorant team was dubbed "Boys Out Of Mumbai" (which also applied to its Dota 2 team, as well as "Boys Out Of Manila" and various places beginning with M), and the fake biography copypastas started appearing in YouTube and Twitch chat there.

Hero Redesign Idea
Originally a person's post on reddit, offering a workshop idea for Windranger. Due to the large emphasis to Windranger's legs and thighs, many other reddit users made their own "redesign" ideas with other characters using the same legs as the original creator's.

Cliffteezy
Originated from one of EG's games against Team Secret in the Chongqing Major. During the game, Arteezy was isolated from a team fight thanks to being cliffed by Dark Seer's Vacuum. Later on, during the Stockholm Major, EG faced Keen Gaming, and Arteezy was stuck on a cliff thanks to a Keeper of the Light's Blinding Light for majority of the final fight. This later "infected" the other members of EG as Sumail would accidentally blink onto a cliff during the MDL Disneyland Paris Major and would be killed without buyback after getting caught by a Wukong's Command.

During ESL One Birmingham, TNC Phoenix members actively attempted to put Arteezy on the cliff during the series and were able to do so twice. At the end of the year, Arteezy was kicked onto a cliff during the series against Gambit in ONE Esports Dota 2 World Pro Invitational Singapore.

The meme evolved from 2016's Sprouteezy.

GranDGranT's failed analogy on Topson
In Twitch stream whilst reviewing some pro players GranDGranT was talking about Topson's mechanical skill and how he will never be in your face tier one player like SumaiL or Miracle and after his statement Topson dominates pro scene in several games. After which Topson wins two TI's back to back whilst defending his title. After such criticism on Topson, GranDGranT was teased by his friends and Valve staff and obviously he admitted that he was wrong and took his words back.

Since analogy was influenced from Twitches TI8 fluke chat. But OG proved them all wrong.

This is a reference to an infamous comment made by Ceb in 2013, where he believed Arteezy was overrated and that the community was prematurely thinking him to be one of the best mids of the game. Arteezy would then go on to consistently place high on tournaments while Ceb's career mostly floundered in comparison up until TI8.

Chadson
Used in reference to Topson's overwhelming performance on TI9 and also his improved "looks" during OG photoshoot and interviews.

MC is mentally done
In the TI9 True Sight trailer this line was heard in the voice over while former liquid player Mind control looked very tired and frustrated.

6 Dragon lance Ogre Magi
Originally a post on reddit featuring Tower in demo mode supposedly buffed by ogre magi's bloodlust causing it to increase range. This was caused by a bug with dislocation of dummy target, but despite so caused some people to believe it works.

This ended up occurring once again during 7.27, though the range increase was not limited to the tower, but to any ranged unit that was buffed with Bloodlust.

SirActionSlacks' Hotkeys
As Purge was giving SirActionSlacks advice on keybinds, Slacks revealed an incredibly disjointed set of "P", "N", "-", "=" and "$ (which he claims is exclusively for Hand of Midas)" for his items. By 2020, Slacks had only slightly changed his binds to: "P", "N", "C", "-", "=", "8 (keypad)" and 1 (Neutral)

This has led several community members to wonder how Slacks had reached 5k MMR on such terrible binds.

ROOONS
After the 7.15 update bounty runes granted team-wide gold and spawned every five minutes, making them more valuable and rarer. This meant that many players perceived them as more important and pushed for their teammates to pick up bounty runes more often. Admiral Bulldog began yelling "ROOOOONS" at the top of his lungs over voice chat on his stream before or after the runes spawned every 5 minutes, to encourage his team to pick them up.

EternalEnvy's Pizza Party
Shortly after Fnatic successfully qualified for the ESL Katowice, Ohaiyo was kicked from the team in order to make room for Universe. In an infamous story, the team held a celebratory pizza party for the qualification but also kicked Ohaiyo during said party. Used whenever a player makes an extremely bad play or when a highly skilled player becomes a free agent, with the implication that a player from a team will be kicked soon.

Offlaners getting kicked
Over the course of late-2017 to early January of 2018, various offlaners, both current and former, were removed from teams or became teamless during the incoming shuffle. Such examples include MoonMeander departing from Digital Chaos, MSS, Khezu and Bulba having their respective teams disband, Universe leaving Evil Geniuses a second time and Forev leaving Immortals and being replaced by MSS.

Still not top tier?
Originally a tweet from Sumail as a response to many reddit users arguing about EG's status as either a tier 1 or a tier 2 team, the tweet's words are generally used to mock certain low opinions on matters or teams. It was initially used sarcastically as Evil Geniuses was quickly stomped by Team Liquid shortly after the tweet was posted.

