Bottle Crow Reborn

You know, I’m sure Icefrog MEANS well, but the consistency with which he makes our podcast episodes incorrect by the time they post is a tad frustrating. Then again, it’s also on me for being a bit slow this week. The ESL One Genting drama starts to calm down, but we still manage to get fired up. We tackle some big questions: how will they nerf Tinker? What changes need to happen to ge...

Oh my goodness gracious god. We had no time for anything but drama this week, and even shaving off all the other things we wanted to talk about, it was STILL a long episode! Nick and Colin have things to say about all the drama around ESL One Genting, scheduling error forfeits, The Salt Lord, and how to pronounce Katowice. We even had to delay the episode to record a little drop-in because the dra...

Grab a can of Energy Drink ™ because it’s time for Dota talk! Nick reports on his Captain’s Draft experience… but fails to drink the Promised Beverage, and Colin must take up that burden. New teams form, custom games are Even More Dead I Guess, and we aren’t the only Aghs show in town. AD2L begins, and with it, a new chapter in our amateur careers. …Is amateur c...

The year is dead. We will not mourn it. No, friends, celebrate 2017. Celebrate its life, for all its joys and… hang on please. Hang on. I’m… getting reports 2017 was trash? Shit year? Ded gaem? Hmm. Well. Regardless, there were some interesting events in 2017’s Dota, from the pro scene to the patches, and the way we’ve evolved as players. Let’s talk about it. P....

May the Christmas Spirit fill you, and CONSUME YOU. There is no escape. Even here on Bottle Crow, Frostivus Fever has set in, and the only cure is a tired reference. Headlining tonight’s show: Sumail vs. Peter, match scheduled for one fall. Nick does the work Valve is unwilling to and actually reviews the Frostivus custom game contest entries. Morph is ded hero. EG is ded team. The offlane m...

This week, we’re making up for the previous off episode with a content-packed banger of an episode. This is like the Hot Pocket of podcasts! Pizza Hot Pocket! Four Cheese. The pepperoni one is okay, I guess, but kinda too greasy, and the five cheese one is like… weirdly not great? You’d think if four cheese were good, five cheeses would be better, but no. Five cheese is a bad Hot...

please. don’t make me come up with show notes. haven’t i done enough? editing this podcast for hours and hours, day after day, almost made me give up podcasting. but i did it. is it good? i don’t know. it’s probably terrible. i don’t care, i can’t care. it is done and it is gone and god willing i never have to hear it again. qop support. dc disbands. middle sist...

Fifty/Fifty: I forgot to give this episode a proper title, I am making a dumb reference to part of the episode. New MMR is here, and people upset because they’re egotistical jackasses! (There are also legit complaints, but most of it is just “y i no 9k”) Midas Mode is over, and it was FANTASTIC. We’ve got an update from the FiftEE/FiftEE front. And finally, our fears of Dot...

Hey hey hey hey, smoke deceit every day. As Midas Mode delights, in the background, war was beginning. Beyond the Summit or Moonduck: it’s time to choose a side. For one must live, and the other must- what? I’m in the middle of a… hmmm. Well, okay. I’m being told the situation is really not that dire, and I’m being melodramatic. Is that true? Only YOU can decide, dear...

English is hard, okay? Join Colin and Nick as we tackle drama, drama, hats, drama, and a certain malaise that has settled over our co-hosts in regards to the recent patch. We join the chorus of people expressing their disappointment with GranDGrant’s latest idiotic claim, we can’t pronounce words in treasure names, a mohawk is not an afro. Valve should do better. Take a shot if you&#82...

During our Extra Life stream, we brought folks a special treat. This is the podcast archive of that present. Colin and Nick are joined by a special guest- Sam Wendel of We Like Dota, the internet’s casual Dota podcast! Colin is nearly ten hours into streaming and slightly out of it, Nick is sharp and ready for action, and Sam is a gracious guest. Join them as they talk 7.07, recent news, and...

We roll into our second hour with the second part of our Dueling Fates patch notes special! Colin and Nick have managed to keep special guest Mistablue interested somehow, and now it’s time to talk about hero changes! Buckle the EFF up! We’re on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher! You can subscribe on those, and leave a review if you like! That would really help us out. Tell your Dota friends...

