The History of the Arcana Votes: Who Won, Who Lost, and Why Every Loser Got One Anyway
By Kevin ·
Seven years, seven votes, seven winners. And one pattern nobody talks about: every single runner-up got an arcana anyway. Every. Single. One. If you ever lost a vote and sulked, this post is your redemption arc. 🗳️
How the vote worked
From 2014 to 2020 the arcana was the community’s call: a bracket in the International Battle Pass, heroes eliminated round by round, one final. The winner got an arcana, usually months later. The loser got… well, keep reading.
Pudge beat Rubick by 50.008% to 49.992%. About 8,700 votes. I have lost ranked games closer than that, but not many.
Every vote, every winner, every loser
| Year | Winner → arcana | Runner-up | How close |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Phantom Assassin → Manifold Paradox (2014) |  Juggernaut |
final vs. Juggernaut |
| 2015 | Zeus → Tempest Helm of the Thundergod (2015) |  Queen of Pain |
final vs. Queen of Pain |
| 2016 | Juggernaut → Bladeform Legacy (2017) |  Io |
final vs. Io |
| 2017 | Pudge → Feast of Abscession (2018) |  Rubick |
50.008% to 49.992%, about 8,700 votes |
| 2018 | Rubick → The Magus Cypher (2018) |  Faceless Void |
51.1% to 48.9% |
| 2019 | Ogre Magi → Flockheart’s Gamble (2019) |  Windranger |
about 30.0 million to 23.7 million votes |
| 2020 | Spectre → Phantom Advent (2021) | Faceless Void |
27,475,258 to 24,948,538 votes |
Two of these still make me laugh:
- 2017, Pudge vs. Rubick: 50.008% to 49.992%. About 8,700 votes decided it, out of tens of millions. If you were one of the people who forgot to vote that week: this one is on you.
- 2019, Ogre Magi vs. Windranger: 30 million to 23.7 million. Not close at all. Two heads, twice the votes, I guess.
Arcana Hype Meter October 7, 2026
Formula: 50 + 2 × the average price move of all tradable arcanas (%) + 40 × (share of arcanas up − ½), 0 to 100. Real prices only, no opinions.
The last vote: TI10, 2020
Votes in the final, Spectre vs. Faceless Void (source: ONE Esports).
The runner-up curse that isn’t one
Here is the fun part. Look at what happened to every loser:
- Juggernaut (lost 2014): Juggernaut won the vote two years later. Today: Bladeform Legacy, from $20.36.
- Queen of Pain (lost 2015): Queen of Pain got hers in the TI10 Battle Pass (2020). Today: Eminence of Ristul, not tradable.
- Io (lost 2016): Io got the Weighted Companion Cube in the TI7 Battle Pass (2017). Today: Benevolent Companion, not tradable.
- Rubick (lost 2017): Rubick won the vote one year later. Today: The Magus Cypher, from $23.88.
- Faceless Void (lost 2018): Faceless Void lost again in 2020 and got his in the 2022 Battle Pass. Today: Claszian Apostasy, not tradable.
- Windranger (lost 2019): Windranger got hers in the TI10 Battle Pass (2020). Today: Compass of the Rising Gale, from $98.02.
- Faceless Void (lost 2020): Faceless Void got his in the 2022 Battle Pass. Today: Claszian Apostasy, not tradable.
So losing the final was never the end. It was a waiting list. Juggernaut and Rubick came back and won. Io, Queen of Pain, Windranger and Faceless Void were handed theirs inside a Battle Pass, no vote needed. Faceless Void lost twice and still got one. That is the most Dota thing I have ever read: lose, lose, win anyway.
What the winners are worth today
| Vote | Arcana | Today | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014, Phantom Assassin |  Manifold Paradox |
from $18.34 | #2 |
| 2015, Zeus |  Tempest Helm of the Thundergod |
from $20.72 | #9 |
| 2016, Juggernaut | Bladeform Legacy |
from $20.36 | #6 |
| 2017, Pudge |  Feast of Abscession |
from $16.30 | #7 |
| 2018, Rubick | The Magus Cypher |
from $23.88 | #10 |
| 2019, Ogre Magi |  Flockheart’s Gamble |
from $25.61 | #12 |
| 2020, Spectre |  Phantom Advent |
not tradable | #17 (est.) |
Prices are the cheapest offer on the five markets we track, October 7, 2026; the rank is our Dota2Arcana Ranking by copies sold, estimated for arcanas that can’t be traded.
Notice something? The vote winners you can still buy are all in the $16.30 to $25.61 range. The expensive arcanas on this site are not vote winners, they are Battle Pass rewards that came back as bundles. I wrote why that is.
And since 2020?
Nothing. The 2020 vote (Spectre) was the last one. Faceless Void’s arcana came in the 2022 Battle Pass without a vote, the 2023 Compendium had no arcana at all, and Valve said the arcana event had “gained a few more moving parts than we initially planned”. The two Crownfall arcanas of 2024 (Vengeful Spirit, Skywrath Mage) were sold, not voted. Whether the vote ever comes back, nobody outside Valve knows, and I am not going to pretend I do.
If it does come back: who gets your vote? And more important, who are you going to be mad at when they lose? 😄 GL HF! ✌️
Sources
- esports.gg: all arcanas released so far (vote winners by year, 2018 result)
- GosuGamers: Zeus vs. QoP in the Arcana Showdown final (2015)
- GosuGamers: the Pudge arcana arrives (2017 margin)
- NAVI: Ogre Magi wins the arcana vote (2019 numbers)
- ONE Esports: Spectre wins the TI10 arcana vote (2020 numbers)
- esports.gg: no arcana in the 2023 Compendium
- Release dates and Battle Pass levels: the sources on every arcana page of this site.
The usual: this is Kevin having opinions about pixels, not financial advice. Prices move, sometimes in the wrong direction. You buy at your own risk.
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