By far, most advanced scam I have ever encountered
A user posted on Reddit about how someone tried to scam him with explanation and after that many people started creating posts with the same title related to the release of the Immortal Treasure III 2018.

Scuttling Scotty Hostage Situation
Due to the long wait for the next Compendium for The International 2018, a reddit user threatened to have Bounty Hunter kill a Scuttling Scotty unless Valve releases the Battle Pass. As the release did not come, one of the Scuttling Scotties was murdered and the user threatened to execute another if the Battle Pass did not come.

When the Battle Pass finally came, the other Scuttling Scotties were released.

The meme would carry on to succeeding passes as players continuously threatened other couriers, typically with Bounty Hunter; demanding new patches and passes and threatening another massacre for any delays.

"Care to elaborate? No."
On twitter Nahaz said "Remember there are two sides to every story, referencing VGJ Storm having two coaches during the TI8 group stage. Twitter user @JPV_Haring replied with the tweet "Care to elaborate?" to which Nahaz simply said "No". Minutes later the official Dota 2 twitter account said "Can you please elaborate on what you mean?", to which he replied "I mean nothing malicious or suggestive, only that in my experience one should wait and hear all the explanations from all sides before passing judgement. I meant no suggestion of wrongdoing on anyone's part.".

This coincided with a reddit user claiming to have been scammed by GGBet, only for the organization to reveal private information that implied that said user had abused multiple accounts that he claimed to have belonged to his "friend". At the same time, however, GGbet also leaked personal information of the user and their response was immediately deleted to prevent brigading.

Kyle Curse
A "curse" that occurs whenever Kyle Freedman (former player of Team Complexity under moniker 'swindlemelonzz' and later 'melonzz') praises and sides with one team's draft, only for said team to get stomped in the actual game.

The Chinese equivalent involves the caster Danche making similar predictions which falter horribly in the same manner, though Danche's curse started long before Kyle's.

Fly's Betrayal
In the lead-up to the Chinese Supermajor, Fly departed from OG alongside S4 despite their qualification, joining Evil Geniuses's squad instead. Because of this sudden roster change, OG was unable to form a suitable team in time and was forced to drop from the event. This also caused a major stir in the team, which saw Ceb play offlane despite having mostly played mid for his career which was unceremonious in its later end, N0tail return to support, a role he had not actively played since the formation of OG, and picking up the unknown Topson, who had never qualified for a premier LAN.

In a twist of fate, OG would dominate and eventually win TI8, which also had an infamous shot of N0tail's emotionless face as he shook Fly's hand after OG sent Evil Geniuses to the lower bracket. Many community members would call this one of "the top ten anime betrayals / comebacks" while some believed this to be a part of Fly's masterplan of eliminating S4 to stop the TI curse so that OG would have a TI win under its belt.

But is it as good as +6 treants? :thinking:
After the release of 7.00 every hero got level 10, 15, 20, and 25 talents, with level 25 talents generally being a very powerful buff. However, Nature's Prophet's level 25 talent was an abysmally weak +6 treants. Spearheaded by AdmiralBulldog on his stream, it is used sarcastically to compare other heroes' powerful level 25 talents to the laughable +6 treants. This meme was also acknowledged by Gabe Newell himself during his AMA on the /r/The_Gaben subreddit.

AAAAaaah GRILL!
Related to this clip of a player being surprised on Wagamama's stream when he realizes his teammate is female.

X is Ruining my games
With the discussion about the smurf state and if it should be forbidden or penalized; a user in reddit posted that Wagamama a very known streamer, professional dota 2 player and even caster in TI3- ruined a certain game playing a mid Legion Commander. People started to discuss in that post, but some other users started to copy paste the same text in the post and created new posts about Arteezy, PPD, and even Miracle ruining 7k/8k/9k games.

Charlie's Unemployment
In early 2016, Charlie Yang, long-time manager of Evil Geniuses announced his departure from the organization in order to take a role with Twitch. Some time after, however, Amazon had acquired Twitch. Citing a conflict of interest, Charlie left the organization as well. Appearing in events after leaving Twitch, Charlie is often given titles such as "Unemployed" and "Trespasser" when introduced.

S4 Talks only To TI Winners
While Team OG streamed themselves watching True Sight on Twitch, it was noted at how little dialogue S4 had throughout the episode. In response, Ceb mused that S4 only talks to winners of The International, and that he doesn't communicate with the rest of OG and his family. Also spammed when S4 was featured as a guest for ppd's podcast.

