South Africa vs. Romania Dota 2 test match report

Last night South Africa’s Dota 2 Protea team took on Romania in a test match organised by the MSSA and MWEB, this is how it went down. From hero picks to match results, and more.

The match which was supposed to start at 19:00 was delayed to 19:30 and streamed on Twitch.tv by Polarfluke, MWEB’s official website by MWEB GameZone and shoutcasted by some of our local shoutcasting talent. Shoutcasting was available in both Afrikaans, by DeWet Lombard-Bovey aka Ridditz and in English by Kyle “Congo” Wolmarans and Samantha Thomas.

The Protea team played the match from MWEB’s MCave in Cape Town.

Team Line-ups:

South Africa:

• Scant
• LetsGetParty
• Radox
• oDu
• seeM

Romania:

• [RO]bOne7
• @Ieceweme
• @zizoudota
• Ly0n
• Ar1se_-3021

Match 1

Sides:

South Africa – Radiant

Romania – Dire

Hero’s:

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South Africa:

• Keeper of the Light
• Lifestealer
• Windrunner
• Rubick
• Anti-Mage

Romania:

• Nature’s Prophet
• Sand King
• Bane
• Razor
• Beast Master

Right from the get go the Romanian team played aggressively, with bOne7 taking first blood. With an undefended top lane, Romania quickly dropped both South Africa’s top towers and progressed to put on the pressure in the mid and bot lanes.

Romania soon went for Roshan and pushed for a win. After a couple of minutes passed and a second take down of Roshan, Romania bested South Africa with 51 kills to 38 within 29 minutes. The star of the game undoubtedly being bOne7 and his Dagon carrying Nature’s Prophet.

Click to enlarge

Match 2

Sides:

South Africa – Dire

Romania – Radiant

Hero’s:

Click to enlarge

South Africa:

• Dark Seer
• Mirana
• Bane
• Queen of Pain
• Crystal Maiden

Romania:

• Nyx Assassin
• Gyrocopter
• Enchantress
• Spirit Breaker
• Clockwerk

The second match went a lot better for South Africa, the team was off to a great start seeing Queen of Pain taking first blood with the assistance of team mates in mid lane. Keeping up the pressure well for the first 10 minutes of the game, the South African team did a complete turn around from the first match, with great team work and seem playing a fantastic Mirana, they came out on top of a couple of team battles.

Not long after though, the Romanians started to push back, quite heavily and took charge of the game. Spirit Breaker played by Ieceweme dominated the game along with the cunning play with Clockwerk by bOne7. Both teams were fiercely batting for the win, but after almost 35 minutes, the Romanian team took down the Dire’s base with 51 kills to 34.

Romania as a result, won the test match 2 – 0.

Could things have been different?

It’s hard to say exactly whether South Africa in any other circumstances could have at least won a map against the Romanians. The truth is that any other team, from any other country could have lost in exactly the same way. But any other team from any other country isn’t an official Protea Team.

Shoutcaster Kyle Wolmarans posted the following on his Facebook page.

"So I'm not going on a rant here at all... But let's reflect on tonight and maybe draw some feedback. First and foremost I have the utmost respect for the team that took on Romania, but let's look at the Romanian team for a second.
They consisted of 4/5 professional DotA 2 players (or all 5 in total) and not low tier professional, the real fucking deal. I can only imagine that team was put together at short notice and they even used different players (or subs we can call them) for game 2.
Team South Africa, consisting of some fantastic players, was selected through a process a lot of people felt was unfair to players who weren't part of major MGO's and could not travel to Gauteng to participate in provincial trials. But hold on??? There were online trials? Well... Your team had to live 50 KM near each other, as the crow flies, and you had to pay a fee to join the MSSA. Congo, you might cry, there are 8 provinces left, what about Cape Town? Well my friends Cape Town trials haven't happened yet. 
This isn't jab at MSSA at all, they've done some fantastic work, but is this the correct path for eSports South Africa?"

Wolmarans has some valid points, and there are questions to be asked. Are we taking this too seriously? Or are we not taking it seriously enough? Was the selection process of the team done in the optimal way?

Something to consider, (and in no way am I attacking the MSSA or any of the involved companies or persons or taking anything away from the players in the Protea team.) perhaps the selection of this Protea team should have had Provincial Trails in more than one Province in addition to the online trials and perhaps the best players from these Provinces should have battled it out. Perhaps it is sad that some of the best players in the country might not have had the funds to travel to participate in the original trials held in Gauteng and thus didn’t have the chance to try out for the team.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we as a community can contribute our ideas and help certain entities arrange better trials in the future, not particularly bashing the way it was done this year.