It is a lot of fun watching Deadlock grow. Looking up the player numbers is a pretty inexpensive hobby that isn’t all that time consuming. For someone rooting for Valve's new creation, the last couple of months were especially delightful and it doesn’t look like the growth is stopping even in the absence of new hero releases. Deadlock is on a steady upwards trend.

Sometimes this weird hobby of mine leads to some interesting discoveries. Like, for example, the fact that Deadlock is double-peaking during the day. It has two distinct timings, when the playerbase is at its highest: one is when Europe gets home from work and the other one, a bit later, when the Americas do.

This isn’t abnormal by itself. Most big multiplayer playerbases exhibit a similar behaviour. What is surprising, though, is that not only do the Americas actually play a Dota-like game, but they also frequently peak higher than Europe.

Historical context

The surprise behind this finding definitely requires some context for those unfamiliar with the Dota-like games and the rich esports history of the genre. Dota 2 and League of Legends esports scenes are dominated by the European and Asian teams respectively and it’s been this way for almost a decade.

In Dota 2, North America won The International title in 2015 and was the runner-up in the International 2016. It has been quiet ever since and the region’s last Tier 1 LAN victory was back in 2017.

Heroic, a South American team, recently won a Tier 1 Dota 2 Tournament, but unfortunately the roster didn’t stay together after that and the whole South American esports scene is in a bit of a turmoil. There are still hopefuls in the community, but it requires a great deal of optimism to believe in another South American LAN victory until the region’s inner-circle drama is resolved.

The Americas League of Legends esports scene is even bleaker. It never had a World’s winner or even a World’s runner-up from the Americas and it is unlikely to change, as the scene has very few S-Tier international tournaments.

It is borderline impossible for the weaker regions to get exposed to the higher level of competition, learn from this experience and attempt to catch up. The entirety of the LoL esports scene is designed in a way that ensures the Korean hegemony remains uncontested.

Due to the lack of results in the professional scene, both games have been bleeding players in the Americas. At least this is the sentiment in the NA LoL community. For Dota 2 we have actual data that confirms the lack of interest for the game in NA. And a growing interest for it in South America, after the historic Heroic LAN victory.

Why does it matter?

Now, the bigger esports presence for a region doesn’t necessarily mean a larger playerbase, and neither does a large playerbase ensure esports success, but there are undeniably correlations between the two. The more people play a game within a region, the more likely it is to produce new talent capable of competing at the international level.

A good example for Dota 2 is Eastern Europe. Dota 2 is, essentially, a national sport for the region and most top teams have some EEU representatives. They attract the attention of the EEU audience and grow the playerbase, which ultimately produces more athletes that end up winning tournaments, attracting new players to the game.

Korean professional players and the Korean playerbase are in a similar relationship in League of Legends.

These things happen naturally and can’t be forced. A large part of Dota 2 popularity in Europe is Dendi and The International victory by Na’Vi. A large part of LoL's popularity in Korea is Faker and his complete dominance over the scene. Who knows, maybe the Americas, with their rich history of success in twitch shooters, could produce a generational talent to drive Deadlock’s popularity?

Individualistic approach

Deadlock is a combination of many things. Of course, at its core, it is Dota-like. After all, it is made by the Dota 2 creators themselves. But one can’t deny how important aim and movement in this game is, and how sometimes individual mechanical skill can trample every other aspect of the game.

There are more ways of making up for an economic deficit with better plays in Deadlock, compared to other Dota-likes. And from my extensive experience in Dota and some passing interest in other esports titles, it is usually the players from the Americas that exhibit the highest level of individual mechanical prowess.

Now this is definitely up for debate, but it truly feels like players from Night Shift NA tend to pop a little bit more than the players from Night Shift EU. There are riskier plays and more glorious payoffs, especially from fan favorites like Eidorian.

We won’t know for sure which teams are stronger until they meet in a LAN environment, so for now we can just start the discussion and maybe try to evaluate the stats from the professional matches, to get some data points to compare. It will still be inconclusive, it will all be a speculation, but it could be a lot of fun.

Who knows, maybe Deadlock is going to be the Americas MOBA?