Cover-Credits:
Over the past year, Western Europe (WEU) has emerged as a leading region in competitive Dota 2, consistently producing teams that secure top spots in international tournaments. The region’s dominance has been brought to the fore even more in 2023 with all four teams that finished in the top four at Bali Major being from WEU. As part of a post-match winner's interview at the Major, Team Liquid's captain Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi explained the region's dominance. He explained that Western European teams have a solid understanding of the meta and used "cheese" in their drafts while other teams continue to play a trademark style.
INSaNiA talks about WEU teams using “cheese” in their hero drafts at the Bali Major 2023
As a result of Liquid's elimination of 9Pandas in the lower bracket quarterfinals, the top four at the Bali Major became locked up with three WEU teams. Quest Esports later confirmed that WEU would take the fourth spot at the Bali Major as well after it defeated PSG.LGD
Following the victory against 9Pandas, iNSaNiA was asked what other regions needed to work on in order to catch up with WEU, which is clearly quite ahead right now.
In describing examples of WEU teams maximizing the current meta, Team Liquid's captain elaborated on the difference between pick strategy and playing style.
“I think the rest of the world plays Dota honestly. They enjoy playing the game. They actually want to play Dota. Whereas I feel like the Europeans just want to cheese and play as little Dota as possible. We don’t want to play teamfights. You look at Tundra, they don’t fight for 45 minutes. You look at us, we are just picking cheesy heroes. You look at Gladiators, there’s a Huskar against an Ember. You know, they don’t want to play Dota. Nobody wants to play Dota.”
Even INSaNiA appeared tired of WEU leading the way on this front, hoping Valve would make some changes to bring back some old-school encounters.
“And I think hopefully Valve can fix that with some updates so we can get more high quality Dota games without these Huskars, without these Broods. Just some honest Puck vs QoP mid or stuff like this.”
Even before this Major, WEU saw Gaimin will win all Majors in 2023, as well as the two seasons of DreamLeague. Liquid and Tundra have also been formidable competitors this year. These three teams are still competing in the Bali Major. Gaimin awaits the winner of Liquid versus Tundra in the grand final.
