Valve announces The Ringmaster coming in 2024

At The International 12 (TI12) Valve announced the next hero to join the Dota 2 roster. Ringmaster will be coming in 2024.

Not much detail has been revealed about the new hero, but there are certain hints to what he does in the trailer.

Everything we know about the Ringmaster in Dota 2

Good luck escaping that (Credit: Valve)

From the trailer video, we can see the Ringmaster controls a creep to lure enemies. That's not unexpected, since the hero is based on the Puppet Master from Heroes of Neworth.

When Axe is lured to a carnival device, he tests his strength on the machine. We believe that Ringmaster will use some ability based on the enemy's strength, the stronger the enemy, the higher the impact. It could be from how high their main attribute or level is, time will tell.

After Axe hits the machine, he is immediately grabbed and sucked into it.  Ringmaster will likely have some form of control that locks enemies away for a few seconds, possibly his ultimate.

In 2021 a few people datamined information from the Dota 2 servers and found a few unused abilities, we expect at least a couple of these to be used for Ringmaster (possibly called Puppet Master back then).

Puppet Master: Chastise (Deleted), Command Puppets, Craft Puppets (Deleted), Dark Marionette, Marionette Cancel, Marionette, Master of Puppets, Pull the Strings, Punch No Judy, Siphon Soul (Deleted), String Up, Voodoo Doll, Funhouse (New ability), Limelight (New ability), Mannequin Pull (New ability), Mannequin Push (New ability) and Standing Ovation (New ability).

Not much else is known about the hero, but we're hopeful he comes out early in 2024, which for Valve would be November.

Till then, happy pubbing!

READ MORE: Zai: "This might have been my last TI"

Image Source provided by: Valve