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This is what Dota 2 needs right now - (WCG 2011 Prize ceremony) This is what Dota 2 needs right now - (WCG 2011 Prize ceremony)

The start-up European Championship (ESEC) for CS:GO was a huge success in 2014 The start-up European Championship (ESEC) for CS:GO was a huge success in 2014

If we rewind four years, four tournaments graced the esports scene where players represented their country, instead of their organisation. The World Cyber Games, the Samsung European Championships, Electronic Sports World Cup and the European Nations Cup all allowed players to rep their homeland for a variety of games. I was fortunate enough to attend four WCGs, three ESWCs and 1 SEC as an editor, and the world cup style tournaments are something I sorely miss, and I'm not the only one.National success stories PGS Gaming - PolandPGS Gaming was THE success story of the World Cyber Games 2006, coming out of nowhere to take first place after earning the right to represent Poland. The roster would then go onto become one of the greats in the history of Counter-Strike 1.6, becoming notoriously successful under the MYM tag. Two of the players, Taz and Neo, are still competing almost a decade later but now in CS:GO, as part of the Virtus Pro roster than won IEM Katowice last year. "World Cup in Dota is something we played and enjoyed a lot when we were playing Dota1 many years ago so I definitely think it can work today as well," said Akke of Alliance when queried about the idea of a World Cup of Dota 2."It's a lot about scheduling to make it work for all the players (since they usually play in different teams) and to not collide with other tournaments, but if that is done well I think most would like to see it! It's very fun to get to play on a serious level with people you usually don't play with."It was a format which benefited the newcomer, and many players made a name for themselves from coming out of obscurity to triumph in the group stages and progress to the playoffs. Some of the biggest I've included as supplements to this article just so you can appreciate how big of a break they were given from being able to represent their country.For the WCG and SEC, players and teams would compete in national qualifiers hosted in their own countries on LAN. The winners would be crowned the national champions of their respective game and would have their travel costs covered to attend the Grand Finals.Unfortunately, ENC and SEC both closed down in 2011, followed by the WCG in 2012, which is a shame because a national competition is just what Dota 2 needs right now.Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was in a similar predicament last year, which led to e-Frag, a CS:GO organisation, hosting and creating two seasons of the European Championship (ESEC) last year to great acclaim, with a world championship on the books for 2015."Football, basketball, volleyball, every other conventional sport has a nations tournament and it is considered an honor to play for your country and defend its national colors," said Marko "mak1" Milosevic, Founder and CEO at E-Frag, and creator of ESEC."We went into the ESEC project thinking why would eSports be an exception. The scene needs to be refreshed and reminded that it's not all about the cash prizes and that's why we thought that a nation based competition was the thing CS:GO community needed at this moment."So why do I think Dota 2 need a tournament based around nations? Simple. Our tournament scene is stale and becoming too self-indulged with prize pools. We're having tournaments rehashed and re-served with the same teams, the same format over and over again. What is more our concept of what is worth watching is becoming too elitist. If we really want the game to go the distance, we need a regular flow of new players and also fresh formats to add variety.Unlike Starcraft2 - or Counter-Strike to some extent, we do not have the liberty of being able to introduce new maps into our competitive circuit to keep it fresh. Only Dotacinema has ventured into unchartered waters by using a game mode other than Captains Mode with their XMG Captain’s Draft. What is more Ability Draft or all Random Deathmatch will never be anything more than a novelty in their current state, due to balance issues. Therefore, we need to look elsewhere to keep our scene competitive yet vibrant.National success stories Cypher - BelarusCypher's big break came in the ESWC 2006 in Quake IV, where he finished second place in the ESWC Grand Finals in Paris after winning the Belarusian qualifier. He was just 16 years old. He went onto to win 24 international tournaments across three titles; Quake III, IV and QuakeLive before retiring in 2012. "Yeah the DotaCinema tournament was very fun," said Akke. "I wouldn't mind at all to have more of those tournaments. Even if they aren't 100% balanced sometimes it's only 1 tournament out of many so it doesn't really matter. I'm actually quite surprised there hasn't been more tournaments like that yet."Aspiring top players rely on high MMR to get noticed, hoping that one day they might an opportunity like AdmiralBulldog or Xcalibur, to be asked to stand-in for a top flight team.However, most top players are overwhelmed with competitive matches that their pub lives