Dota 2 has been a famous title in the multiplayer gaming community for about a decade. It was already a popular name after its release in 2013 thanks to the first Dota, a community-created mod for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. However, it experienced a boom in popularity when Valve Corporation bought it. Since then, it has developed a major Twitch streaming presence and received several nominations for notable awards, such as British Academy Games Award for Multiplayer and The Game Award for Best Esports Game, becoming a giant in the MOBA gaming industry.
Dota 2 gained a loyal fanbase from its first release that still endures today. The intense planning, item building, and teamwork required to succeed in the game endeared it to fans who enjoy good strategy. Several of these fans play the game on popular streaming platforms such as Twitch, drawing flocks of viewers who want to see Dota 2 played at the highest level. Streamers often take challenges from their fans, creating a personalized experience for them and their viewers. Quite a few streamers have generated a massive following on the Twitch platform in the course of creating quality content.
Grubby
Manuel Schenkhuizen - known by his username "Grubby" - has been on the Twitch platform almost since its inception. Grubby is a former professional Warcraft 3 and Starcraft gamer with highly positive energy. He was performing at an above-average level in his first few games of Dota 2, despite having no experience. Today, he uses his skills to control characters like Meepo perfectly, amazing his viewers with his prowess. In the time he has been on Twitch, he has gained over 500,000 followers, and is the 4th most-watched English-speaking Dota 2 channel on the platform.
Gorgc
Janne Stefanovski is a professional Dota 2 gamer playing for Team Bald Reborn. He generally has a laid-back personality, but he can get heated when things are not going his way in a game. Viewers seem to love this, as is evidenced by his impressive viewership numbers. According to TwitchMetrics, viewers have spent 2.6 million hours watching his channel. These figures make him the 4th most popular Dota 2 channel on Twitch and the 3rd among English-speaking channels. He joined Twitch in 2015 and has amassed a following of about 605,000 viewers since.
Stray228
Stray228 has been on Twitch since 2013 and has a followership of 1.2 million fans. Viewers have spent approximately 1.8 million hours on his channel. Oleg is not showing any signs of slowing down either, gaining 23,000 followers in the last month alone. His channel is the 3rd most popular Russian Dota 2, and he is in the top 100 most-watched channels on Twitch. Unlike most gamers, Stray228 plays Dota 2 almost exclusively. This focus on Dota 2 might be the driving factor behind the growth of his fanbase.
AdmiralBulldog
Henrik Ahnberg is the man behind the popular Twitch account, AdmiralBulldog. He is a former professional gamer for Alliance now firmly focused on his streaming career. AdmiralBulldog is widely regarded as one of the best and most knowledgeable players of Dota 2, and this is the main streaming game of his choice. He also plays other games such as What The Dub?! and Jackbox Party Packs. Since his debut on Twitch , Henrik has gained a following of over 700,000 fans and has become the 7th most-watched English Dota 2 channel. He often engages his fans in conversations in the JustChatting Twitch category.
Nix
Nix runs arguably the biggest Dota 2 channel by an individual streamer on Twitch, only behind the official channels on the platform. He used to play esports professionally for the HellRaisers. Since joining Twitch in 2014, Nix's 350,000 followers have been entertained non-stop by his skill. His channel is the most-watched Dota 2 channel in Russia and ranks number 31 in the overall category on the platform. His viewers have spent almost 4 million hours watching his streams, and he is attracting plenty more with his great gameplay and fun streaming style.
DOTA 2 is available now on PC.