Arteezy Talks About the Dismal State of NA Dota 2

Twitch viewers have flocked in large numbers to watch Shopify Rebellion’s Artour "Arteezy" Babaev's long-awaited Twitch livestream in the past few days. Although watching has been entertaining for the viewers, Arteezy has been extremely disappointed with the quality of the ranked games he has played in North America (NA), his region of professional competition. He described that many of the games he livestreamed in the first two days had been griefed. Arteezy noted that aspiring players would have difficulty grinding pubs in North America as a result of such an “awful” experience.

Arteezy is unhappy with the state of ranked games in NA Dota 2

Arteezy was visibly frustrated by the state of the games he was playing in NA, and he could not keep it contained. As he vented out, he described how players were "griefing" by running down lanes, being AFK, etc.

“Throwing games, throwing games, I wonder if this will change anything if Valve will do something. So far, in two days I have streamed, it’s been seven games that have been griefed, legitimately some guy just running down a lane, or randoming and AFKing or buying Midas or hitting Neutral creeps.”

A short pause followed, after which Arteezy mentioned how aspiring NA Dota 2 players would have difficulties playing ranked games in the region, as well as how it had become essential to play pubs in Europe.

“I mean it’s pretty depressing if you are an aspiring NA pro and you are grinding and grinding and you play these pubs every single day, must be f**king awful. You have to play Europe,” he said.

In the last two years, quite a few professional Dota 2 players have spoken about the dismal state of NA Dota 2. It was a few months ago that eveb Quinn "Quinn" Callahan, who had played in NA for his entire six year career and moved to Gaimin Gladiators in Europe recently, claimed that the region was "dead" and the worst of all. He believes that if larger teams across the world do not invest, the decline would only worsen.

Recently, North America has been looked down upon as a region for both professional and casual gaming. Furthermore, with tremendous performances at The International 11 (TI11), a lot of attention has turned to South America (SA) in the previous six months, leading Evil Geniuses, an organization with a heritage in NA, to also make the transfer to SA.

The current state of affairs appears to be bleak, and only time will tell if NA can turn things around.