Historically China has been a very strong region, rivalling Eastern Europe for the title of strongest

But those days are long behind them. Of the three Chinese teams who participated in The International this year, two of them were eliminated in the first round of the main event, and the third only made it to Losers Quarterfinals before dropping out.

And frankly the only reason there were three teams in the first place is that two slots were reserved for Chinese teams through regional qualifiers. If it had been an open qualifier there’s no way those two teams would have made the cut.

Only Xtreme Gaming, who were part of the invitational participants, were even close to being on the same level as the competition from Europe.

So what happened? Well there are a couple things you can point to. Government regulations on online gaming for minors, for example, making it hard to attract new players.

Or the popularity of smartphone gaming causing the same kinds of problems

And I’m sure all of that is a factor. However. There’s a second, more direct cause of China’s fall from Dota grace

And it’s that last year functionally their entire tier 2 scene got banned from competition due to rampant match fixing. Valve Bans Over 40 Chinese ‘Dota 2’ Pro Players

what the Fuck

A whole generation of talent, gone in an instant.

Fuck around and find out, I guess