The International Battle Pass has arrived. Prepare to cut a path into the final months of the DPC season and discover an abundance of new and classic features—including a new game mode, living towers, consumables, a Coach's challenge, and of course a host of exclusive rewards. As is custom, 25% of all Battle Pass sales go directly to The International prize pool.

Raise your Battle Level by embarking upon the Jungle Expedition, facing the upcoming Wrath of the Mo'rokai custom game, and completing other challenges and Achievements to unlock increasing amounts of mythic rewards. You can even use Wagering Tokens to score extra Battle Points from your weekly games to help you on your way. With reward line items like the custom 'Overgrown Empire' terrain, evolving courier, 'Majesty of the Colossus' Tiny Prestige Item, 'Planetfall' Earthshaker Arcana, weaponless 'Axe Unleashed' item set, and so much more, the yearly call to adventure begins now.

Head over to The International 2019 Battle Pass page for more information on everything included in this year's tribute to the biggest Dota event of the year.

With only one round of Major and Minor tournaments remaining before we turn our eyes to Shanghai, the next gameplay patch will arrive after the conclusion of the final Major and Minor DPC Qualifiers starting soon.

With today’s Steam update, we’re making a change to the Workshop submission process to address fake item scams. First-time submissions to the Dota workshop will now require email verification before the item can be listed publicly. For those of you that have previously submitted Workshop items, you shouldn't see any change in functionality.

Background
What do we mean by fake item scams? If you browse the Workshop enough, you may have come across an item with an image of a rare skin, promising giveaways or free content. These items often contain phishing links that are used to compromise Steam accounts.



In the past, our moderation team would review Workshop items reported by players. Fake item scams would then be deleted and our team would reach out to the owner of the account and let them know that their account is likely compromised. The problem with this approach was that some items went unreported for quite a while, allowing them to appear to players and get in the way of real submissions.

New Process
With today's update, Steam will send an email to the account owner when a new item is posted for the first time, asking them to review and confirm the item they just posted. If an item was posted without their knowledge, this email provides an easy path to recover the account and change their password.

Our aim with this change is to reduce the potential for scams on the Steam platform, without creating unnecessary hassle for frequent Workshop creators.

Let us know if you have feedback.

Today marks the release of a new Dota Plus feature designed to enhance your experience for every Dota Pro Circuit event.

Available now in the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store, the Dota Pro Circuit companion app lets you earn Shards by predicting the winners of DPC matches, compete for even more Shards in the Fantasy Challenge, and follow all of this season's DPC action in real time, all from the comfort and convenience of your mobile device.

You'll be able to wager your personal stash of Plus Shards to predict the winners of DPC matches, with winnings added to your in-game total. The Fantasy Challenge offers the chance for more Shards, as you compete against your friends and the entire world to put together the best roster of pro players at each event. In addition, you'll have access to a dynamic News Feed that features your personalized favorite teams and players, helping you stay on top of every DPC development along the road to The International.

Check out a full list of the app's features here.

Android customers who are unable to access the Google Play Store can find a direct download here.

The International 2019 is still over the horizon, but it's never too early to start exploring new treasure ideas for this year's event—which will have a theme focused on overgrown, enchanted jungle ruins. With that in mind, we invite all Dota 2 Workshop creators to venture into their flourishing imaginations on the hunt for new designs to include in this year's Collector's Cache to see what concepts bear fruit.

As a slight change this year, please keep in mind that while we're happy to see item sets that feel at home in overgrown jungle ruins, artists should not feel constrained to working only within this year’s event theme. We're interested to discover any high quality designs, regardless of motif. However, as in the past, we would still like to ask artists to avoid the use of any concepts that involve human skulls, blood, and gore.

Make sure to mark your submissions with the "Collector’s Cache 2019" tag when tendering items to the Workshop. All submissions must be on the Dota 2 Workshop by Sunday, May 12th. We encourage all Dota fans to regularly visit the Workshop and vote through the Queue to ensure your voices are heard in the selection process.

In the meantime, our merchandise partners are also ready to create some new designs for this year's Dota 2 merchandise release. If you've got a concept you think will resonate with fans, submit your design to the Workshop with the "Merchandise" tag and see how much community support springs up.

Custom Games API:
- Added GetDedicatedServerKeyV2 which utilizes a new approach for securing/generating the keys. Any custom game that relies on GetDedicatedServerKey to communicate with its backend will want to switch to the V2 version as soon as possible.
- To give custom game authors time to switch to the new system, GetDedicatedServerKey will remain unchanged until 3/31/2019, after which will be automatically switched to V2.
- When playing on local/unofficial servers, GetDedicatedServerV2 will return special values to make the state more clear for developers (e.g. “Invalid_NotOnDedicatedServer”).

Mars, god of war and first son of heaven, has now joined the battle of the Ancients.

Abandoning the callous ways of his past and embracing a new identity unburdened by the legacies of his father's archaic pantheon, Mars has turned over a new spear. Vowing to tear down the remnants of the savage old world to build a new empire, Mars is at last ready to assume the true mantle of leadership over gods and men, a position he now realizes has been wasted for eons by the petty whims of Zeus.

Learn more about Mars and his abilities here. Or, better yet, launch Dota 2 yourself and get ready to impale your enemies for the glory of the god of war.

Drow Ranger Remodel



Never one to seek the spotlight, Drow Ranger thought to sneak into the lanes without announcing her redesigned model, but the glory of Mars' arrival has shone a light across the battlefield that not even Traxex can escape.

Added some previously unavailable heroes to Ability Draft
* Beastmaster (Hawk is not draftable)
* Lone Druid
* Io
* Monkey King (Primal Spring is not draftable)
* Shadowfiend (Shadowraze Medium and Presence of the Darklord are not draftable)
* Techies (Minefield Sign is not draftable)
* Meepo (Divided We Stand is not draftable)
* Rubick (Spellsteal is not draftable)
Will-o-wisp and Tag Team are now draftable in Ability Draft

* The Rubick Arcana Bundle now includes a Voice of the Magus Cypher item that lets Arcana owners choose whether to use the Arcana voice or the original Rubick voice. This item will appear in Arcana owners’ inventories shortly.

Removed Flowing Entropy from the Treasure of the Amaranth and instead included Enduring Solitude. Including the Flowing Entropy set was an oversight - Collector's Cache sets are intended to remain exclusive.

* New Bloom ended a few hours earlier than intended, the event has now been extended to be active through Feb 12th.
* Fixed an issue that caused the New Bloom Nian Courier to drop at lower than expected rates. This has been corrected, and items have been granted to reflect the proper drop rate.
* Fixed a bug that allowed pressing quickbuy in rapid succession to purchase the same item twice.
* Several Ranked Emoticons have been increased in size, and all emoticons used during in-game chat are now larger and closer to center on the chat line.