After a variety of opinion articles, extensive beta testing and hearing from the community, the 6.49 map is finally complete and released! The change log can verify that IceFrog is starting to step in the right direction for making the game more competitive.

Along with a new loading screen (finally) a number of heroes background stories were rewritten, new items were introduced and certain balance changes were made. So far, the community has shown a positive response to the named changes and hope that leagues and tournaments will adapt to the new map!

These can be seen as the more important changes for competitive play:

• Blink Dagger nerf (Increasing cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds)
• Item buffs (BKB (cooldown nerfed), Linkens (cooldown nerfed), Midas (reduced mana cost), Power Treads (remade), Eul + Guinsoo (now shares cooldown), Monkey King Bar (Recipe changed)
• Crystal Maiden Brilliance Aura changed from AOE to global
• Juggernaut movement speed buff
• Priestess of the Moon leap nerfed (removed invulnerability)
• Lion's Mana Drain buff (so it can really be used for jacking mana)
• Call of the Wild nerf (Increased the cooldown)
• Significant reduction in strength gain on Bristleback
• Bottle (Initial purchase fills bottle 2/3 rather than full)
• Puck's initial intelligence and intelligence growth nerfed