I hope you are ready for two and a half hours of Dota patch analysis, because it’s comin’ at you. This first part clocks in at a little over an hour, but there is also a part two. Join Colin, Nick, and special guest Mistablue (formerly of Defense of the Patience) for breakdown of the Dueling Fates update! We’re on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher! You can subscribe on those, and leave...

Well, when we RECORDED this there wasn’t a patch yet. This week, we tackle Mercedes memes, Anti-Kings, ESL One Hamburg, another WLDL update, and more! Keeping this description on the shorter end, because I am going to go pass out, wake up, and then immediately edit more Bottle Crow (specifically the patch notes special for 7.07). Life is the ultimate game, and Game Is Hard. We’re on iTunes,...

Listen, I’m gonna be honest with you. If TF2’s servers were working right when that big patch hit, that’d be what we were talking about this week. Probably? Maybe. Honestly, TF2 hasn’t changed much in the past… five years. Going back to it, it’s a game I used to love so much, but its design just doesn’t do it for me anymore. In an attempt to figure out wha...

Curse you, v1lat! A tease of a patch, born of falsehood! In its wake, we scramble to pick up the pieces. Starladder’s a mess, with tactical pause rules and an observer clearly out of their depth. SFTe-sports suffers a mutiny in the wake of its incompetence. Should we ever have another Dota 2 holiday event? Plus, a WLDL update. Trust no Lich. We’re on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher! You ca...

I fully expected this podcast to be a battle for the soul of Dota- me vs. Nick, arguing whether or not we should all quit Dota because it’s a bad game. I have had a bad week of Dota. It has been miserable. My spirit was tested, and truly, I faltered. And it took a small wonder to get me to pick myself off the mat, and dust off. There are still battles to be fought. The Ancient yet stands, an...

The definition of “desolate” to make a place depressingly barren or empty. Maybe the Desolator’s name stems not from its powers, but from the goal it strives towards: an empty field, devoid of buildings and structures it has long since torn down. Or perhaps it’s a comment on what the effect on a friendship it can have when you slip your Desolator into another person’s...

We’re really at a stage with this meta where it’s hard for me to boot up the game. So, we take a little time to talk about news: the ongoing drama with Ana and his former manager, your bi-monthly cry of “Navi’s back,” the Immortals AMA. Then we bury our heads deep in the fiction of a better world, and an imagined meta, as our own ideas for new Dota content come forth!...

And lo, IceFrog heard the cry of the people. From his spire he could hear it, the lamentations of all those souls lost trying to go high ground. Players Necro Scythed into the nether, unable to return. The howls of Wyvern pickers, the screams of Lyralei spammers, the weeping of Bane players. He heard their pain, and their sorrow, and for a moment, he felt for them. He wondered, idly, if today was...

Like, okay. There are horseless carriages. People ride horses without using a carriage. People walk. People get married without being in love. They fall in love without getting married. They have sex without getting married. And some people go their whole lives without having fallen in love OR gotten married (hey what’s up). So really you can have one or none of every POSSIBLE interpretation...

The roster shuffle continues, as EG becomes less evil, but no less genius, the Europeans form a new Alliance, w33 starts his own team, and more. Blitz is coming back to the world of casting, and we’re stoked about it. EE gets a finger wag, and we talk about what pro players are entitled to in pubs. We’re going to get to the bottom of one of Dota’s biggest, oldest questions, we pl...

Try this 50/50 on for size: we spend most of the podcast talking about Dota, or we get caught on an unrelated tangent that devours the runtime of the episode. See, THAT’S how you do it. You have no idea which it’s going to be right now, do you? It’s that suspense that entices- that uncertainty. Scientists = Baffled. This week on Bottle Crow, we talk patch 7.06f, the new Fnatic ro...

The International is over. This podcast is late. …Sorry >.< It works out though, because this episode we recorded last week is better than anything we’d have to say on this boring week of no news and nothing. Team Liquid have done it! New heroes approach! Optimistic wishes for the next patch! We’re on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher! You can subscribe on those, and leave a revi...

Leave it to Nick to go completely out of his mind off the rails on an episode where we already had plenty to talk about. The International 7 is underway! Some last minute team changes occurred! We’ve seen the schedule for the Majors and Minors next year, and we’ve got the inside scoop of what Valve’s priorities are for Dota in the future! Plus… we spend way too long trying...