3 Years to kick Bone7
EternalEnvy's team, Team NP, faced a major reshuffle after the Dota Asian Championships 2017, with Envy moving from mid to carry, Aui moving from carry to support and 1437 and SVG being kicked from the team. To replace the kicked members, PieLieDie and Fata, Envy's former Cloud9 teammates rejoined him, essentially reforming the old Cloud9 roster (After SingSing's departure) with the exception of Bone7. The meme was spammed even more when NP was signed by Cloud9.

Sexccc
During the after-party and conclusion of TI7, Sccc took multiple photos with other players and fans which were posted over reddit. Due to sccc's attractiveness, there was briefly an obsession over him, with many users posting pictures of him during the early days of TI7 as well as team photos and events already finished. He also briefly had his own banner over reddit. The obsession held a resurgence during the Bucharest Major, when PGL made a memetic video announcing an sccc perfume named "scccuh". Newbee later actually sold these perfume bottles during the MDL Major, and all bottles were sold out in less than an hour.

"___，________！"
At the beginning of 2017, LGD did quite poorly, therefore lots of Chinese audiences started to flame LGD. A few extreme LGD fans kept arguing with others, they insisted LGD is the best and strongest team and LGD lose games only because "not in good form", "don't care about these little tournaments", "practice new line-ups" or "keep secret strategies in pocket". Meanwhile, a few extreme fans of Maybe kept saying "Maybe is the best player in the world, he just has trash teammates, our king Maybe will easily win lots of tournaments if he kicks those burdens".

By that time, the arguments about LGD performing poorly wasn't a hot topic. However, the attitude of those extreme fans started to annoy others, more and more people joined the debate but shortly it turned out it's pointless to argue with extreme fans since it's impossible to convince them. Therefore people gave up, their attitude became:"All right, all right, your LGD is invincible(你们LGD无敌), OK?" Eventually, the quote became even more shortened, down to "LGD,______!", and finally down to "___,______!" as the more hardcore LGD fans have become so predictable in their speech and obsession that everyone else would just use the premeditated copy paste of empty underlines to let them fill the blanks themselves.

Later, some people found it funny or ironic to copy&paste 'We LGD are invincible!'（我们LGD是不可战胜的！）on Tieba, SGamers and stream chats whenever LGD was playing.

The Oracle, lgdamefan
Amidst speculations over potential roster shuffles post-International, a reddit user named lgdamefan proceeded to leak the rosters of a wide variety of teams, including eternalenvy and pieliedie going to Fnatic, Fear coming out of retirement and ppd forming his own team.

Complexity kicking swindlezz
During 2017, Complexity Gaming, which held floundering results at the end of 2016 and the start of 2017 began improving, including defeating long-time rivals, the former Digital Chaos squad, which was under Planet Odd during The International Regional Qualifiers and winning their groups in Starladder. Many attributed this change of results in Complexity kicking Swindlezz for Kyle. The joke refers to most of 2016's losses being attributed to swindlezz, who later changed his in-game ID to Kyle, around the same time when the team was improving.

The Mercedes Benz E400 Sedan
Mercedes Benz, one of the big sponsors of ESL One Hamburg, had given each team their own Mercedes Benz to use during the tournament along with a giveaway to the player voted as MVP of the tournament. Due to the high amount of advertisements during the stream (to the point that many complained that there was more advertisement time than DOTA being played), many community members online, especially Reddit proceeded to shamelessly promote the car at every given moment they could.

The copy pasta associated is as follows (note the Reddit version usually features a few sentences of lead in; for example, "You may find that amazing, but you know what's really amazing? The Mercedes E-Class Sedan", followed immediately by the copypasta): "The most intelligent E-Class family of all time welcomes a powerful new member to the dynasty. The E400 Sedan model arrives this year, boasting a 3.0L V6 biturbo engine producing 329 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque — the same powertrain that currently drives its E400 Coupe, Cabriolet and 4MATIC Wagon cousins. Paired with the 9-G-TRONIC 9-Speed automatic transmission and DYNAMIC SELECT, it promises a bracingly smooth way to experience uncommon luxury. Naturally, the 2018 E400 Sedan continues the tradition of E-Class brilliance. Harmonizing advanced automotive intelligence with awe-inspiring interior design, its first-class furnished cabin puts our advanced vehicle systems right at your fingertips — even as its world-class innovations continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in the world of automotive intelligence. 'Car-to-X' Communication enables the E-Class to exchange information with similarly equipped vehicles — effectively allowing it to 'see' around corners and through obstacles to detect potential hazards. Driver Assistance Systems — including Active Distance Assist DISTRONIC®, Active Steering Assist and Active Lane Change Assist — feature intelligent cruise control: They help keep you between the lines, and can even help you shift between them. Inside, the E-Class cabin provides an environment of pure comfort and responsive technology. Flowing lines and vibrant screens provide a striking visual display, while touch controls, aromatherapy and tailored seats indulge all of your senses at once. It's a vehicle that demands to be driven, and more than lives up to the dream. Look for the E400 4MATIC Sedan at your Mercedes-Benz dealership this winter, with an MSRP of $58,900."

