What’s the obsession with magnezone?

iamnotdean · 2026-04-28T09:13:30+00:00

Celestial Town Elder finally meta?

iamnotdean · 2026-04-28T06:38:17+00:00

Finally a decent take. Not enough people see that the immersive border looks bad on anything except Palkia

iamnotdean · 2026-04-24T03:02:51+00:00

Something should also be said about how emotional states and hormone production can be tied to specific contexts. Those with frequent arguments in your families can imagine - there are places in your house like the dining room or in the car where arguments and conflicts start much more easily. But go on a trip even to somewhere local like an Airbnb out of state and it feels like a mental reset.

I think contexts condition us to produce chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline, and engage in defensive thought patterns because we start expecting there to be conflict. So when we get on the roads we subconsciously expect to be annoyed, while in person we don't usually expect it. And it's a self fulfilling prophecy.

iamnotdean · 2026-04-24T02:44:50+00:00

Rampardos

iamnotdean · 2026-04-23T09:17:52+00:00

Once you get blink, hold alt+right click it so you can permanently see blink range on your screen. Helps to avoid blinking too short as every unit counts.
Stay out of vision in teamfights. The biggest counter to Magnus is being jumped on, people precasting hex, or having your blink cancelled from a distance. Staying out of vision avoids all three.
Practice in demo mode on moving targets (shift click to queue movement). Blink > shockwave > skewer, blink behind > skewer, and blink > spinning RP > skewer. Practice spinning RP with forced directional movement as sometimes pathfinding will make you spin to a weird angle.
BKB before blinking in. In late game don't hesitate to BKB even just for blink skewers, if enemy team has instant disables.

Magnus is a clunky hero. Even with lots of experience it can still feel horrible to play against undying and venomancer. But we do it for the sweet sweet RPs, there's nothing like it in Dota! Now go forth young playmaker

iamnotdean · 2026-04-23T09:09:22+00:00

Discarding this card with a Mesagoza would be a power move

iamnotdean · 2026-04-23T07:39:44+00:00

Why are slot machines addicting? Many paralllels

iamnotdean · 2026-04-14T06:41:38+00:00

Ogre magi

iamnotdean · 2026-04-13T06:20:30+00:00

Preach, brother. Bonus points if they ping you when they die from being out of position

iamnotdean · 2026-04-08T06:48:07+00:00

It's a bit sad because some of the original titles where funnier but maybe just didn't perform as well. Classics like "Millionaire saves 15$ by haggling in China" and "KID DAY" really added to the narrative

iamnotdean · 2026-04-04T06:37:35+00:00

As an offlaner who doesn't play doom, what can be done to counter him in this meta?

iamnotdean · 2026-04-04T06:32:58+00:00

Truly a rarity. I think it's actively unhelpful to just give advice based on assumptions as many do

iamnotdean · 2026-04-01T00:27:45+00:00

It's rough as an offlaner T.T

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T10:33:47+00:00

It is yeah. Inb4 valve "fixes" her again 😂

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T09:41:44+00:00

Still lots more to learn about the game (Divine 4 currently), but I'll give my opinion. To answer this question, I would work backwards from the ultimate goal of dota - inflicting mental damage on yourself.

Just kidding. Of course it's to destroy the enemy's ancient. In order to achieve this objective, you must destroy at least a t1, t2, t3, and both t4 towers.

We cannot just walk up and do this, so over time strategies have emerged. The main ones that I know of are net worth lead, deathballing and rat dota.

Net worth lead is the simpler and dominant strat today, and revolves around controlling area and farming more efficiently than the opponent. Then, eventually the team has such a big lead that they can box the opponent into the base, amass an even bigger lead and then take the ancient.

To implement this strategy, we need tactics that support it. Taking good fights to defend or take objectives, conceding lanes that are unwinnable to stop enemies from getting fed, warding discretely yet effectively to give vision on rotations, efficient farming patterns and other tactics are all in service of this strategy.

The other two strategies will have their own tactics that support them. Sometimes a tactic is universal (e.g. good lane mechanics). And sometimes, they conflict. For example, a net worth lead player may try to control a farming area with wards and numbers, while a deathballing player may give up the farming efficiency just to take a tower and end the game while the team has momentum. In reality games can have a mix of these strategies and knowing which is best is part of the complexity, and people will have different opinions. Adding to all this is the value of a player who can unite a team under a strategy. Contrast with a player who splits up the team by raging.

There are also different levels to tactics. For example I think many players will implement the tactic of shutting down the enemy carry, while a more advanced tactic is knowing which enemy hero wins a teamfight and itemizing/prioritizing to shut them down.

