Let's take a look back at the year 2022. A lot has happened in Dota 2 in the past 12 months. This concerns events around the professional scene and directly in our beloved game. This year we have seen a massive number of exciting and memorable matches that had a lot of highlights. Let's look back at the best of them! Read about the top highlights of 2022 in Dota 2 in our article.
Who stole the Aegis?
Stealing Aegis from opponents is always incredible and spectacular, but unfortunately, it rarely happens. It is, however, very entertaining to watch—Zhao XinQ Zixing of PSG.LGD demonstrated an exemplary steal of Aegis. In the match against Team Liquid, he played on Tiny. As his opponents were finishing off Roshan, XinQ jumped into Rosh’s pit, tossed an enemy Bristleback in place, and took Aegis. Of course, he died in the blink of an eye, but what he had achieved was to deprive the Bristleback of a second life, which would have allowed him to defeat PSG.LGD. With one move, XinQ bought his team enough time to build up their strength and put up a fight. In the end, the Chinese team won this map and the match. XinQ's theft of Aegis played no small part in this.
Undying > the opposing team
Another "foursome" distinguished itself in the Virtus.pro vs Vici Gaming match in the last-chance qualification playoffs. The Bears lost the first map and were as close as possible to losing the second, so they stalled as best they could. This continued until, at one point, the Chinese team stopped running the game. By the sixtieth minute, Virtus.pro had regained the lead and Undying's Daniyal yamich Lazebny became incredibly rich. He decided to take matters into his own hands and win the game himself. Yamich bought Black King Bar, Echo Sabre, Abyssal Blade, and Overwhelming Blink. With such a set of assets, he was doing damage as a full-fledged carry in a fight, and not even a six-slot Sniper could penetrate him. Virtus.pro needed to win that match, and yamich at Undying did everything he could to make it happen.
Victory Sunder on Terrorblade
How often do hard-carry players sacrifice or risk themselves to save their comrades? It's extremely rare, but sometimes that decision can win the game. Thus, in the Fnatic vs Team Aster match, the Filipino team's curry, Mark Raven Fausto, played on Terrorblade. In the twentieth minute, his team had a slight advantage, but at one point, everything could have changed. During the fight, Team Aster players caught the enemy Leshrac and almost killed him (he had less than 100 xp left). Had that happened, the Chinese team would have been able to overwhelm all of Fnatic's heroes and take the lead. What stopped that was the same Raven on Terrorblade who used an ultimatum on Leshrac and swapped lives with him. This allowed Leshrac to give all the buttons and kill his opponents, while Terrorblade helped him from afar. Raven had a great feel for the moment and made the correct decision, thus creating a fantastic highlight, even though he was taking a considerable risk himself.
Storm Spirit draws them all down
In the first round of the losers' round at The International 11, Gladiators and Fnatic battled it out. It was a very intense match, even though it was in a bo-1 format. Analysts predicted that Gladiators should have won this encounter, but Fnatic dominated from the beginning of the game. As a result, by the fortieth minute, the Asian team broke their opponents' two sides and led by about 15,000 gold. During the third side, the Gladiators gave a battle to their enemies, a successful one. Storm Spirit provided some cool Electric Vortex and drew down all the opponents. Thanks to these bursts, the Gladiators could team wipe, regain their advantage, and get back into the game. The team then won another brawl and won the match.
Ravage by Nyx Assassin
Another cool moment occurred in the Team Spirit vs Thunder Awaken match. There was no such thing as a level playing field at all. The Peruvians dominated from the start. By the thirtieth minute, they led by almost 15,000. It was challenging to play the Dragon, but there was still a chance to win. Farith Matthew Puente hammered the final nail in Team Spirit's coffin on Nyx Assassin. He found TS players in the woods, jumped to them on the blink, and gave a stun on four heroes. This is almost impossible to do on Nyx Assassin, making this one of the most colorful highlights of the past year. Thunder Awaken's players then dismantled Team Spirit and ended the game in their favor.
Double Rampage by TORONTOTOKYO
Of course, the top of the best highlights of 2022 couldn't do without a colorful Rampage. One of them was made by Alexander TORONTOTOKYO Khertek. It happened in a match against Thunder Awaken in the group stage of The International 11. In the thirty-fourth minute, the teams had parity in frugs and gold. At the same minute, a key brawl occurred in which the Team Spirit mid made a double Rampage, and on a very inappropriate hero - on Pangolier. Words can hardly describe the moment, as it involved ten heroes getting in a tizzy for 40 seconds. TORONTOTOKYO played the best, killing six opponents. After that, the Dragons gained full control of the map and won a landslide victory.