are limited, and will be more interested in fine-tuning their own skills, than keeping note and tabs on allies and opponents’.Their other choice is to try to form a team, often with fellow compatriots – like fng did with Power Rangers or Ush did with SNA, and run the tier2 gauntlet with the hope of a stroke of luck in jam-packed qualifiers they might not get invited to.For an individual to get a chance to compete in the big time, he relies on a handful of other players who haven’t made it, in a place where everyone is fighting for scraps. Some organisers do look towards the grass roots level, such as the JDL, NEL and CEVO, but there is a reason why most tournament organisers do aim to cater for the top.No need to fabricate hypeStart-up tournaments and even the well-established ones rely on hype, they rely on getting people engaged. In order to do so they will bend over backwards to get the top teams to compete, either through direct invites, bracket formats or even a Redemption vote. Not everyone can be as patient as DotaPit to climb to the top.They want you to care, if you care they buy tickets, you might watch the ads on stream and you will watch their tournament over a rivals. Hats can sometimes play with destiny, the recent success of DotaCinema's Captain Draft being a good example, but ultimately people will be led to watch whatever the biggest teams have decided is worth their time. Although, as we saw with i-League, DreamLeague Season 2, WCA and WEC last year, that isn't always synonymous with a successful tournament.The reality is that for many viewers, they simply just do not want to watch the teams who play second fiddle, they don't know the players or the teams enough to care what happens to them. However, what if they knew one of the players, if they'd seen him compete in say a National Cup or a World Cup and they know he's not half bad. It might be the entry way into them perhaps averting their gaze to a wider range of teams and tournaments, perhaps even buying tickets for a smaller tournament just to see them compete.National success stories Grubby - NetherlandsGrubby was the Dendi of the Warcraft3 world, and it was in the World Cyber Games in 2003 that he first made a name for himself. He went onto to win two WCG titles in his career - WCG 2004 and WCG 2008, which earned him a place in the WCG hall of fame, and was one of the highest earning Warcraft3 players of his day. He was also the leading protagonist in the documentary Beyond the Game featuring Chinese rival Xiaofeng "Sky" Li. Grubby is still active as a player, now competing in Starcraft2. There's only so many times we can witness the same top 12 teams mixed and matched in a playoff tree, and players will eventually get old or be compelled to think of a life after DOTA 2. Or they'll just retire then un-retire and make a small fortune streaming and then retire again, only to un-retire in the future.By creating a tournament based around nations, you do not need to sell your soul to get every single top team signed up to avoid it being labelled a failure. Why? People care about their country, national pride runs deep with people. You do not need to create rivalry or hype because it already exists.National TV station Tv6.se followed Alliance at TI3 because it was a story of national interest, and the team has always kept a Swedish line-up with the exception of Misery - who can be excused since Denmark is but a stone throw away, helping them stay their nation's sweethearts.I've spent countless World Cups and Euro Cups hoping England will finally get their shit together and win a tournament, they never do, but I still watch. Even though they might be a bitter disappointment and Rooney may never actually deliver what he is supposed to, that's MY team, for better for worse.How many of us for a weeks every two or four years suddenly develop an interest in olympic sports, simply because our country is competing? You get my point.So how would The Dota 2 World Cup work?A nations tournament on the scale of the World Cyber Games or the Electronic Sports World Cup is obviously highly unlikely. However, if The Dota 2 World Cup was an online tournament perhaps sponsored by companies who are looking to pimp out their products to users from the competing countries, this would work a treat.In ESWC and WCG, there were no limitations on the number of players from a specific team, so the entire line-up of a Counter-Strike 1.6 organisation could represent their country. However this system in Dota 2 is counter-productive in helping groom new talent as well as making it less of a spectacle - proof of this is how badly iESF 2014 failed to attract viewership for their format last year. What we need is something new. I would therefore, impose a maximum of 3 players from the same organisation allowed to play in any one match, but not limit the number of players per organisation to be in the player pool."It could work as a way to get new players into the scene but at the same time they have to be known to even get picked from the beginning so it's very hard," said Akke. "It has always been a problem for new players to be recognized if you aren't friends with someone that already are in a professional team, but since it's a team game it almost has to be like that. No one can evaluate someones