Introducing The Player Cards

This is a guide covering the new player cards system that was recently added into Dota 2.

Player cards represent the participants of The International which will drop as loot in regular and Compendium matchmaking games. Collect your favorite players and stamp them into your compendium to earn rewards!

Introduction

Player cards is a new system that was introduced with the Dota 2 28th of June patch.

The cards are intended to be used by Compendium owners and can be stamped directly into the book in order to add that player to your collection.

Player cards represent the participants of this year's International and will drop as loot in regular and Compendium matchmaking games. You're guaranteed to get one via a drop after completing your first Compendium matchmaking match after the cards were introduced.

In the future the Compendium will be updated with Player card challenges which will provide rewards for meeting the criteria (more details on this below).

Meet The Teams

It is possible to get a player card from one of the 17 different teams that will be attending this year's International. Either from one of the 15 teams that have been directed invited to this year's International or won the qualifiers or from also the 2 teams who are going to compete before the start of the event for the final spot in a wildcard challenge.

For those unfamiliar with the team/player list, you can see it below.

Alliance
Gustav "s4" Magnusson (C)
Henrik "AdmiralBulldog" Ahnberg
Joakim "Akke" Akterhall
Jerry "EGM" Lundkvist
Jonathan "Loda" Berg



Dignitas
Ioannis "Fogged" Loucas (C)
JingJun "Sneyking" Wu
Saahil "Universe" Arora
Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling
Peter "Waytosexy" Nguyen



DK
Xu "BurNIng" Zhilei (C)
Bai "rOtk" Fan
Xie "Yueru" Junhao (aka Super)
Yao "QQQ" Yi
Lei "X!!" Zengrong



Fnatic
Tal "Fly" Aizik (C)
Johan "N0tail" Sundstein
Adrian "Era" Kryeziu
Kai "H4nn1" Hanbueckers
Kalle "Trixi" Saarinen



Invictus Gaming
Chen "Zhou" Yao (C)
Luo "430" Feichi
Jiang "YYF" Cen
Wong "ChuaN" Hock Chuan
Zeng "Faith" Hongda



LGD Gaming.cn
Zhang "xiao8" Ning (C)
Liu "Sylar" Jiajun
Yao "Yao" Zhengzheng
Xie "dd" Bin
Leong "ddc" Fat-meng



LGD Gaming.int
Per Anders "Pajkatt" Olsson Lille (C)
Sergey "God" Bragin
Braxton "Brax" Paulson
Rasmus Berth "MiSeRy" Filipsen
Sivatheeban "1437" Sivanathapillai



Team Liquid
Brian "FLUFFNSTUFF" Lee (C)
Sam "Bulba" Sosale
Michael "ixmike88" Ghannam
Steven "Korok" Ashworth
Tyler "TC" Cook



Mousesports
Troels "syndereN" Nielsen (C)
Adrian "FATA-" Trinks
Dominik "Black^" Reitmeier
Pascal "paS" Lohmeier
Max "qojqva" Broecker



MUFC
Litt-Binn "WinteR" Chan (C)
Daniel "TFG" Wong
Cheng ♥♥♥ "FzFz" Siew
Woi Cheong "Ling" Sim
Jun Liong "dabeliuteef" Loh



Na'Vi
Clement "Puppey" Ivanov (C)
Daniil "Dendi" Ishutin
Kuro Salehi "KuroKy" Takhasomi
Aleksander "XBOCT" Dashkevich
Gleb "Funn1k" Lipatnikov



Orange
Joel "XtiNcT" Chan Zhan Leong
Yee Fung "Mushi" Chai
Kang Yang "ky.xy" Lee
Wai Pern "Net" Lim
Chong Xin "Ohaiyo" Khoo



Quantic Gaming
Artur "Goblak" Kostenko (C)
Airat "Silent" Gaziev
Sébastien "7ckngMad" Debs
Thibault "Funzii" Calonne
Titouan "Sockshka" Merloz



Rattlesnake
Yinqi "Luo" Luo (C)
Kai "Kabu" Zhao
Zhicheng "LaNm" Zhang
Peng "Icy" Wang
Li "NEO" Guo



TongFu
Zhi Hao "Hao" Chen (C)
Pan "Mu" Zhang
Zhao Hui "Sansheng" Wang
Jiao "Banana" Wang
Yang "KingJ" Zhou



Virtus.Pro
Yaroslav "NS" Kuznetsov (C)
Oleg "Crazy" Kolesnichenko (a.k.a. TMW)
Ilya "Airman" Pivtsaev (a.k.a. Illidan Stormrage)
Sergey "ARS-ART" Revin
Sergey "KSi" Kuzin



Team Zenith
Daryl "iceiceice" Koh Pei Xiang (C)
Wai Hong "xy-" Toh
Nicholas "xFreedom" Lim
Wei Poong "YamateH" Ng
Chee Cai "Ice" Chua

The Compendium

In order to keep a track of the player cards you have stamped and collected the Compendium has been updated with two new sections.