Double Rampage by Faith_bian
PSG completed an even cooler double Rampage.LGD offlaner Zhang Faith_bian Ruida. The highlight occurred in the PGL Major Arlington 2022 championship upper bracket playoff final against the main opponent of the Chinese grande, Team Spirit. The moment was particularly noteworthy because it was made by a third-position player, which is very rare. The highlight occurred in the thirty-fifth minute; by this time, PSG.LGD was leading by only a few thousand golds, which by this minute cannot be called a significant advantage. The game's outcome was decided in a five-on-five brawl in Dire Forest. Faith_bian, playing Dawnbreaker, took a lot of damage, teleported to the base, then returned to the fight with an Ultimate and started killing one hero after another. Even Team Spirit buybacks didn't help turn the fight around, and PSG.LGD took a solid victory, sending their opponent to the lower bracket.
Rampage at the Falling Throne
The most beautiful Rampage this year is also associated with Team Spirit. Ilya Yatoro Mulyarchuk made it in the PGL Major Arlington 2022 grand final against the same PSG.LGD. The cool thing about the moment is that it happened in the seventy-fifth minute of the game when each team lost two sides (the Dragons had a slight gold advantage). The match took place on Roshan. Yatoro was playing on the Crown Monkey King and had already bought a Divine Rapier. Right during the fight, the enemy creeps came into the Team Spirit base and started to break the throne, which was already "naked" at that moment. Because of this, the Dragons not only had to push the buttons in the faith but also had to think about defeating them. Team Spirit was as close to defeat as possible but still managed to defend the throne and win the fight. At the end of the episode, Yatoro had killed five opponents. Considering the gameplay situation and the heat of passion, this Rampage can be called the most vivid and memorable episode of 2022. The episode also earned the player an Esports Awards 2022 nomination for Best Moment in Cybersport for August 2022.
Comeback against mega-creeps
The Thunder Awaken vs Team Liquid match for the top 3 at The International 2022 could be called the most spectacular and exciting match of 2022. Everything was there: equal play, constant swings, turnovers, cool performances, individual errors, and, most importantly, a massive amount of fighting and killing. Two of the three maps lasted about sixty minutes, but you can only call them exciting. So if you want to enjoy the cool Dota 2, review this series.
On the first map, none of the teams was going to concede. The teams took the lead one after another but could not bring their total advantage to victory. At the fifty-sixth minute, Team Liquid had 20 thousand advantage, Aegis, Cheese, and Refresher Shard (at the same time, Thunder Awaken did not have a single barracks, and mega creeps pushed their base).
With this set, the Liquid tried to force a successful fight on the opponent. At first, all was well, with Tiny began firing at the three opponents, and then Lifestealer began to beat them. However, the Thunder Awaken players were ready to attack. They successfully used Arena Of Blood and Black Hole to win the brawl. In the end, Team Liquid lost three heroes, and Thunder Awaken went for the last flush, which succeeded. To win against the mega creeps in modern Dota 2 is an outstanding achievement. So the South American team is to be congratulated on this achievement.
Rampage in a lost game
Frankly speaking, the second game between Thunder Awaken and Team Liquid was not the most interesting (Liquid got a methodical victory), but the third game was more epic than the first one. There was constant rocking and rolling again, but South America had the upper hand this time. By the forty-eighth minute, Team Liquid was losing ten thousand gold and two sides. At this point, the Thunder Awaken players decided to dismantle the last line of structures but made a critical error.
At first, it was all good. Before the fight, the South Americans killed Crystal Maiden, who was without a buyback and started the power play. Thanks to a few buybacks, they could take a lot of enemy damage and kill Lifestealer (the opponents' main character). Then there were a few more kills, but Team Liquid was able to come back into the match with a few buybacks. The Thunder Awaken players played too brazenly and got under the enemy fountain, for which they were punished. Amazingly, in doing so, Darkmago was able to make a Rampage on Ember Spirit but still lost the map. This has never happened once in the history of The International 11 playoffs.
The final episode of the match was also with highlights. This time Team Liquid was pushing (four against two). Enigma from the enemy team gave Black Hole to Pangolier to delay the flush and wait for their cores. The hero should have died, but he was saved with an ultimate by Lifestealer. At that moment, Pangolier had exactly 1 xp. It was a wonderful moment that won Team Liquid the game. These two highlights are the best moments of 2022 on the professional Dota 2 scene.
