Why Do People Watch Dopa

Every once in a while I binge watch league videos on youtube. Compilations, guides, stream dailies, you name it. Sometimes because there's some information in them I want, to relax, or as background to whatever the hell I am doing with my life at five am when I am not sleeping (which is most of the time). Nothing too much out of the ordinary, I guess.

The cas is, some time ago I found this series about pros and streamers named "Why Do People Watch ____" from a guy named "Fizz Khalifa" and eventually I found this one about Dopa, the one this article or whatever this is shares names with. It was a compilation of plays, clutch escapes, Aatrox rampages, one versus fives. The video was good, watching worthwhile, nothing wrong with it overall as far as editing and quality goes; but to me, having seen probably all the videos ever in Official Dopa's channel, it didn't deliver the promise. That video showed almost nothing on why I watch Dopa. 

Let me explain why I do.

I am a control player. 

To those not familiar with the term (mostly because its rarely used in the league meta language) I adopted it from magic the gathering, where several archetypes of decks exist, each one seeking to take the opponent on a different fashion. Control in Magic seeks (in general terms) to stall the game  through neutralising enemy threats until it's powerful spells and card-advantage generating cards can make the difference later on. Now, that's not really translatable to league; non in saying that lategame scaling players are control players and either through the old a-million-times debunked theory about passive players vs aggressive players. But the idea (really attractive to some players like me) to archive victory through the control of the game remains, not only in magic or league, but across almost any human game ever made. In chess, you play the french, in age of empires you build towers. As you become good at those games you begin to understand how to use defensive tools aggressively, aggressive strats as defence, and learn to be flexible in order to always try to make the better play. But I think the underlying type of person playing always remains in the style of the player somehow, I am a control player, and Dopa is too.

I draw no pleasure from watching the majority of streams on twitch. I open them and they scream and make constant high risk high reward plays; maybe because the montage videos, maybe because playing to your limits is a way to become good. Whatever reason it is, is unwatchable to me. If I were to make that play on soloq, not even talking before an audience of thousands, I would be thinking about how stupid that was for the rest of the week. One time in season five I was trying to learn jungle and I opened a Peanut stream, in which he was playing Lee Sin, entered the enemy jungle with no vision and no priority, died in a seconds, and he laughed it off. Later on, he did it again and for some reason got a double. I had to turn that off.

Dopa's videos are not like that. Dopa doesn't outplay you like for example Faker does. He dismantles you.

Most of the players go to the rift and try to win, Dopa figures out how to win first and then pushes the DopaGo button. Ever watched a full good Twisted Fate gameplay of him? It's like ASMR. You know nothing can go bad, you feel protected from all ill. He uses his ult to make plays and get the game rolling, but he uses it as a nuclear deterrent even more than that. You see him stopping to hit the wave he was shoving and lose two minions mid for apparently no reason, and as you are wondering why he do that he says "Thresh is here", and effectively the thresh nobody pinged that based in the botlane bush, bought mobies and tried to gank mid through the toplane bush was there. He runs it off with his stupid first buy boots and continues laning. Those are the "plays" I watch Dopa for. You can keep your stupid yasuos and akalis. The only thing I want my midlaners to do is clear waves, not die, maybe and only maybe if the timing is perfect roam, and to be useful later on. That's all, you don't have to kill anybody. I blame him on my ridiculous expectations regarding that.

I tried to play control, to play like that myself. 

Sadly, I think Jungle is not the best place for that (despite the fantasy of being the strategic role it  really isn't) at least not now, at least not in soloq. The only time I felt somehow in control was playing Nocturne a season ago, and it was just a feeling, I didn't really climb with it. Maybe it's because the jungle or the game changes too much or because I find lanes to me unpredictable most of the time (at least they feel to me in diamond elo). But I also tried to play like an aggressive reckless junglers, and even when that works better, it's just not me. To play control perfectly, you have to understand the flow. To play control and improve, each little thing you add is another thing to be aware of, sometimes with diminishing returns. You do not only have to like to feel in control, but to be really fit for it to do it at high level. Even he is not perfect, sometimes prioritises farm too much, or doesn't go for that play that would've give them a chance to win the game because the chance was bad but the game is doomed if he doesn't do it anyway.

At the end, because I am not Dopa and will never be, sometimes my idea to relax from a long day on the rift muting people and farming camps is to watch a Q and a red card crush an incoming wave like you would watch the sea crash on the reefs. Or maybe a simple and well timed roam, gold perfect back timing and a seventy cs lead on the enemy toplane at ten minutes having one death and zero kills.