Immortal Draft was introduced to Dota 2 in Patch 7.33, turning the highest MMR games in Dota into a captained draft. We’re now a year and four months, give or take, from that huge change and players at the cusp of Immortal Draft are telling everyone that the system needs fixing.
With four front-page threads on Reddit, dozens of posts on social media, and general dissatisfaction, it’s clear there’s some big problems with Immortal Draft. The biggest issue: Win trading. Through the party system, and in-game communication, players appear to be able manipulate the result of games, and take advantage of the MMR Double Down mechanic introduced with the game’s Crownfall event.
This manifests with one player on one side intentionally feeding or griefing, while their collaborators, another player or multiple players, are able to activate their double down and secure some easy MMR.
The issues have plagued matches at above 4k MMR, from around Divine to Immortal rank and beyond.
Part of these issues come from the fact that Immortal Draft splits parties up. Under 4k MMR, parties and groups of players are compelled to play on the same team, and often against other matched parties. However, in Immortal Draft, the draft system itself allows players to find themselves on opposite teams, and coordinate in wintrading.
This is compounded by the MMR double down mechanic which allows you to effectively gamble on your performance in a given game.
Beyond that, games at all levels are affected by the Cavern Crawl-like mechanics of the Crownfall event which encourage players to play heroes they’re often not familiar with, or to play heroes out of position.
All of this combines into just a terrible situation for the highest levels of Dota 2. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight, or many alternatives. The Crownfall event is set to continue for another month and beyond, and Ranked changes are something that Valve hasn’t exactly addressed in a long time.
For the time being, it’s just not a great time to be a 4k+ MMR player. Dota 2’s Immortal Draft is here to stay, but without changes, win-trading and low quality games seem inevitable.
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