Dota Pro Circuit to return in Jan 2021 with regional leagues
After months of delay, Dota 2 publisher Valve Corporation finally announced that the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) will be returning for a new season on 18 January 2021 with a new Regional League system.
Valve announced the return of the DPC in a post on the official Dota 2 blog, revealing that the best teams from each of the game’s six competitive regions will qualify for its first Major event.
Under the new system, the DPC will be split into six regional leagues in North America, South America, Europe, the CIS, China, and Southeast Asia, with each league having 16 participating teams split equally in an Upper and Lower Division.
Aside from introducing the regional league system, the new DPC format will also split the circuit into three seasons, with each concluding with a Major event featuring the best teams from each region.
As is tradition, the DPC will ultimately conclude with The International (TI).
Valve said that this new format “presents competitive Dota in a more scheduled and consistent way during the year and features a better structure for the development of Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams”.
Coronavirus impact
Valve first announced back in February that the DPC would be moving to a Regional League system for the 2020-2021 season.
The revamped DPC was initially slated to start last October, with the three Majors set for December this year as well as March and June next year.
However, the introduction of the new regional leagues were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, which shut down 2019-2020 DPC in March.
The previous DPC season was only able to successfully complete two Major cycles, the MDL Chengdu Major in November 2019 and DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major back in January.
The three remaining Majors in the season; namely the ESL One Los Angeles Major, the 2020 EPICENTER Major, and the ONE Esports Singapore Major, were all cancelled. Meanwhile, TI10, which was supposed to be held in Stockholm, Sweden last August, was delayed to next year.
The uncertainty about the DPC resulted in a few teams in Southeast Asia, like Reality Rift, Geek Fam and Adroit, dropping their Dota 2 rosters in the meantime.
Valve has not yet revealed their plans for TI10, though the publisher said that they will be releasing more information soon.
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