MOBA games are super popular in China right now. Sure, they’re super popular everywhere, but they are particularly popular in China — that’s why, when a netizen asked online what China does better than the US, the most popular answer was Defence of the Ancients.
Earlier this year, a question appeared on China’s answer to Quora, Zhihu.com, asking Chinese netizens what China does better than the United States:
今天中国什么比美国好？
Today, What is China better at than the United States?
不谈历史，可谈文化。
History is off limits, culture isn’t.
这些年读大学负能量太多，一时想找点正能量突然发现找不到。
These years, studying at college has used up a lot of energy, and when I turned to find some positive energy, I couldn’t find any.
请勿调侃或高级黑
Please don’t ridicule or blacklist this.
The most up voted answer to date, with 2269 votes, is DotA. The answer was posted anonymously, saying that Chinese DotA is number one in the world. The anonymous poster also referenced China’s wins over the US from 2009’s to 2012’s WCGs to make their point. (The US did better than China in the 2010 WCG, though. China was also outdone at the International 2011 and 2013.)
The poster also explained why he picked DotA over something that China’s historically known to kick arse in, Ping Pong, citing that Ping Pong excellency in China can be attributed to a myriad of factors, whereas DotA is something that Chinese players excel at even though society and the government looks down on it.
The responses to this answer have even warranted an op-ed piece by Tencent’s gaming portal that supports the claim that China’s DotA skills are number one in the world. On top of that, the op-ed also proposed that China’s DotA skills can be an example of China’s national strength. A poll was included, and over 86% agreed that DotA abilities are representative of China’s skills as a whole.
So the gauntlet is thrown, international players. China claims to be the best at DotA, will there be a country that can take them down?
Top Photo: Dota 2 Wiki
中国DotA实力世界第一！[Tencent]
今天的中国有什么比美国好 [Zhihu.com]
Comments
16 responses to “Chinese Players Call Out International DotA Players: China’s The Best”
Sweden (Alliance) and Ukraine (Na’vi) are doing a mighty fine job of crushing the Chinese and two of the players on the best Chinese team (DK) are from South East Asia.
Hell, even in this picture of iG you can see a player (Chuan, now “retired”) has a Malaysian flag on their shirt.
So sure, the Chinese are better than the Americans. The problem is that the Americans are pretty mediocre compared to Europeans.
EDIT: Just for fun, the top three teams at The International this year were Alliance, Na’vi and Orange (Malaysia). Go China!
^This.
Silly line.
That 2013 DotA tournament had a fantastic grand final – my two favorite teams (Alliance vs Na’Vi) going head to head. It was just disappointing that Australia’s team (Team Immunity) isn’t even playing DotA anymore, very sad that our nation just doesn’t support eSports.
If it isn’t Cricket or Swimming in this country, nobody (and by that I mean the media, and government) don’t give two shits.
Moonglade gets the odd bit of media coverage from time to time.
Well, it’s like saying the USA is the best at hockey because they won the last couple of Stanley Cups… when their teams are decked with Canadians.
I don’t get the point that you’re making. The teams that I’ve mentioned as being associated with a nationality have at least 4 of their 5 members from that country.
This is going to be super inside-baseball, but they won’t be the best at Dota in a few years. The problem is the country’s strict guidelines and rules on professional Dota players. They can only compete in international tournaments where the prize pool is greater than some ridiculous amount – that essentially locks them out many tournaments all around the world that can’t pony the amount of money that Valve can at The International.
As such, their limited exposure to different play styles from all around the world hinder their performance greatly and forces them to only play with Chinese: it’s Chinese tactics against Chinese tactics while all around the world, Ukrainians are playing against Swedes, Americans are playing against Malaysians etc. and everyone is improving because of that. Just look at China’s dominance in The International 2012 to their crushing defeat in 2013.
They can’t play on the net?
Have you ever tried playing an online game on a server in another country? Hellooooo lag!
D2L is currently running with both Eastern and Western teams in separate divisions that will meet in the finals. Alliance and Team Liquid flew over and competed in China shortly before The International (Alliance destroyed everyone, TL was competitive but nothing special). On top of that, every week there is one Chinese and one Western team competing in Korea as a promotional thing for the Nexon league.
