DOTA and StarCraft

May 21, 2017 9:42 PM

Polygon recently published a large series on video games in Cuba: Cuba: Where underground arcades, secret networks and piracy are a way of life

Inside Cuba’s secretive underground gamer network

On the hunt for Cuba’s underground arcades

The eSports Champion of Cuba

Cuba’s traveling game console repairman

Castro’s less visible legacy

De la Comunidad del Anillo a SNET: las redes en la Tierra Media
Might Cuba's street net, SNET, become legitimate?

posted by the man of twists and turns (3 comments total)

somewhat related: "Amid Isolation, 2 Cubans Develop Island's First Video Game"
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 PM on May 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks, this is so interesting.

I also realized that I would love to play a video game about finding underground video arcades.
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:20 PM on May 21, 2017

I watched a couple of games from one of the DOTA Cuba finals; they're pretty bad*. It's an interesting example of how a small player pool leads to bad play. The things these players are doing wrong aren't something that's hard to correct, but they've just got no-one else to get better against.

There was a similar situation with Korean Dota in 2014; there was a small local scene that was just terrible, and a third-rate US team visited to compete in a few of their leagues and completely destroyed every Korean team. A year later, two Korean teams placed in The International 2015 (best 16 teams in the world).

If Cuba were to ever become an international competitor, then groups like DOTA Cuba would likely enact new rules that would govern things like team formation and switching. Right now, because there’s no chance of that in the near future, players usually team up and switch around between teams for fun.

I don't think that will be necessary, DOTA CUBA, given the proclivity of Dota professionals to switch around teams for "fun".

* I'd estimate a skill level about equivalent to 3500 MMR (matchmaking rank), whereas in the greater Dota world most pros have at least 6000 MMR and some of the best pros have 9000. They've got decent fundamentals in terms of things like last hitting, but poor map awareness and drafting, and a complete lack of knowledge of the thousands of little efficiencies that the greater Dota world is excellent at figuring out and exploiting.
posted by kithrater at 2:20 AM on May 22, 2017 [2 favorites]