Early numbers from the Berlin Major – Trader’s report April 2023 by PandaScore

When Valve announced the full scope of changes coming to Dota 2 with their latest patch, 7.33, it understandably put the scene into a spin about what the game would look like moving forward.

The changes were so big and wide sweeping that many experts across both esports and general play found it difficult to fully grasp. The map is about 30% bigger with the lanes being longer. there are more neutral objectives and buffs than before. Roshan, the major neutral objective in the game now spawns in different spots on the map throughout the game. These were just a few of the changes that the new patch brought.

Jokes are thrown around about this being ‘Dota 3’, and predicting how it would play out for casual players, pros and esports betting has been a major question mark. The team at PandaScore has done some early number crunching based on the group stage of the Berlin Major – the first Major to play on patch 7.33 – to measure just how significant the changes have been for traders.

Side-by-side: Lima and Berlin Majors

Measuring the previous Major in Lima, Peru against Berlin gives us a decent point of comparison to measure the impact of 7.33.

Undoubtedly the biggest shift has been in how the side of the map a team plays on – Radiant or Dire – impacts overall win chance. Over the 193 matches in Lima, Dire has a 59.07% win rate, and across over 2,000 matches played in all tournaments on the previous patch, Dire won 57% of all matches.

But from the Berlin Group stage, it’s been close to a complete flip the other way: Radiant has a 57% win rate across 143 matches. It’s a huge change in win rates that’s going to have a major impact on how traders should price markets moving forward.

From the group stages, we’ve found that the average game time has shortened from 39 minutes down to 35 minutes average playtime. Along with this, there’s been a bump in average kills in a match from 48.86 to 50.02. Overall, we’re seeing more team fights compared to previously where farming was more rewarding. A big reason for the games being shorter and bloodier is that kills are now more rewarding, so teams are more willing to brawl.

One of the other major shifts we’ve seen is in Roshan markets, with the average Roshans taken lowering from 2.25 to 1.81 per match. Lower average game time is of course a contributor to this, but the neutral objective is stronger and harder to kill compared to previously. The fact that the objective moves places depending on whether it’s daytime or nighttime has created added complexity to how teams strategise around the objective while the game is happening.

Overall, the Berlin Major is the first time we’re seeing teams from every region get together on this new patch, with pros, analysts, fans and traders all learning as we go after such drastic changes. It’s likely we’ll see a period of volatility and odds changes from suppliers across the sector as we gather more data and adjust our models accordingly

Over/under performers: Heroic at IEM Rio

A monthly look at some of the most significant odds shifts in a major tournament

CS:GO’s Rio Major more or less played out according to what was expected, but one major point to take away from the tournament was the shifting performances of Na’Vi and Heroic.

When it came to their matchup in the semi-finals, Na’Vi was sitting at 1.60 to win over the Danish squad Heroic. And while the matchup included a lengthy 25-22 overtime in the first map, Na’Vi lost the series 2-0.

While they might have lost to Vitality in the final, Heroic actually went into the matchup as slight favourites – paying 1.76 to Vitality’s 2.00.

We’re now starting to see a few more upsets against Na’Vi, while Heroic appears to be finding the form they’ve missed as of late, arguably deserving their #1 HLTV.org ranking.

We’re seeing the market more broadly start to adjust to Heroic, if they can take on the likes of Na’Vi and keep pushing deep into tournaments they’re a team that traders should keep an eye on in the future.

We’re probably going to see higher odds on other teams facing Heroic in the future, with The BLAST.tv Paris Major will be the next test for the all-Danish team.