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After a Dota 2 update I used to keep official notes, a group chat, and a recap video open at the same time. By the time I queued, I could no longer tell which line I had actually read. I now use one sheet with two columns. The left column is only for lines I can point to in Valve’s text. The right column is for everything else. The sheet is the whole method. I do not add a third column for “maybe.”

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Two columns, one sheet

The left column gets a line only when I can quote or paraphrase an official note and name the hero, item, or place it refers to. “Something changed for mid” is not a left-column line. “This talent on this hero is written differently than last week” is. I write it in my own words so I have to understand it once. The right column is a parking lot. Rumours, friend advice, a clip with no source, a shop change that is not in the notes — they can all go there. They do not get tested in the first lobby. They wait. If a right-column item later shows up in official text, I move it left. If it never does, it stays on the right and I forget it after a week.

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A rumour stays on the right until I can click it

I do not “quickly check” a rumour in ranked. If I cannot see it in the official notes and I cannot reproduce it in a custom lobby from those notes, it is not a test, it is a mood. The first game after a patch is a bad place to sort moods. The sheet exists so that the lobby has a short, boring list from the left column only. I also do not promote a right-column line just because several people repeat it. Repetition is not a source. The official note is the source, and the lobby is the check.

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Claims that are not about the patch at all

Some arguments that appear under a patch are not about a hero number or a map path. I still want one habit that stays still while I file the official lines. In Counter-Strike 2 I leave the setting I look at alone for the first evenings, and I wrote that down in why I freeze my CS2 crosshair during patch week. That page is about keeping a familiar picture during an update, not a substitute for Valve’s notes, and I do not treat it as a hidden changelog.

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The habit, in brief

  • Open the official notes first, not a recap.
  • Write left-column lines only from that text.
  • Park everything else on the right.
  • Test the left column in one custom lobby.
  • Queue after the left column is checked, not after the chat is quiet.
The sheet is ugly and that is fine. Its job is to keep the first game after a patch from becoming an argument I cannot point to.