Whitemon points out the abundance of late games in SEA DPC

Indonesian player, Matthew "Whitemon" Filemon, has been having a blast in this season so far. Ahead of the 22/23 Winter Tour Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), he left the Southeast Asia (SEA) region to assume captaincy in TSM, one of the powerhouses of NA. The team is currently undefeated in NA DPC, and after another swift victory, Whitemon hopped on the post-match interview. He shared his thoughts regarding NA’s faster game pace as compared to SEA. So we dug into the numbers to find out if that is the case and the facts are pretty shocking.

As the DPC enters a new season, Whitemon had decided to broaden his horizons and explore something beyond his comfort zone. Though initially in a dilemma between playing for Talon Esports or TSM, the 22-year-old player ended up choosing the NA team and is now representing Indonesia on the other side of the world. 

During the TSM vs 5RATSFORCESTAFF post-match interview, panelist Maurice "KheZu" Gutmann asked the young captain about his experience in the NA region as compared to SEA. To this, Whitemon pointed out the difference in pace and how there are more late games in SEA. “In SEA teams, you are going to see a lot of late games. In this region (NA), the games are kind of fast," Whitemon said.

SEA indeed has a notorious reputation for immense late games and beyond 40-minute comebacks. In the past two weeks alone, there have been a ton of late games that got fans pulling their hair out in suspense.

And while we are on the topic, we decided to take a look at the numbers to factually compare the game lengths.

To compare the game durations, we grabbed data for DPC Tour 1 Division I of all regions from Spectral Stats. SEA games are evidently longer in duration, not only when compared to NA but also to other regions.

NA holds the shortest average match duration at 35:42 minutes. The record for shortest game so far even happened in the region, which was the match between Shopify Rebellion vs Wildcard at 15:53 minutes. Other regions’ average match duration hovers around the 38-minute mark. The SEA region, on the other hand, holds a shocking 46-minute average game duration.

This could be due to the skill gap or difference in team chemistry between teams in the region. However, analyst, Murielle "Kips" Huisman pointed out the late-game pattern and described SEA teams as only “playing tight and smart when their backs are against the wall.”

“It's no wonder that the median game takes 43 minutes if defending teams only start playing when they're holding base and attacking teams have to first scare themselves straight with their throws,” Kips tweeted.

The Winter Tour DPC Regional Leagues will conclude by the end of January. Teams will need to bring their A-game to the table to qualify for the first South American Dota 2 Major in Lima, Peru. So far, TSM is in a great position to secure a slot in Lima Major. The team will have 3 more teams to play against - B8, Alpha, and Shopify Rebellion. Catch their next series in NA DPC against Alpha on January 23, 2023.

Stay tuned on Esports.gg for more Dota 2 news and updates!