![[Image Loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/disciple/dotashirts/DOTAshirtannouncement4a.png)
TL is proud to announce a partnership with Valve Corporation to produce official Dota 2 merchandise. We're starting with three hero-themed shirts: Beastmaster, Nature's Prophet, and Outworld Devourer. All shirts will be available in both the North American and European TL Stores. When The International 3 launches in a few weeks, the shirts will also be sold in Valve's online store and in person at Valve's Secret Shop in Seattle. If all goes well with these three, future heroes may come with in-game items as well.
When we launched the TL Store in 2011 with just a few products, we hoped we'd get to a point where we could partner with a major video game company. We've sold tens of thousands of shirts and refined our design, production, and distribution process to get to this point, and we're extremely happy that we're able to finally achieve one of our goals.
The Process
We felt that we really needed to make an impression with Valve, so instead of a normal pitch with images and mockups by email, we decided it would be better to just make a dozen shirts and mail them to their offices in Seattle without telling anyone. We took great care in making sure the tags, back logos, and branding was consistent and well done, and then let the shirts speak for themselves.
A few weeks later we received an email from Valve stating that their artists were wearing the shirts we sent around their offices. Our gamble seemed to have paid off, and now TL is an official Valve merchandise licensee. Hopefully, this is the start of a long cooperation, and in the future we'll be bringing you more heroes and more cool Dota 2 stuff.
A Word From The Artist, AlteredClone
When I made the first few designs originally, I just wanted something simple and clean to put as my phone background to represent my love for Dota 2. I've always had a passion for logo design and I wanted to make sure each hero looked like his (or her) own sports team logo. When I started this project I never expected anything to come of it, let alone Valve partnering with us to make shirts. It's exciting to see a design go from a desktop wallpaper to a real life product. I hope the designs speak for themselves and I'm really excited to be a part of this whole process. 