[X] was the problem
A term used to refer to players that were recently kicked doing well, or teams that recently kicked or had a roster swap doing poorly. Originated from AdmiralBulldog reading Alliance's article about EGM being kicked, and reading that "EGM was the problem". Other notable instances of the meme being used were when Ohaiyo was kicked from Fnatic and Universe leaving EG

AdmiralBulldog, The 250kg Beast
October 8, Bulldog tweeted that when he walked out with the dogs, he met a moose and he described it as "a huge 250kg beast". An average, adult male moose weights around 500kg to 700kg so people started to laugh at him and that the only 250kg beast in near area is bulldog himself.

Before he lost weight, people used term "250kg Beast" to describe him whenever he showed himself publicly, on stream, a tournament or made an outstanding play (In positive and negative meaning) while playing a game, not necessarily Dota 2.

The biggest oversight
Originating from Reddit on 's release, it is a copypasta that basically describes how the OP finds Dark Willow sexy and promiscuous. This copypasta is expected to appear whenever Dark Willow is mentioned in any way on Reddit. The text is as follows:

"The biggest oversight with Dark Willow is that she's unbelievably sexy. I can't go on a hour of my day without thinking about plowing that tight wooden ass. I'd kill a man in cold blood just to spend a minute with her crotch grinding against my throbbing manhood as she whispers terribly dirty things to me in her geographically ambiguous accent."

More copypastas with the same theme about started popping up in late 2018 to early 2019. This together with a bot posting one of these copypastas every time the words "biggest oversight" was stated on the dota2 subreddit revitalized the meme. This meme was also subtly referenced by Valve later on in Ogre Magi's Arcana Flockheart's Gamble voiceline.

The Shanghai Major / The Shanghai shit show
The Shanghai Major was a notoriously badly handled event; it was dubbed the "Shanghai Shit show" or the "Major that kept on giving", its host 2GD was FIRED mid event, there were sound issues, delays, machine gun fires, premature low graphics, as well as audible Chinese shouting mid-stream.

Sprouteezy
A joke made whenever a Sven is trapped by Nature's Prophet's Sprout. The joke originated during the Shanghai Major, where EG's Arteezy was using a Sven with 2 Divine Rapiers, but was isolated from the decisive team fight by a Sprout against Team Secret. Later, during EG's first game against Liquid in the lower bracket finals, Arteezy was isolated twice during deciding team fights of the game, both by a Nature's Prophet's Sprout.

DING DING DING MOTHERFUCKER
Related to this video when LD shouted "ding ding ding motherfucker" after EGM's Ogre Magi triggered a Multicast Fireblast on Universe's Batrider as he was making a last ditch attempt to kill Alliance's ancient.

Why you posting something that is not 6.87 patch notes?
This meme was used when someone posted a new post on reddit and it was not 6.87 patch notes, as the community really wanted the patch notes due to the imbalance of 6.86.

FIGHT ME
Related to this video when Puppey raged and threw his headset on the monitor. From Eternal Envy's blog, Puppey would allegedly tell people to "Fight Me" to determine who's right and who's wrong whenever he got into an argument.

I NEED NO INTRODUCTION
Relates to how constantly used the line I need no introduction while introducing himself after every restart of the game client.

Eh, average play
A video of Miracle- playing in a match and predicting  blinking with his own Blink and Requiem of Souls. Popular responses to it was as follows:

This meme was reused when rating other cool plays.

3154
In a 2nd game of Team Secret vs. Newbee on Epicenter tournament, Team Secret killed Roshan and took aegis on EternalEnVy Huskar. kaka from Newbee noted down the time Aegis expires (3154), but he typed it into all chat by accident. Team Secret pushed Newbee's base at 31 minutes with 5 heroes, but were repelled with 4 dead. Subsequently 3154 became a meme that Newbee was communicating to EE to throw, due to EE's Chinese ancestry.

The Assassin Strikes
Refers to Bulba's unsuccessful runs with Evil Geniuses, Team Secret and Team Liquid in 2016, with all teams getting better and more stable results after his departure. Also based on various games on Arteezy's stream, where Bulba would constantly be teamed with Arteezy and underperform in games but play well in games where he was pitted against Arteezy, which led to Arteezy calling Bulba the "MMR Assassin".

dont question mark lol
During one of EG's games against TNC, ppd made a pause due to mic issues. Before he could even state the reason, Demon all chatted a question mark, prompting ppd to chat "dont qeustion mark lol". Used generally whenever someone makes a question mark as a response.

