Now that you have a hero picked that you are comfortable with and have practiced with them a bit it's time to start your first match! After all the matchmaking and choosing your hero you are spawned in to your home base. The objective of the game is to push each of the three lanes, top, bottom, and mid, destroy the other teams towers, destroy each teams baracks, and destroy their main source of power. Their ancient. By destroying the ancient you win the game. So from your home base you pick which lane to go in to. Carry type heroes mainly want to take the mid lane because by being alone in a lane they get the most gold and experience. In the top and bottom lanes, tank's and support's can work together to push back the enemy and destroy the towers. By destroying towers your team gains gold and becomes that much closer to the other teams ancient. The closer you get to the ancient the more your team will need to group up and attack as a single unit in order to fully enter the base since more than likely the other team will do the same to defend all the while gaining levels, upgrading abilities, and buying items to help your team achieve their main goal. A match can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour and a half. There is no time limit so make sure you have enough time to play a complete match before entering. No one likes a player that abandons the game mid match, but if it does happen the team with the abandoned player recieve more gold and experience from kills along with being able to control the character that was left from the player who left.
Now that you have an understanding about all the elements that are incorporated in to a match of Dota 2 you can play until you are good enough to compete on the pro level in the Shanghai Major! So remeber to have fun and spam all your abilities on the other team in fights. Good Luck!