skill to be a team player without playing with them a lot. But I do like the idea of having more than 5 people in the team so more get a chance to play!"Ukraine, Sweden and Russia would easily be able to field a full roster consisting of professional players - that is assuming they would be interested in doing so. Denmark could form a team around MiSery and N0tail, Germany could have the services of FATA-, KuroKy, qovqja and Black^. Meanwhile, Finland could easily use 4ASC as a basis to further enlist some Finnish talent to join them.A global nations tournament is unfeasible, ping and timezones would be fatal. Therefore, The Dota 2 World Cup could feature say, a dozen or so teams from the major European nations as a starting point given the scene is more cohesive, with an open qualifier for any other nation able to get themselves organised to put together a team. The Americas would also be quite a good region for such a competition; with the potential of the strong national pride of Peru, Brazil and Argentina put up against the likes of USA and Canada quite an enticing possibility.The idea for open qualifiers for smaller or less established nations in terms of players was how ESL's ENC worked in the past. However, e-Frag managed to host the European Championship (ESEC) for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive last year using a different method. "Players, from each country, that want to represent their team have to write an application where they state why they are the right person for the job," explained Mak1. "We review every application and decide who is the best choice amongst them. That way the players don't have to argue between themselves and make unnecessary problems."What if some top players don't want to play for their country? If a top player does not wish to play for his country, that's his loss and his fellow countrymen will know he chose to not compete. However, I can't envision a complete boycott of such a competition assuming it was placed at a good time of the year."I can't say with a hundred percent certainty as every player feels different but from what I gathered at the ESEC events the urge to win every single round was the same as at any other team based tournament," said Mak1. "I think that the cash prizes are really a background thing as the majority of the players representing their countries play professionally and earn good money from their organizations."If someone were to organise a Dota 2 World Cup or even a European Cup who should it be held? When asked about the timing of such a tournament James "2GD" Harding believes it would have to be perhaps after the blood, sweat and tears of the TI-drama train. "Nations Cup would be a very welcomed product, but it's more about if the players have time for it within there current schedule. Which I honestly think they don't. Maybe after TI5."Who would be interested in running such a tournament? "Tournament organizers often build a product then run with it," explained 2GD. "Starladder is on season what? 11?. Dreamleague is a product. ESL are probably the ones most capable of starting something new. They have organized many nation cups. At the GD Studio, though we would love to do something like this after TI5, It does come down to how to finance it. DreamHack and others are probably in a better place to start a project like this."iESF did run an event last year for Dota 2 featuring countries rather than teams, but it failed to get any kind of traction. This was mainly down to a poor format for putting the teams together, which allowed countries like Sweden to be represented by 4 Friends and Chillee, while TI4 winners Newbee played for China. Ukraine had no team at the event, whilst many other nations were random faces who just happened to hold the appropriate passports to keep sponsors happy.IESF announced some form of plan for their 2015 event, and I'm hopeful that it may turn out better than last year, but it will be hard for it to throw off its reputation for being nothing more than a publicity stunt for the global appeal of gaming, a celebration of nations but not a competitive spectable we might be hoping for. That is not what Dota 2 needs to rekindle the "fire" that EternalEnvy said he lost, and I'm sure many other players did too.All hats aside, a national tournament as I proposed would be a recipe for success, regardless of what workshop items or bundles are thrown in for good measure. It would allow fans to get to know and develop their domestic scene, encourage Local LAN events to perhaps hold tryouts or eSports bars to stream the matches, help players to keep motivated, as well as introduce some new faces to our scene, while still giving us what we want: drama, hype and engagement. The question is, if it were to be organised, which nation would come out on top?Would you be interested in a Dota World Cup? Who would be your national dream team? (3 players per organisation)This article was written byLawrence Phillips, joinDOTA's Editor-in-Chief.Malystryx has been in eSports since 2004 working as eSports Editor for Razer and was Editor-in-Chief of SK Gaming in its glory days. He misses the days of Warcraft3 but makes do with the world of DOTA 2, although he recently got mesmerised by Hearthstone. Location: Bristol, UKFollow him on @MalystryxGDS.