Hook, line and sinker: One Dota 2 hero has been played a billion times

We have finally crowned a champion in the race to a billion Dota 2 games played for a single hero, but you can hardly call it a race. Fan favorite Pudge reached the remarkable milestone today, on May 6, a huge 300 million games ahead of the next-most-played hero.

A whopping 4,935 days after his early release in Dota 2‘s beta, The Butcher remains the most popular hero in the MOBA by a very significant margin, according to the stats site Dotabuff. For the longest time, Sniper and Windranger remained in the games-played contest but were overtaken by carry hero Phantom Assassin recently; however, their popularity still pales massively compared to Pudge, who’s present in a third of all Dota matches.

For those who don’t want to do the math, that’s an absolutely bonkers 202,634 games a day with a Pudge (probably playing mid and missing a ton of hooks). Even more impressive, his win rate sits at a decent 50.96 percent, higher than his peers at the top of the list. While Dotabuff doesn’t include every single game of Dota ever played, it’s still an unfathomable number—it’s clear Pudge won’t be going away anytime soon.

The Butcher hosted a wide array of abilities dating back to DotA Allstars but has largely gone untouched upon his shift to Dota 2, with his primary skill Meat Hook the main drawcard here. The feeling of landing a successful hook then running the enemy down with Rot just can’t be beaten, and for every kill or assist, you become tankier and tankier.

Pudge hasn’t been a consistent mainstay in pro Dota, but you can certainly trace his popularity back to the great Dendi and his antics representing NAVI during the early 2010s and the beginning of the TI era. Valve’s hand was even forced at TI3 in 2013 after Dendi and NAVI abused a bug that allowed Pudge to hook enemies while sitting in the fountain after a Chen teleport, dragging enemies to NAVI’s base and to their deaths.

While Pudge calls the mid-lane home, shifts in the Dota 2 metagame meta have seen him played across numerous positions over the years. The Butcher has been seen hooking enemies into the off-lane tower, sitting in trees as a roaming support and playmaker, and even building up Flesh Heap stacks to deal right-click damage way into the late game—though we wouldn’t call that last one much of a success.

So, when you load up Dota 2 today and inexplicably come across Pudge, remember you’re now a part of history—and watch the hooks fly (and likely miss) with glee.