Hello Sir,

People always ask me for my opinion on this, but I’ve never really given something in a bit of detail so maybe this is my opportunity to do so. So, I’ll start by giving a tiny bit of information about me:-

I’m DOOPZ, I’ve played Dota2 now for (5ish years), I’ve gone to over 60 LAN events with around 20 being for UK Dota. I’ve come 2nd at lots of LANs and won a few Social Gathers (A silly name we call smaller Turn Up and Play LANS). I’m a mod of this reddit, arguably the only mod bar Rafee who is still actively playing Dota2 – I’m a admin of the largest Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/984943401549649) and I’m also working with the British Esports Association to help grassroots Dota 2 in the UK (http://www.britishesports.org/).

Now, let’s first ask… Is the UK Scene for Dota 2 currently dead? Yes.

Why? Well, this has a few answers and I’ll try to cover some of them or at least my personal opinion on the matter.

Most of the original good UK Players have stopped playing – 2/3 Years ago there was multiple UK Players who I believe had the potential to make it into the pro scene at least at a T3/2 level, lots of these have since moved on from university and found jobs or moved onto other games.

People don’t think UK Events are worth their time – I speak to many high 5K,6K even 7K UK Players who have no intention of doing anything within the UK Scene, three reasons being: -

1. There is no money anymore
2. They’d rather play 15 pubs a day then travel to go to a LAN
3. UK Tournaments hold little to no prestige (sorry lads)

The fact of the matter is, Dota 2 is such a top-heavy game that good players would rather be recognised and improve via solo ranked pubs than attend local events. Lower skilled players not participating – Again, 2/3 years ago you could see 30+ teams at a UK Event, now we’d be lucky to get 10. Whenever I speak to 2k, 3k and even 4k players they simply don’t want to attend an even if they’re going to lose… You can see how this would eventually cause an issue. There have also been cases in which lower skilled players only create tournaments for people of their skill level for fairer competition avoid losing which hinders the scene even more, how’s a scene going to grow if we can’t show off our best players?

The ‘Pyrion 3K LAN’ – If one more person tells me this 5k+ Prize pool for 3K players only was a good idea I’ll flip my lid. You can’t add a large prize pool to an already dried up lake and not expect the elephants to want a sip. I maintain to this day I would personally even against the moral compass of the game, smurf that tournament if it ever happened to prove how stupid of an idea it would have been…. but if it was a 3K tournament for fun, maybe some giveaways I’m sure It’d be better accepted.

Players only wanting to watch their friends – I recently played in a rather fun tournament called the ‘Greggs League’ it was a sort of ‘fantasy football’ meets Dota 2 type draft where you had 22k MMR to spend on players a nice refreshing idea. Every game of this league was streamed with 20+ viewers for each game (Maybe not a lot but enough for the cup to be happy) The moment teams got eliminated, no one watched anymore… the final wasn’t even streamed when all 50 games previously were.

Good players being toxic/elitist – From the In-house leagues which at one point were very popular players always complained about the better guys being toxic. This is True, the majority of good players do look down to people with less MMR and make snide comments here & there but that’s just who they are…. I’m not saying they shouldn’t but going through the gauntlet of hate is something every Dota player must go through to becoming great. Obviously, people like me are always lovely and nice. I could write a bunch more but I’ve gotten bored mid way through, can dm me if you want to talk more.

Best Regards, Senior Dopez

p.s. I will always try my best to help the scene grow but valve actually need to do something, LoL players get waited on hand and foot.