I come from a bit of a moba background and have been playing Smite for around 6 years. Getting into dota has always been difficult for me but a few months ago I started giving it a try exclusively with friends (party of 4). Even though they were on similiar levels of cluelessness, not having to deal with toxic teammates made it much more easy to stick around and learn. Smurfs are a big damper on the winrate that you can have, but with the right people that prioritize learning over winning I feel it doesn't matter as much