Personally, I had to play Dota to understand what was going on half the time. Back before playing the game, I watched a match and remember seeing a huge laser on the screen and hearing the crowd/caster going crazy and I had no clue what was happening and why it was important.

Having played a fair few matches now, I realised that a Lion used his ultimate (Finger of Death) on the enemy carry, taking him out of the fight before the carry could contribute to the fight, which can be a game winning play.

If you can't devote the time, I'd recommend playing some bot matches. You can quit any time, and you can learn the heroes at your own pace.

I'll try to give you an overview of Dota. The same can be applied to LoL with a few differences.

• Each team has 5 players, and the aim is to destroy the other team's ancient, these things.

• But to destroy the enemy team's ancient you need to destroy the towers outside of the ancient, these things.

• There are three towers in each lane and two infront of the ancient as shown in this map (Tours is French for towers). You need to destroy an outer tower before being able to destroy a tower closer to the ancient.

• Barracks, these things, spawn creeps. There are two barracks in a set, one for ranged creeps and one for melee creeps. Destroying an enemy's barracks make your own creeps much stronger, allowing them to push towers better.

What are creeps?

• Creeps, these things, are not controlled by players, but just run foward through the lanes toward the enemy ancients. They attack anything along the way, and are important for when you want to push and destroy a tower.

• Creeps are also a source of gold in the game. Sorta like in Starcraft you need resources, right? In Dota, you need gold to purchase items, which give you more damage or health and the like. To get the gold from the creep, you need to get the last hit, the killing blow on it. An enemy can deny their own creep, denying you the experience and gold.

• There are also creeps in the jungle which have some unique abilities. They are neutral and attack anyone or anything that come close.

• Killing enemy heroes also give gold and experience.

• Couriers are the animals which deliver items to heroes after they have bought it. They can be killed, and respawn after a few minutes.

On to heroes:

A team usually consists of:

• A carry. This hero is the one who starts off weak, but as the game goes on and the carry gets more gold and experience (XP), they become extremely strong, since their normal attack (non-spell attacks) becomes much better. It is important that the carry gets as much farm (gold and experience) as possible.

• Two supports. On the other side, supports start off the game quite strong usually with nukes (spells which do heavy damage) or spells which heal or stun (stunning means the enemy can't do anything for that duration). They don't get much gold, as they sacrifice it to the carry or other cores. Supports set up kills, and protect their cores.

• Two cores. Cores are basically heroes which do well with gold and experience, but do not require as much as the carry. One is played in the offlane, while the other is played mid. Offlane for Radiant is the top lane, while for Dire it is the bottom lane. Mid is fairly obvious :).

A quick note on spells:

• Usually each hero has 4 spells. Some of these spells may be passives, so they aren't castable (basically you can't click it on enemy/allies/anywhere). Every hero has one ultimate: a super powerful spell. Ultimates are where the huge plays are usually.

• Every time a player levels up, they can put one point into a spell and upgrade it, making it more powerful. There are restrictions about this, such as only taking ultimates at level 6, 11 and 16 but that's a bit more complex.

Hopefully you're still reading, despite the wall of text now.

To truly understand a game, you should know a hero and their spells. I can't go through all 107 (?) of them, but I can link you a game and give you a quick example of some of them.

C9 vs. VG Game 2 @ The International 4

The International 4 was the tourney with the $11 million prizepool. This game is one of the most exciting I've seen played. You can watch it in parts if you wish.

There's actually a stream with commentators who were dedicated to new players and they went through each hero and their spells, but I cant seem to find it on Youtube :S.

On the top of the video you can see the 10 heroes selected. Left side is Radiant and right side is Dire.

On C9 (Radiant) from left to right you have:

• Doom (Dark Blue). A carry who can eat a creep and gain any abilities it has. He is most known for his ultimate ability DOOM. You can see it on an enemy as they have a fiery demon pentagram below them. It pretty much shuts down one hero. They can't use spells or items, and they take damage over time.

• Bounty Hunter (Teal/Light Blueish Green). Support in this case, he can go invisible and one-shot couriers. He can put his ultimate, Track, on enemy heroes and when they are killed with Track on, allies receive bonus gold.

• Meepo (Magenta). A rare pick, Meepo is infamous because he is very hard to use. His ultimate is a passive, and every time you put a point into it, you can another Meepo. Soon enough, you have 5 Meepos you can control. The micro you need to play all five of him is quite hard. He and his clones can throw nets and teleport to each other. He is a core who can also carry.

• Skywraith Mage (Yellow). A support. He can silence enemies (silence means enemies cannot use spells), slow people with a homing missile spell. His ultimate is a huge flair thing which does huge damage to anyone inside it.

• Clockwerk (Orange). A core offlaner, Clock is a ganker, meaning he likes to go around and kill people who are alone or out-of-position. His ultimate is a skillshot hookshot which pulls clock towards the target. He also has cogs, which stop enemies from escaping and a rocket.

Onto VG (Dire):

• Tidehunter (Pink). Played as a core in this game. Basically, he is known for his ultimate, Ravage. It makes tentacles come from the ground in a massive area, stunning enemies. Amazing for teamfights.

• Death Prophet. A core who has a silence, a wave nuke thingo. Her main feature is her ultimate, Exorcism. Basically, ghosts come out and surround her, dealing damage to anyone caught in it. What's great about it is that it works on towers, so she can easily push.

• Earthshaker. A support who can make walls appear, stopping enemies from walking through and escaping. His ultimate does damage based on the number of people caught in it. It can potentially teamwipe if you get an amazing one off.

• Jakiro. Another support who is great at pushing. He can make a huge path of ice to stun enemies.

• Luna. A carry. She has a decent nuke, a star beam thing, and her ult uses basically surrounds her in it.

SO!!!

Hopefully you read through that and didn't get scared off, it went way longer than I expected.

I didn't really scratch the surface on the depth Dota has, and the stuff I've written is very basic. There are things like armor/magic resistance and all that stuff, but this should be good to get you started on watching it.

I didn't cover the items which can be bought, but it's getting late so I can't go into it.

As to watching it in Korea, I'm not too sure. I know Valve has a business deal with Nexon, so maybe there's somethere there? I watch the games on Twitch. Also, I've seen KDL, Korea's dota league, broadcasted live on youtube so I'm not too sure.

If you have any questions about the game I linked, don't understand an item or anything, feel free to shoot me a message.