The first section is a player card overview page which will be updated in a future patch to show a list of player card challenges running that week (more on this later).



Going to a team's profile inside the Compendium will show you the team's information, accomplishments and most importantly their players. On this page the player faces are greyed out which means you currently don't have that player stamped into your collection.

Where Do I Get One?

So now you have an understanding of what a player card is, you're probably wondering how you can collect these cards.

The easiest way to guarantee that you get your first card is to compete in a Compendium matchmaking match which will reward you with a player card the first time you play a Compendium match after the player cards were introduced.

You can also get cards through regular matchmaking drops like you would normally get when playing Dota 2 on any of the matchmaking queues (All Pick, All Random, Compendium etc).



For those who are not interested in waiting around then the system is always open to trading. You can visit one of the many Dota 2 trading sites and attempt to trade for the card(s) you desire.

• http://dota2lounge.com/
  
• http://reddit.com/r/Dota2Trade/
  
• http://dota2traders.com/

Using A Player Card

Once you're in the position where you have earned a player card, the item will be added to your backpack just like a normal Dota 2 item.



Hovering over the card will display all of the details regarding that player, his position in the team, favoured heroes and also his featured match id.



From the backpack you can right click on the card and will be presented with a few options.



The "Watch the replay" option will take you to that player's featured match in which they performed exceptionally well and will download the replay for you to watch.



The other option which is the most important one is the "Use on Compendium" option which allows you to use up the player card and stamp it into your collection.

Using this option will present you with a dialog warning you that the card will be destroyed upon use. The player cards are a one time use and once stamped into your Compendium they can not be retrieved.



Once the player card has been stamped into your Compendium the team profile page will be updated and that player's image will be now displayed in full colour, representing the fact that you have stamped/collected that player.

Future Plans - Player Card Challenges

This is just the start of the player card system, in the future there will be more updates to the Compendium to add extra features in this area.

One of these features will be "Player Card Challenges", these challenges will run on a timed basis which will provide rewards for completing them.



From the files we have an idea of the kind of challenges we can expect for when this system goes live. For example, stamping a complete team etc.

"DOTA_TIP_Player_Card_Challenge_0" "Stamp one complete team\nReward: ???"
"DOTA_TIP_Player_Card_Challenge_1" "Stamp five complete teams\nReward: ???"
"DOTA_TIP_Player_Card_Challenge_2" "Stamp all Player Cards\nReward: ???"
"DOTA_TIP_Player_Card_Challenge_3" "Stamp this randomly selected team: %s1\nReward: ???"
"DOTA_TIP_Player_Card_Challenge_4" "Stamp this randomly selected team: %s1\nReward: ???"
"DOTA_TIP_Player_Card_Challenge_5" "Stamp any Mythical Player Card\nReward: ???"

Closing Notes

For those who are interested in following and supporting me I run a Dota 2 website which focuses on covering the weekly patches and behind the scenes working of Dota 2:

http://www.cyborgmatt.com/

I also post snippet updates to my Twitter account as well which can find here:

https://twitter.com/Cyborgmatt

Thank you reading the guide. If you have any more questions feel free to get in touch with me via my site, Twitter or the comment section on here.

[Entropy]

good

[Neostun]

wanna trade cards for items?

[Menelik]

I need to collect more of these -.-

[Vergil]

норм че

[Mae]

@Matt And how exactly did they ruin it?

[Matt60769]

PLAYER CARDS RUINED THIS GAME IF YOU AGREE WITH ME SAY SO

[Mushu]

If I will stamp now will I get rewards after they come ?

[やめてください]

Hahahahaha this is the greatest idea I've ever seen!
Still don't understand the use or purpose of this...

[Schweppervesence]

No I don't want pictures of dudes on my steam. This could possibily be the dumbest game idea I have ever seen

[Just Cheeze]

No offense, but I find the player cards to be stupid. Don't like it.