Cover-Credits:
- PGL, the organizer behind DPC-SEA 2021, has announced the details for the event that will span for nearly 40 days from January 18 to February 27.
- Fnatic, TNC Predator, BOOM Esports and T1 have received a direct invite to the Upper Division and the entire event will have a total prize pool of $280,000.
- The remaining four teams in the Upper Division and the eight teams in the Lower Division will be determined through a closed qualifier.
PGL, who has been nominated by Valve as the third party organizer to run the SEA region of the DPC 2021 Regional League, has announced the details for the event. Fnatic, TNC Predator, BOOM Esports, and T1 have received direct invites to the Upper Division. The entire league will have a total prize pool of $280,000.
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Fnatic, TNC, T1 And BOOM Get Direct Invites To DPC-SEA 2021
Valve announced the new format of Regional Leagues in a blog post a day ago. PGL was handed over the responsibility for conducting the league in the SEA division. The organizer has become the first one to reveal the details of its respective region.
Based on the criteria of selecting the teams in “best form”, four teams that had to receive the direct invite to the Upper Division of the Regional Leagues are:
- Fnatic
- TNC Predator
- BOOM Esports
- T1
While Fnatic, TNC and BOOM were expected to receive a direct invite, fans were split between T1 and Motivate.Trust Gaming. While T1 has a full roster with all the great names currently, Motivate.Trust's performance has been tremendous recently. Dota 2 statsman, Noxville, tweeted a photo that mentioned the likely reason behind T1 taking priority over Motivate.Trust.
Eight more teams have been invited to the league and will be competing in a closed qualifier consisting of two stages.
- 496 Gaming
- ex-IO Dota2
- Execration
- Smart Omega
- Vice Esports
- Galaxy Racer
- Cignal Ultra
- Neon Esports
PGL explained the functioning of this format as follows.
The Closed Qualifiers consist of two stages:
- Stage 1 - 8 teams(the ones mentioned above) will play DE BO3 Bracket until 4 winners are decided. These 4 teams will qualify for the Upper Division and the bottom 4 teams will play in the next qualifying stage.
The second stage will contain 12 teams: the bottom 4 teams from the Closed Qualifier Stage 1 + 8 teams that will qualify after the Open Qualifiers. There will be 4 Open Qualifiers. The top 2 teams from each qualifier will compete in the Closed Qualifiers Stage 2.
- Stage 2 - The teams will play in 2 Round Robin BO2 groups - 6 teams in each group. The 5th and the 6th place are eliminated. The remaining teams will qualify for the Lower Division.
A Round Robin Bracket will be created for each Upper and Lower Divisions. The matches will be played in a BO3 format.
The bottom two teams of the Upper Division will be relegated to the Lower Division, while the top two teams of the Lower Division will be promoted. The bottom two teams of the Lower Division will be eliminated from the league and Open Qualifiers will decide which are the two teams that will occupy these slots in the next season.
The bottom two teams of the Lower division that are going to eliminated from the league are not going to either a share of prize money or a share of the DPC points. The remaining 14 teams which include eight in the Upper Division and six in the Lower Division will get their share of the prize pool while the top five in the Upper Division only will be distributed with DPC points.
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The open qualifiers begin on Monday, January 4, 2021, while the main divisions are to kickstart on January 18 and will continue till February 27. Top three spots in the Upper Division will book a spot in the first Major of 2021. Broadcast talent information is likely to be revealed soon. You can register for the open qualifiers here.
