Every game mode now has its own queue

Every queueable mode is now its own pool, with its own required size.

Pick the modes you are willing to play — All Pick, Random Draft, Single Draft, Mid Only — and you sit in all of those pools simultaneously. Whichever fills first takes you, and joining a game removes you from the others. Accepting more modes therefore only ever makes you more likely to get a game, never less.

The point of this is small-population matchmaking. Before, one queue meant the whole server waited on whichever mode had the most votes. Now All Pick can be gathering its tenth player while a Mid Only 1v1 starts alongside it, on its own dedicated server, and neither blocks the other. When two pools are both ready, the one containing the longest-waiting player goes first, so a fast-filling mode cannot starve a slower one.

Mid Only forms at two players, because that is how a mid-only game is actually played. That is also why it only counts players who asked for it by name: queueing with no preference means "any mode at the normal format", and we are not going to drop two open-minded people into a 1v1 they did not choose — least of all when they were waiting for a proper 5v5.

The Discord board now shows every mode being searched for, with per-pool progress, so you can see at a glance that Mid Only needs one more person rather than guessing.

If you have played before, re-download the client — the client is pinned to this server's build, and the domain changed. Get Dota.