As a reference to this, during various events and as a more recent addition to the Battle Pass's rewards, one of the new unlockables is to replace the exclamation point whenever a creep is denied with a question mark.

Winner's Bus
Used when Liquid is losing or has lost a game. Originated from SirActionSlacks's story during TI6, where he was incorrectly informed that Liquid had won their series against Fnatic, where, in reality, Fnatic had eliminated Liquid. Sharing the same bus as them, Slacks openly shouted "Well, looks like I'm on the winner's bus!". The meme held a resurgence when Liquid won Starladder, followed by the succeeding International.

The Artour Cycle
Refers to Arteezy being shuffled around between Secret and Evil Geniuses. The meme stated that Arteezy would often complain in the months after TI, leading to Secret picking him up. Under Secret, Arteezy would have a terrible placing at The International before rejoining Evil Geniuses. The cycle, however, was broken in 2016, where Arteezy remained with Evil Geniuses for The International 7.

Can Anyone Even Touch Madara?
A meme about the player Madara formerly from team Ad Finem whose impressive play as carry has led to a rework of the "Madara Uchiha" copy pasta.

The Spring and Autumn Hegemon and the Winter Worm and Summer Grass
A Chinese joke regarding OG's run during 2015 and 2016. During the Fall and Spring seasons, OG had dominated the scene, winning Boston, Manila and Frankfurt, which is in reference to a Hegemon being the most powerful of China's warlords during the Spring and Autumn Period. The team, however had a terrible placing at both Shanghai and TI6, resulting in them simply being a worm or a blade of grass during this period of time.

Is that balanced?
A statement made by Loda during The International 2013's video about the Fountain Hook. Unhappy that Natus Vincere was able to abuse fountain hooking to take a game where Tongfu held a significant lead against them, Loda made a loud outburst about how much of a joke he thought the match was. During the outburst Loda shouted "Is that balanced?"

Uberlord
A nickname for Underlord, comparing his ult with the transportation service company, Uber. Consequently, Dark Rift is also referred to as Uber, especially for highly skilled or extremely poor uses for the skill. Had a brief 2018 surge in popularity when Fnatic.Universe used it to backdoor the Ancient against Team Secret at ESL One Katowice.

Simple calculs
Originating from this Reddit thread, used to sarcastically respond to anything maths or calculations related.

Chinese BKB
A poor use of Black King Bar, primarily when you are not in the vicinity or at risk from any of the other players on the enemy team and when the duration of the item is still at ten seconds. Originally from China, Yang introduced the meme to the west during the winner's interview at the Manila Major. When asked why his team-mate, Agressif, used his Black King Bar while no one was near him, Yang responded that the Secret Shopkeeper told them that the item came from China, so it had to be tested if the duration really was ten seconds.

Nice Weather
Used whenever Secret loses a game, especially to Digital Chaos. Originated from w33's tweet shortly after Secret was left at the bottom of the Manila Major, while Digital Chaos managed to make it to the upper bracket.

Shut up you 2k pinoy monkey
A phrase made by Puppey's official Facebook page after it was hacked during TI6 and generally targets Filipino players, organizations and community members. The original post was promptly deleted after Team Secret regained control, and Puppey issued a notice and apology though screenshots still remain, including some of the hacker's other posts such as returning to Na'Vi.

1 dagger and im die
In Version 6.87, 's was reworked to have its instant attack scale with her attack damage, allowing it to deal massive damage when proccing a critical hit from. The phrase, poor grammar and all, originated from a Reddit post where a player responded thusly upon being killed from nearly full health by a Stifling Dagger crit.

PogChamp WTF 3 Merlinis PogChamp
Racial joke when 3 asian casters/players or members of the dota community are shown on the panel or post match discussion at a live event. A joke that refers that all asians look alike.

It began when Merlini, WinteR, and Blitz appeared on the analyst desk together at The International 5. syndereN tweeted a picture of their group, and accidentally tagged Merlini 3 times.

The meme began dying out when Merlini announced his complete departure from casting and analyzing.

Kuroky was right, Arteezy was left
After Team Secret's disbandment, there were rumors that a dispute between Kuroky and Arteezy was the cause of the disbandment. The community then split in 2 arguing who was right and who was wrong (left), using 'Kuroky was right' when Kuroky wins (most effective when it's against Arteezy) and vice versa. A frequent example that is used as a comparison is their respective results at the International, where Kuroky has been to two grand finals (one of which he won), while Arteezy has gotten bottom half (two of which were last place) in all but two of his International runs by 2017.

