It's a story I'm sure everyone has heard a million times - I used to be into DotA, wound up quitting for LoL (since I was actually able to get my friends into that since it was free and they were WCIII-less). Of late, however, LoL has become increasingly stagnant. Every hero just has a selection of a dozen or less moves in the game in different combinations. They are all variations on a theme; there is nothing unique anymore. Thus, I finally started treating Dota 2 as a viable option. I was also pleased to see my old Spirit Breaker back (yes, I realize that he is usually junk at endgame).

But guess what? Too late. Since I never saw my friends even considering making a move to another game, I never signed up. And here I am, with the unwashed masses, wishing I was playing. So I ask simply - what is the best way to go about getting a key this late in the game? I'm not asking for handouts. I'm just curious to see what options are out there.

How screwed am I?

If you want the truth...very

Closed beta is still going on(to my knowledge)

Right now there is next to zero giveaways/key contests.

Not screwed at all... I believe most of us don't get keys from Valve but instead from competitions. If you are an old DotA player I suppose you have a playdota account before? You can use the playDotA account of older than last September to join the 120key a day giveaway. Otherwise, you have to join competitions like others having somewhat much lesser chances than many others(I believe most of the chances comes from playDotA). The Vavle giveaway is just too miserable to compare to other giveaways IMO so don't be let down by it because you didn't sign up for the Valve giveaway.

Correction: 180 Keys a day and because the giveaway had been on for so long, they changed the rules to allow accounts created BEFORE 02/12/2012 to participate in the giveaway. Here is the link.

Thx for the better answer I was told I was lucky for valve to send me a key My mistake.

I am under the impression that you can still sign up for the valve survey. Worth a try I guess, just scroll down the news page on blog.dota2.com to the naix news and find the link there.

http://www.dota2.com/tournaments/international/?l=english