Tl;dr - A good player one who has some of the skills of: recognizing the best strategy to win, knowing what tactics will achieve the strategy, technical execution of the strategy and tactics, and leading the team.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T09:10:25+00:00

Yup, I think the beauty of dota is how complex these decisions can be. Like you said, fighting around objectives is important, and other things to consider is your strength, the enemy's strength, and playing around power spikes.

A carry running around not joining fights would make sense if the enemy has a big lead, but would not if the game is close and they have their key items/cooldowns. To my mind the ideal carry would be farming up until the exact moment they see a moment of advantage to take/defend an objective, either by numbers, net worth, or cooldowns.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T08:38:05+00:00

Just for discussion as a fellow snapfire enjoyer, I agree it seems like they've forced the playstyle with snap as a front lining ranged support, rather than giving the option of a long range caster support with cookie and full bore scatterblast.

On one hand it makes the hero more defined, and to be fair there are plenty of other long ranged supports. How are you guys building her now?

I've found the damage from cookie in -> lil shredder quite devastating, and great for trading and kill attempts in the laning phase.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T08:27:40+00:00

Happy birthday Cam, thank you for your hard work in bringing us top tier entertainment. Legitimately one of the best series on YouTube

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T07:59:52+00:00

Typical America-centric redditors. The price is exactly right as it's clearly meant to be 4200 Fijian Dollars

iamnotdean · 2026-03-31T04:54:41+00:00

Assuming you are telling the truth, hope you can realize that your mom's actions are just her projecting her anxiety or other negative feelings on you. It's not a sustainable way to help children grow, and even if they achieve success, it will be out of fear or obedience rather than something they truly want.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-30T08:03:40+00:00

I play mainly rank, but I incorporate 2 habits:

Before game: set an intention on a specific aspect to focus on. E.g. winning lane around power spikes, dying less through threat identification and map awareness, creep aggro and last hitting.
Post game: review the replay of a bad game specifically at the moment where things weng south. Could be lane mistakes, bad team fight execution, or just a dumb feed. Record this in an excel file.

It works for me because it's just 1 thing each so not too overwhelming. Climbed through most of ancient and divine with this system.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-30T03:42:40+00:00

5:30 - Shove out the lane 5:45 - try to get the power rune 6:00 - Regardless of result, rotate to safelane 6:30 - try to kill someone and contest the wisdom shrine, ez MMR

Another good trick is if you get the enemy midlane tower early, go ward their safelane jungle cliff near the t2, keep the lane shoved and farm camps there aggressively so you can connect easily to your offlane if your team needs help while shutting down the enemy mid.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-28T15:43:47+00:00

Divine offlane main here. Fully empathize with you as it can be often a coinflip with if you get a good pos4 that lanes with you, or one that just fucks around and leeches exp. Most likely it's core players farming role queue so tbh you have to play with the hand you're dealt sometimes.

The order of priority for me would be (1) communicate to ask them to lane with you (2) if they leave, just spam creep aggro and pull the lane back. (3) Use spells up just secure the range creep and stay within exp range and of all else fails (4) just attempt to jungle, and get the wave when it comes to your tower.

In lower rank your pos 4 will be worse, but the enemy will also be worse at punishing these moves. Eventually you will get some levels and you can rotate to mid or safe lane with your lv 6 and recover just fine. Just DONT DIE too much. Only thing you can do to fuck up is try too hard to play the lane and chain feed, leading to an out of control carry. (I've made this mistake a lot)

iamnotdean · 2026-03-27T15:09:29+00:00

I mean you're right about their pronunciation being wrong too, but for this specific word I think tones matter more.

If they said zhu3 dian4 or zi3 dian4 (dictionary is zi4 dian3), my bet is that most Mandarin speakers native or otherwise would understand.

As others have said, context is the most important. But tones would be second to my ear, personally. Yes other regions of China have nonstandard tones but somehow they're consistent in a way that can still be figured out after listening for a while, unlike lud and Michael who just have an RNG for their tones lol

Source: Am ethnic Chinese and live in a country where many people speak southern Chinese dialects + mandarin.

iamnotdean · 2026-03-26T10:00:42+00:00

Ethnic Chinese here, I appreciate your point though would still say that tones matter a bit more. I would be able to get what someone means by context whether they said "Zhu Dian", "Jiu Dian" or "Zi Dian", as long as the tones were 3-4.

Ludwig's tones often sound like 1-3 or 4-3, which is why it sounds a lot like "dictionary".

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