Source 2 will fix it
This meme gets used by the community as the game was full of bugs after the release of Source 2 engine despite hopes that the new engine would fix bugs. When Dota 2 used Source 1, people would often dismiss bugs by saying "Source 2 will fix it." Many bugs remain.

BabyRage PEDUUUUUR BabyRage
A meme related to this video of how Admiral Bulldog was doing a troll cast of Arteezy's Sven gameplay. During his cast, Bulldog repeatedly whined like a baby, often shouting for ppd's help whenever a hero harassed, damaged or was only spotted by Arteezy. It's also a small reference at the high frequency ppd is given defensive supports like Treant Protector or Dazzle.

hey its me ur brother
Relates to an incident where an item scammer tried to scam someone by changing his name to the victim's brothers profile name.

6.84 is coming after Starladder
A meme about IceFrog when he posted the release date of 6.84 Gameplay Update at DevForums.

Good Jokes mate real funny see u at FUCK YOUJ
A meme about Arteezy when he angrily reported a player in his match. The "J" typo is important to the meme as that was Arteezy's original typo.

6 million dollar echo slam
Refers to Universe's 5-hero in the last game of the grand final of The International 2015

Aghanim's Scepter: Riki (Pocket Riki)
User PotatoLord17 made a satirical post on reddit about a suggestion that would allow Riki able to enter his teammates inventory and hide there with an. A novelty account Pocket_Riki was also created, responding to mentions of Pocket Riki with a blank comment. Another user also made a custom game mode featuring suggestions from the post. The idea is thought to be a source of inspiration for the actual upgrade.

A similar occurrence was when SirActionSlacks suggested that a potential aghs for Lycan involved him biting his teammates and turning them into werewolves.

Thanks Purge
About Purge's explanation of how works. Generally used nowadays whenever Purge attempts to explain something, Dota-related or otherwise. Variations include thanks being given to other personalities explaining things or "Thanks" being used in a different language such as "谢谢", "Salamat", and "Arigato"

Brutal, Savage, Rekt
During the Frankfurt major, RedEye famously said the words "Brutal.Savage.Rekt" while talking about EG's defeat. After the community uploaded a gif version on gyfcat, the generated link title was "NippyKindLangur". One user on reddit requested that RedEye pay homage to the gif by emphatically saying "NippyKindLangur" on stream. RedEye delivered at EPICENTER, once again users quickly uploaded a gif version to gifcat. A user emailed the Gfycat admins to change its URL to BrutalSavageRekt.

Arteezy Riki
Used during Arteezy's runs with Team Secret. During his time with Secret, many often asked Arteezy on stream "Should I should max out Backstab first, like how you backstabbed EG?". This copypasta is associated with it.

The meme died out when Riki was reworked and Permanent Invisibility and Backstab were merged.

Sunsfanned
Pokes fun at how Digital Chaos would be invited to premier tournaments simply because of how other teams coincidentally were unable to make it. The meme implies that DC's co-founder, SUNSFan sabotaged the other team and has connections with the tournament organizers. The meme was spammed more often during 2016 whenever DC would win a series. The most notable occurrence of this was during the team's miraculous run during TI6. The meme has begun dying out when SUNSFan departed from the organization in 2017, followed shortly by the post-International squad.

Used nowadays whenever a team is able to make it to a premier tournament after initially failing to qualify thanks to the qualifier's victors being unavailable to play for the main LAN.

Does S4 Remember the Million-Dollar Dream Coil?
Spammed during s4's second run with Team Alliance after an underwhelming performance at The International 2015. Alliance's lacklustre performances throughout their premier lans, despite reassembling most of their International-winning squad. The meme was spammed even more when EGM returned to recomplete the squad, but was spammed less when SirActionSlacks formally asked s4 the question at the main stage of StarLadder, though it held a resurgence when the team began underperforming at Shanghai, and occasionally even after s4 left Alliance a second time. s4 occasionally acknowledges the meme himself, even having an effigy of Puck with the comment "Yes kids, I remember" and referencing the meme multiple times.

w33fresh
A combination of w33 and refresh. Used to mock w33 after it was revealed that he used the "refresh" command to farm an abnormally fast Aghanim's Scepter on Meepo during an in-house league.

Delete your lies/Eul's and apologize
Drama originating from Heroes of Newerth, Sneyking sought to depart swindlemelonzz's HoN team, leading to an acrimonious dispute which gave birth to this dramatic reading, immortalizing these two awkward phrases:

"Delete your lies and apologize" & "Good to know how highly your own character"

This HoN meme would later complete its transference into Dota 2 with this play from TI5, in which swindlemelonzz drops his Eul's for mana efficiency, but is surprise ganked and his Eul's destroyed.

