Dota 2 coolest courier express

The five best couriers to show off your individuality*

Valve have added so many hats, wards and more to the game over the years it’s all a bit overwhelming With so many particle effects in the game, how is your hero supposed to get noticed? If you really want to stand out in today’s Dota 2 world, a rare courier might be just the ticket.

*willingness to throw money at virtual critters

Strongback the Swift (or other TI donkeys)

Strongback is just the latest in a long and proud line of donkey couriers released by Valve at every TI since The International 2012. The first three shared a theme. They were based on Valve’s Shitty Wizard in-joke referenced in the Valve handbook, page 56. Dolfrat and Roshinante came first, a simple Shitty Wizard riding a basic donkey courier.

Garran Drywiz and Garactacus came next for TI3, featuring a unicorn donkey with rainbow tail and a recoloured wizard. The final variation was Hwytty & Shyzzyrd for TI4, where this time the donkey wore the wizard hat.

Valve changed things up for the next two years, releasing robo-donkey Staglift at TI5 and baby donkey trio Patch, Stash and Hobb for TI6. Strongback is the most glamourous of them all thanks to his many sparkly particles and adorable Crystal Maiden and Omniknight riders based on the TI7 opening skit with SirActionSlacks and Kaci.

All of the TI donkey couriers are available on the Steam Community Market, with prices in the 4-20€ range.

Hakobi and Teneko

If you just want to have the cutest possible courier available, look no further than Shiba Inu and Cat buddies Hakobi and Tenneko. The pair were the extremely rare drop from the TI6 Collector’s Cache treasure, which could only be purchased by Compendium owners.

According to the Dota 2 Wiki, their names are Japanese in origin. Hakobi means carrying, while Tenneko means “heavenly cat”. This is in reference to the fact that the courier’s flying form which eatures Tenneko as an angel with wings and a halo carrying Hakobi.

Due to this being the literal cutest courier in the game, the cheapest one available on the community market right now is 28€.

Faceless Rex

The release of this courier caused quite a commotion because it’s just so awesome. Using it in a game pretty much guarantees awe and/or compliments from members of either team. The courier was created by MaxOfS2D (winner of the past three TI Short Film Contests), Yuri and DrySocket. The design was based on a joke blog post by Valve when Faceless Void got his remodel. Valve included several wacky alternate Void redesigns, including one where the hero was essentially the same, but a T-Rex.

The courier managed to capture the spirit of Valve’s design beautifully, even adding a Chronosphere effect for the flying version of the courier, allowing Faceless Rex to gracefully float through the skies in his permanent purple bubble.

Community market prices for this little guy were very high for a long time after his release in the TI5 Collector’s Cache, but they’ve since mellowed a bit. The lowest price for a Faceless Rex on the market today is a comparably affordable 11€.

Baby Roshan

Various styles of the Baby Roshan courier have been released over the years, but by far the most expensive one is the Platinum Baby Roshan, rewarded only to players who reached the “Hall of Fame” for Diretide 2013’s Sugar Rush mode. This one’s reserved only for those with the deepest pockets, as the cheapest one available at the moment is listed for a whopping 1200€.

The ice and lava Roshans were Perfect World exclusives, available to players participating in a tournament they held in 2014. They were also available as digital unlocks bundled with a Roshan Statue sold in the Chinese Dota 2 merchandise shop.

If you want a Baby Roshan of your own, you could also opt for the basic model, which goes for between 2-3€. Much more reasonable.

Golden Hyeonmu

Few even know this courier exists. It screams exclusivity and I can’t remember a time I’ve ever even seen it used. It was only available to people who played Dota 2 using a Nexon account in PC Bangs in South Korea. Dota 2 coolest courier express Additional styles were unlocked by playing longer, and the Upgrade Style 17, or Golden Hyeonmu is the final upgrade.

Basic Hyeonmus can be purchased for around 3€ but the many upgrade styles will run you anywhere from a few cents to 30€. Note that you can’t just buy a style without also owning the base courier, since the style items are unlocks, not the courier itself. The non-gold styles are all pretty cute too, so even if you don’t want to splurge you can get one for the price of a treasure or two.

Also, you don’t need to unlock every style in order to unlock the final gold style. As long as you have the unlock item for the style you want, you can apply it to a basic Hyeonmu (yes, I bought one to test this).