Shopify Rebellion coach Kanishka "Bulba" Sosale spoke about the situation in the North American Dota 2 scene. He tried to explain its issues and where they came from. In an interview with Dota2.ru, he named few reasons, economical and cultural.
I think it's because new games arrived. There are less players. A few years ago, most of the really good players from NA started playing on EU servers and abandoned local servers. I think that's when everything began to become worse here. I don't think it was because of the foreign players in NA teams. I think the US servers just started to die. I think that's where it all started.
Dota is esports players' life. From my experience as a player and a coach. some NA players don't think the same way. For example, some of our team members are playing non-stop. But it's way harder in USA, both from a financial and practical point of view. Maybe it's also a cultural thing. I think it's the crucial one. Also, in my opinion, it's way easier to work with players from some other regions.
Well, I'd try to promote Dota 2 in NA. I don't feel like the developers do any promotion at all. So maybe I'd try something like that. Maybe, if there would be more tournaments in NA, but it's hard. I'm not sure, it's a tough question.
You can't force people to play a game. I think American players like to play... In NA, most of the players are grown-up, older people. If you don't have a reliable job, it's very hard to live here, because everything is expensive. And the state won't help you. So I don't know what to do. I think most of the local gamers simply play new titles. It's not like EEU or Southeast Asia where people still play a lot of Dota, and there are LAN-cafes and all that. I don't know. It's difficult to say.
Bulba's Shopify Rebellion roster has no NA players, although Bulba is ready to make an exception for Enzo "Timado" Gianoli. The Peruvian played and developed on NA teams, and lives in Washington. The organization is operating from Toronto, but the coach admitted they have yet to bring Ukrainian mangekyou and Belarusian Hellscream to Canada due to visa issues.