The Dota version was rephrased as "Delete your Eul's and apologize"

Charlie Doing Sumail's Homework
Originates from one of Aui_2000's streams where he was talking with then-manager, Charlie Yang, and it was revealed that Charlie was doing Sumail's homework just to let him play at TI5. Community members would muse that Charlie actively does Sumail's schoolwork just to let him play video games all day though it did prove to be a high profit when EG won TI5.

PPD PJSalt
"Sodium, atomic number 11, was first isolated by Peter "ppd" Dager in 1807. A chemical component of salt, he named it Na in honor of the saltiest region on earth, North America."

Used whenever PPD shows characteristics of being salty or when he roasts someone in a conversation.

WAOW
During a IG vs NaVi game, LD shows that casters can make anything sound epic via exaggeration and tone even if it's just a Puck dodging a lethal Enchantress' auto attack with Phase Shift. People used to spam BORT in twitch chat whenever someone on stream says "wow" up until BORT's removal. Waow was later used as part of The International 2017's new chat wheel sounds.

Artour Babaevsky
A copypasta that is prevalent in 2014 about the struggle of Arteezy as a potato farmer.

''"My name Artour Babaev. Sorry bad englandsky. I grow up in small farm to have make potatoes. Father say "Arthour, potato harvest is bad. Need you to have play professional DOTO2 in Amerikanski for make money for head-scarf for babushka." I bring honor to komrade and babushka. Plz no copy pasteschniko"''.

CYKA BLYAT PERDAK PORVALO NAHUY! / F*CKING RUSSIAN MAN!
A classic Russian rage moment, even Russians can't stand playing with other Russians.

Still Better than the TI4 Grand Finals
Used to make fun of how anti-climactic and quick all 4 games of TI4's grand finals between Vici Gaming and Newbee played out, with each game being a complete stomp that lasted below 30 minutes.

The Great TI4 Finals Between EG and DK
An alternate retelling of the TI4 by a reddit user, which claims of how Fear had managed to recompose the team to take a dominant lead in the deciding Game 5 of the set. Despite Zai catching Team DK in a five-man Blackhole with Enigma, Burning is able to survive due to him being 12-slotted and he eventually carries his team to climactic finish. Burning later shouts that EG had lost due to only farming for themselves, while Burning had also carried the hopes and dreams of both his teammates and long-time friend Rotk, who sacrificed himself to make Burning stronger.

Made because of aforementioned finals between Vici and Newbee as well as a somber tribute to Team DK, which disbanded after its failure to win TI4 after having its strategies leaked by Gamefy.

Clown9 Curse
While Cloud9 was a strong team, the squad was plagued by multiple failed attempts to secure a first place finish in their Lans, often finishing second place. This led to multiple nicknames that included, Clown9, Choke9, and became the foreground to EternalEnvy's reputation for throwing.

Classic Jimmy
Used to poke fun of clowny plays and terrible decisions of Demon during games. The term was first coined by Merlini during one of Liquid's games against Team Dog during Starladder's North American Qualifiers, where Demon was pushing a lane that already had the opposing racks cleared while the rest of his team was demolished. Shortly after, Demon overextends and gets himself killed. The term was also used during Team Liquid's game against Arrow Gaming during TI4, where Demon's decision making as Tidehunter, who opted to go for a Hand of Midas rather than the traditional Mekansm, and constant overextensions eventually led Arrow Gaming, the team with the worst record among the teams in group stage, back to take the game. The meme was eventually overtaken by EternalEnvy's Scientists baffled, though it does hold a resurgence occasionally.

$4
A nickname given to s4 by the Chinese. As Alliance began to underperform along with s4's performances, the Chinese gave s4 the nickname of $4 as he always "paid" the enemy money by feeding deaths to them. Out of s4's hero pool, however, his Queen of Pain is the one most affiliated with the meme due to his poor performance with the hero in Secret's final loss at the International 2015 against Virtus Pro, with many of the english community members often accompanying s4's QOP with multiple twitch emotes.

The River's Name
A curious DotA player posted a thread on Reddit to ask for the name of the river that segregated the Radiant and Dire. One user promptly called it "The River Fag" since he has been told numerous times "Don't cross the river fag".

s4's 1 Million Dollars Dream Carl
Referring to the s4 Puck dream coil that greatly contributed to Alliance's TI3 win against Navi. Carl is a reference to s4's Dota 2 nickname at the time.

I'M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!
About a comeback gameplay as shown in this video, it shows that you should never give up while playing Juggernaut.

Outhouse Decorator
In 2013, was briefly renamed to Outworld Demolisher from Outworld Destroyer on the test client. This name was altered at least once more until its current form.