There are also international divisions of some Chinese teams (LGD and Rattlesnake) that compete against both Eastern and Western teams.
So yeah, China got screwed by insisting on playing four protect one while Alliance was going full rat Dota and the introduction of Wisp/Io to the metagame blew their minds but Chinese teams are not completely isolated.
Think you might have got sucked into a tangent there 😉
Comprehensive reply though 🙂
How does being born Chinese naturally make you better at something artificial?
It’s not so much being born Chinese, as the fact that Chinese people and Korean people as well, are raised in a different world where sports like baseball, racecar driving and ball-sports aren’t preached as the holy golden sport, like the U.S. and Australia does. In those nations (and in the Nordic nations like Sweden and Norway), education is seen as being quite important, and computer usage is also seen as being important (Sweden has some of the best I.T. infrastructure in the world), so a natural step towards eSports isn’t as foreign as it is for some of the western nations.
As someone who doesn’t play MOBAs, I was introduced to the term “Chinese Dota” by someone who does. I think it’s awfully arrogant to say your country’s the best at something, even though there’s ample evidence to the contrary.
It’s not like you’re a Korean who can say with a straight face that your country is the best at Starcraft. At least that is undeniably true. Any international tournament with at least two Koreans will probably have a Korean vs Korean final. The only OSL/MSL title to ever be taken by a foreigner was in its first year of competition, in the game’s competitive infancy.
being a past e-sports player… all its left me with that while a good idea, it is like cancer at the moment and needs to be treated.
When i started playing games it was for the love of them and they were a big part of life.
When I started playing at competition lans and events, it starts as having social fun, ego boost for the win and you get prizes involved people get serious.
Goes from hey who is the best, who’s team can work together better to it splitting into two categories of ‘pro’ players.
The ‘professionals’ who care about their status, letting people know how good they are and dedicating their entire life to it like it is a skill.
And the ‘lamers’ who refute that old school term and want to call themselves ‘pro’ and ‘elite who dedicate all their time to finding flaws and exploits in a game and exploiting the hell out of it, If they cant do that they take sledging to new levels that would get people in a real sport arrested.
And both are ***heads.
A lot of people like to make the case for esports as being people such as fatality, guys a loser who’s never worked in his life, quit school
Wouldnt have a drama with him or all the others, but trying to turn this into something on the level like AFL, NFL etc….. especially with the people involved, there is no sportsmanship, its bad for gaming and its bad for the youth.
I’ve been to international competitions where security has been hired to control the people who lose, yeah this happens at soccer games.
Theres also security to control the winners who are terrible sports…… this kind of antisocial behavior is frowned upon.
E-sports? nope its encouraged, a lot of the events i’ve been to, the competitions are dirty, all the teams are pretty bad, a lot of them have mental conditions that need treatment and they are encouraged to be as they are (a lot of top level players i swear were aspi’s).
In real sports, players should not be role models and this is slowly being encouraged and when a player is caught doing bad things, theres counselling, they lose endorsements. An opponent i’ve been up against who’s currently on a hardware box (not naming names on this one) was at a competition before i decided to end all involvement in e-sports). I watched him abuse his mom who showed up to support him. Watched him accuse everyone of cheating, watched him tear apart even officials.
And when he won……. he was disgusting to everyone involved. Got an endorsement contract. Thinking maybe they told him ok work on your image…. nope he’s done the same thing at several other events.
A friend of mine who use to be a great esport player also played with a lot of people like this and got sick of them, started lolcasting got sick of them, quit lol because of this kind of behavior in e-sports… then found a job working as a presenter for world of tanks and claims that although its an e-sport its structured differently and this crap isnt tolerated. is loving it.
This all has to change…… theres trash talking, and then theres this cancerous type of personality that seems to be endorsed in esports and it has to go.
China as a country is actually the highest representation in pro dota. Dont forget that teams are not able to pool the top player in each position as they have to trade players and are forced into a league style of membership.