This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

　　Today's minor Dota 2 patch resulted in the unexpected removal of Skeleton King from Dota 2, the patch that only had one change listed that "pressing ceremonial reasons" was the reason behind the removal of the King.

　　GAMEPLAY

　　- Skeleton King: Removed for pressing ceremonial reasons

　　Source: http://store.steampowered.com/news/12055/onGamers caught up with a number of prominent members of the Dota 2 scene to get their reaction on the news of Skeleton King's removal.

　　Bruno 'Statsman Bruno' Carlucci:

　　"You know I'm usually a Valve fanboy, but this time, they've gone too far. To which hero will I now lead the hordes of new players that ask me how to approach Dota 2 as a beginner? This change is the most unbalancing and metagame damaging one since the blink dagger-disables-on-cooldown and spectre's-dispersion-doesn't-kill-absolutely-every-enemy-if-you-disperse-culling-blade. I just don't know what they're thinking!

　　On second thought, however, we totally should've seen this one coming, they didn't even do it in one go! Mortal strike removal on 6.79 was CLEARLY Skeleton King slowly being phased out of the game, how could we have missed that?"

　　Jonathan 'Loda' Berg:

　　"In a time like this my thoughts go out to Skeleten Queen and her closest. Year after year Skele has been bullied, and if I'm not wrong he WILL thirst for vengeance!"

　　Ted 'Pyrion Flax' Forsyth:

　　"I hereby revoke my allegiance to the KINGSLAYERS at Valve HQ. May they suffer the fate of all treasonous vermin - to be hung, drawn and quartered and dragged around St Paul's Cathedral by shire horse, till they be dead."

　　Visar 'twiSta' Zymberi:

　　"If they wont bring Skeleton King back I'm changing over to LoL so I can play some Kassadin mid."

　　Henrik 'AdmiralBulldog' Ahnberg:

　　"IF VALVE REMOVES LONE DRUID I WILL FIND ICEFROG AND ENTANGLE HIS ASS."

　　Sébastien '7ckingMad' Debs:

　　"The Skeleton King will be very missed....I will focus for my next public & pro games on killing Roshan and collecting as many aegis as I can... Hoping he'll accept to come back in exchange of those."

　　William 'Blitz' Lee:

　　"Skeleton King is the height of skill. anyone that can win with a hero that literally has one button to press has both skill on there side and courage. after the whole Halloween incident I figured Valve was better at learning how to keep in touch with the community, but I guess not."

　　Brian 'FLUFFNSTUFF' Lee:

　　"Skeleton King was a hero that no one will miss except for PyrionFlax."

　　Theeban '1437' Siva:

　　"Every game I've lost I know that if I had picked Skeletron King I would've won instead... thanks for ruining my doto experience T_T"

　　Kevin 'Purge' Godec:

　　"I went 12-0-10 with skeleton king last night in a pub so valve obviously had to retire the hero."

　　Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov:

　　"Once again the Skeleton King has been sent to his grave.

　　Fear not Ted with no hair on his head and be brave.

　　I accept Valves move of vile betrayal,

　　since I know this is not the end of our King's tale."

　　Toby 'TobiWan' Dawson:

　　The news of Skeleton King's removal also came with an update to the Frostivus announcement page stating that Frostivus was now also cancelled. This is a sad day for Dota.