Ebola Spirit
An old meme relating to when he was imbalanced, hence the community comparing him to the Ebola Virus.

Kotol Giff me Mana
Related to a video of a player not giving his teammates Mana.

Puppey Pause
A nickname for a tactical pause or a pause that occurs right at the beginning of a gank or a teamfight. Originated from a game between Na'Vi and Re-defining Madness, where a pause occurred just as Re-defining madness initiate.

Officer Merlini on the case
Used whenever Merlini finds something that should not happen, be it tactical pauses, bugs and other issues. It originates from the Puppey Pause incident.

Removed for pressing ceremonial reasons
Used to poke fun at mechanics, items or abilities that are removed. Originated from the blog article detailing Skeleton King's removal from the game before being reborn as Wraith King.

Speed Gaming's Journey
During MLG Columbus 2013, SpeedGaming Int. was plagued with a wide variety of issues, such as offlaner, Bone7, failing to receive a proper travel visa and forcing the team to shuffle its members for the then-unknown Arteezy, most members being jet lagged, fatigued and almost missing round robins due to rushed traveling conditions as well as midlaner, SingSing, becoming sick during the event.

Following the disastrous Day 1, the team rebounded hard, winning all games and eventually defeating favorite, Team DK, to win. During the tournament, all members had also included a 7 at the end of their in-game IDs as a tribute to Bone7. Team Dignitas' manager, Charlie Yang, was highly praised during the event for helping the team by helping SingSing and PielieDie set up their hotel booking and purchasing medicine for the former, rushing team shirts and acting as the team's manager for the event.

After the tournament, it was revealed that the team's original manager, Marco Hernandez, was responsible for the team's poor state and had made active measurements against the team such as bullying EternalEnvy, misusing funds meant for the team, intentionally delaying travel documents that led to Bone7's visa issues and low priority flights, attempting to contact tournament admins to exclude the team, falsely claiming that Weir, Rattlesnake's owner, did not understand english which was debunked when Aui_2000 contacted the organization outside of Hernandez's knowledge, and lying and posting online that the organization was pocketing the team's money after being fired for the previous issues just before the tournament finals in an attempt to tilt the members.

Following this, the team was acquired by Cloud9 in early 2014 and obtained several high place finishes while stand-in, Arteezy, became one of the most highly sought players in the scene.

Con fucking gratys u can buy null talis
On September 22nd, Arteezy lost a 1v1 mid against Relic on the NEL in-house league. After losing, Arteezy was noticeably agitated and flamed Relic through the all chat, implying he only won because he bought null talismans (despite the fact Arteezy had more nulls than Relic).

You 13 mana boy
On one of his streams, Puppey played Outworld Destroyer mid against an enemy Juggernaut. Juggernaut had very little mana throughout the laning phase due to Puppey stealing his intellegence via Astral Imprisonment. Puppey mocked Juggernaut on his stream, calling him "13 mana boy" with a fake Russian accent. The phrase has stuck with the community since.

Stun the boar
In the Wild Card Match of The International 2013, Sockshka of Quantic Gaming (playing ) had an opportunity to initiate onto three enemy heroes with, but instead wound up missing all of them and stunning only a Beastmaster. This moment quickly became heavily associated with Sockshka, to the point where OG announced their signing of Sockshka as their coach with a clip of the incident.

The Sheever Ravage
A term used for terrible use of Ravage, either using the skill when no one is around to follow-up or not hitting any enemy hero with the ultimate. Originated from a pub game with Sheever, Singsing and Puppey, where Sheever consistently made bad Ravages during the game.

The Chinese equivalent to this was the Rotk Ravage, which is a jab at Rotk's performance against Cloud9 during the Dota Asian Championship 2015.

The Blinkin' n' Slammin' Int Anti-Mage
A video of an Anti-Mage player building Force Staff, Blink Dagger, Dagon and Eul's Scepter of Divinity among things.

Typical Anti-Mage Team Fight Contribution
A term used for when an Anti-Mage shows up late to a team fight his team was already winning, kills/Mana Voids an enemy hero that was already close to death, and then promptly leaves to return to farming. This is used to poke fun of some Anti Mage players' tendencies to focus extremely on farming to the point that they play without their team, or that their team just wins fights without them anyway rendering them pointless.

Never Go Full Agility
A precautionary warning for people using Morph to go full agility that they can easily be bursted down at full HP by small spells if they aren't careful.

Originates from a video that involves a Rubick stealing Morph, accidentally morphing full agility and being killed at full HP. Because of this he is easily nuked down repeatedly by the enemy team, with the enemy Invoker being able to kill Rubick at his fountain with a single Sun Strike.