Dota Pro Circuit China Has Begun

The Chinese region has had a very late start in the Dota Pro Circuit, but it will catch up quickly. In the Upper Division, 8 teams are competing for 4 Major tickets. One will go directly to the Playoffs, one to the Group Stage, and 2 to the Wild Card. As always, the battle for the top positions is fierce. But unlike the previous seasons, there are far fewer strong contenders. It feels as though the region has only 5 teams competing for 4 spots.

DPC China Details

DPC China features the following 8 teams:

• LGD
• Vici Gaming
• Invictus Gaming
• Royal Never Give Up
• Team Aster
• EHOME
• Phoenix Gaming
• LBZS

The strongest of these 8 teams are the top 4. Most likely, they will be the ones to qualify for the first Major of the season. But it remains to be seen what the lesser-known competitors can do.

As you probably know, at the end of The International 10, Elephant disbanded. Because they were an Upper Division team, their place had to be taken by another organization. That organization is RNG. However, this is not the RNG you might remember from last year. It now has 3 legendary players on its roster: Chalice, Somnus, and xNova. This is a formidable team whose chances of doing well in the first tour of Dota Pro Circuit are very high.

DPC Tour 1 is expected to be won by PSG.LGD, followed by Vici Gaming and other competitors. But Tour 2 might be a completely different story. After leaving Elephant, Eurus formed his own squad with some of the region’s best players. They are currently competing in the Lower Division under the name Xtreme Gaming. And they are actually leading the pack with a record of 5 W – 2 L.

Given that the Lower Division has only 8 teams and that the competitive format is round-robin, what this means is that Eurus and his teammates have already qualified for the Upper Division for the 2^nd tour of DPC 2021 – 2022. It remains to be seen who will be relegated from that division but the most likely candidates are LBZS and Phoenix Gaming.

Early Results

DPC China Upper Division takes place between January 3^rd – 21^st and the first 2 matches have already been played. EHOME defeated Phoenix (2 – 0) while PSG.LGD defeated Aster (2 – 1), even though it lost the first game.

The next 3 games will take place on January 4^th and will be the following:

• Vici Gaming – LBZS
• LGD – Phoenix
• Invictus Gaming – RNG

The big favorites are Vici Gaming, PSG.LGD, and RNG. Unfortunately for Invictus Gaming, without Kaka, it is questionable that they will manage to play as well as they did last season. iG finished 4^th at The International 10 but much of the merit goes to the team’s former captain. His legendary knowledge of the game will be extremely hard to replace. Given how skilled are RNG’s best players, this match will likely be won by Somnus and his crew.

 

Photo credit: Valve