NA Dota 2’s poster boy, Quinn, recently talked about his home region in an interview with Esports.gg. Though Quinn transitioned into the region’s last hope at international glory, the mid-laner expressed his pessimism regarding NA’s future, labeling it “permadead.”
In an ESL One Kuala Lumpur interview on Dec. 16, Quinn revealed he wasn’t homesick, claiming he wasn’t missing NA Dota 2. But Dota 2 wouldn’t be the game it is today without underdog comeback stories. For example, Chinese Dota 2 bounced back after a terrible 2023 as Azure Ray reverse-swept Gaimin Gladiators to win Dota 2’s ESL One Kuala Lumpur.
With such comeback stories in mind, Quinn was asked whether there was a way out for NA Dota 2, but Gaimin’s star player had nothing positive to say.
“The region just has player base issues that have been there for a really long time, and I don’t think it’ll ever be fixed,” he said.
While Quinn didn’t give further details, Dot Esports can reflect on his statements. The best Dota 2 teams get to play against each other in LAN events a few times a year, but they get locked into their home regions during the rest of the year. This means professional players have to rely on internal competition to maintain their form and build strategies.
Western Europe practices with Eastern Europe, China, and Southeast Asia support each other, and this leaves North America and South America. Due to their geographical positions, NA and SA are the most isolated of these pairs. Although there are skillful players in these two regions, there aren’t enough of them to build multiple teams and create a competitive internal scene.
With a limited pool of talented players and scarce scrim opportunities, NA and SA regions wait for LAN events with their guaranteed slots. As a result of this, they arrive at tournaments as the least prepared teams and perform accordingly. While Arteezy stacks, Shopify Rebellion, showed glimmers of hope in the last years, finishing in second place at a couple of events, NA lost its killer instinct since its 2015 TI win, causing players like Quinn to leap to other regions instead of remaining in NA.
