Topson Expresses Frustration With the Playstyle of SEA Dota 2

Topias Miikka "Topson" Taavitsainen, inactive on OG’s roster, has been playing a ton of Southeast Asia (SEA) pubs since he moved to Malaysia post The International 10 (TI10). Topson has been losing a lot of matches the past few days, and in one of his recent livestreams he vented his frustration at the playstyle of SEA pubs. Annoyed, the former TI champion complained that players in the region usually played for the late game since they lacked the knowledge of how to play the earlier portions of the game. Topson, who comes from OG and is known for his aggressive style of play, stated that it has been like a "cultural shock" playing in the passive style of SEA Dota 2.

Topson talks about the sluggish playstyle of SEA games; jokingly says he might need a therapy

“I am gonna need therapy after playing in SEA server,” Topson jokingly said as he was about to enter yet another SEA Dota 2 pub on his 21st Jan livestream. Having just lost his fourth game in a row on the day, he was particularly annoyed about his most recent game where he played as Morphling in the midlane but his team was unable to secure victory.

Topson then commented on the playstyle of both the pubs and the official games in SEA, which he thought was slow since the players did not know what to do in the early and midgame.

“In SEA, they pick heroes for the late game! Yeah, that’s their specialty. Wait for 60 minutes, I am gonna get 7000 items and then I can solo kill everybody, I am so good. That’s their mindset. You can also see it in the pro teams how they have the highest average game time because they literally have no idea how to end games, no idea how to play the early and mid game.”

Also, his very proactive, up-front playstyle with OG made it difficult for him to adapt to the SEA region. “And then me coming from OG is like - it’s a fu**ing cultural shock. It’s like everything is about doing everything as fast as you can and ending the games as soon as you can and that’s the right way to do it. And these guys are like - Wait! That moment of the game does not even exist for them," he added.

"Sure you can call it a different meta, I would call it a sh** meta, like a sh** view on the game but yeah it’s definitely a different meta also at the same time," Topson added.

As Topson was talking, a viewer in the chat asked him to captain his teammates in pubs but he responded quickly that he had already tried but it does not work because the players do not listen to him.

A few days ago, the player also talked about the difficulty of playing unconventional heroes in SEA pubs, since players tend to play their own games rather than play together.

When it comes to SEA pubs, Topson is certainly not having fun. Some losses have added to this annoyance, and once he starts to win more, he may just begin to enjoy his time.