Sebastien Debs, popularly known as Ceb, recently shared his thoughts on the significant changes introduced by Valve regarding the access to Immortal Draft matchmaking replays in Dota 2. As a co-founder of OG, a well-known esports organization, Ceb expressed his mixed feelings towards the update, acknowledging its severity while appreciating the underlying concept.
The implementation of the patch on March 19 resulted in the closure of replays and APIs for high-MMR games, restricting access to everyone except the players directly involved. This implies that the only way to spectate ranked matches with MMR exceeding 8.5k is by watching them live, marking a stark departure from the previous accessibility standards. Notably, data services like Dota2ProTracker faced significant ramifications due to this alteration, as their core offerings revolved around coverage of such elite gameplay.
The community's response to this development has been divergent, with professional players generally viewing it in a positive light. However, for casual gamers, the implications are more profound, as they are now deprived of the effortless access to professional player strategies and builds that was previously available.
