Welcome to Newsletter #3.

This week we have a couple of film reviews and some thoughts on the long-awaited Dota patch, which dropped Tuesday night.

Film

I had the pleasure of watching Vengeance, a dark comedy thriller film, written and directed by B. J. Novak. We follow journalist Ben (played by Novak), who travels from New York to rural Texas for the funeral of a hook-up he barely remembers, but whose family think was her adoring boyfriend. Seeing this as an opportunity to start the next big podcast, Ben decides to stick around and record everything the locals have to say.

It's this narcissistic trait of the protagonist which ironically allows the story to have depth and ultimately give us affecting moments. I particularly liked the trope of the podcast editor listening to the recordings for the first time, providing a neat excuse to hop between scenes (or what you can imagine would be episodes of the podcast). The story combines mystery and comedy to slowly unravel into a dramatic finale. It does feel a little snarky in places, as we look down on the gun slingin' locals, but they prove to be so much more and give us all reason to reflect on what we value.

Rating: 7/10

The original Top Gun came out before I was born and is up there with some of the most memorable films from the '80s. Its sequel therefore has a lot to live up to and Top Gun: Maverick does just that, and possibly even more.

Maverick returns after 36 years to train an elite group of TOPGUN graduates, tasked with destroying an unsanctioned uranium plant. The action sequences are breathtaking as we fly alongside the pilots driving themselves and their vehicles to the absolute limit. There's a wonderful balance of new and nostalgia as Maverick's story comes full circle, without ever distracting from the task at hand.

I'm sad to say I watched it at home and can only imagine how incredible it would look on the big screen with a half decent sound system.

Rating: 8.5/10

Dota

It has been six months since the last major patch and with The International 2022 due to start in less than two, fans have been hotly anticipating what changes we might see to freshen things up. What we didn't expect is for the patch to drop one day into the ongoing ESL One Malaysia tournament, leaving teams literally no time to practice before going into the second day of competitive games.

Overview:

The most notable changes are the general updates, which includes a map tweaking to decrease the Dire advantage, the addition of a Flagbearer Creep (I expect we'll soon get to see how teams abuse this in the laning phase) and the removal of certain neutral items, each being replaced with something new.

My Top Winners (and their win rate % change):

• Phantom Assassin (+3.97%) - Phantom Strike now grants lifesteal, allowing the hero to take more aggressive moves in lane and farm the jungle with less sustain early on.

• Clinkz (+3.29%) - The buff to early levels of Burning Barrage makes it easier to farm both the jungle and creepwaves, so is far quicker to scale.

• Legion Commander (+3.96%) - Duel's cast range has increased at all levels, making it an easier spell to use pre-Blink Dagger. The duration buff to Blade Mail is also an indirect buff for LC, often being a core early game item pick up.

• Undying (+3.26%) - I expect Undying will become a very popular support or offlane hero over the coming weeks. The Decay buff which allows you to keep stolen health on expiration could soon prove to be broken.

My Top Losers (and their win rate % change):

• Marci (-6.33%) - Marci has had the Earth Spirit treatment where her first two spells have had the stun and slow swapped around, as well as a nerf to her ultimate Unleash. I'm not a Marci player, but apparently she is now terrible to play.

• Brewmaster (-4.46%) - The Aghs has been completely reworked, removing the second charge of his ultimate and instead granting a new ability: Primal Companion. Perhaps players will figure out how to work this to their advantage, but for now it looks to be one to ignore.

• Bristleback (-3.28%) - Nerfs to both the Aghs (the Goo cast range) as well as Warpath have meant this hero just doesn't scale in quite the same way as previously.

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If you have any feedback, please get in touch and I hope to see you again for next week’s newsletter.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Adam