The Dota 2 community is still reeling from the announcement that the ESL One Los Angeles Major 2020 has been cancelled. However it appears that more news is coming as Valve made another big announcement. This time around, the fourth Major, and its accompanying Minor, have both been cancelled.
The ESL One LA Major was set to begin yesterday, March 15. A total of 15 teams had managed to secure spots through the qualifiers. In addition, the StarLadder ImbaTV Minor had just finished with Team Aster getting the final spot for the Major.
However, just days before the Major was set to start, the World Health Organization declared that the coronavirus was now a pandemic. This led to countries releasing their own protocols in answer to the declaration. US President Donald Trump issued a travel ban from Europe. As a result, the LA Major was cancelled. Read more about that here.
Even after the news came out, ESL said it was still working with Valve to find a new venue for the LA Major. In addition, there were still two Majors remaining in the current DPC Season.
As it turns out, there's only going to be one Major left as it was announced that the fourth minor and major tournament of the DPC Season has been cancelled. In a tweet from the official Dota 2 account, Valve said that they took into account the health risk presented to the staff, players, and fans, and "made the difficult decision to cancel the fourth minor and major tournaments of the DPC season." Valve went on to say that considering "the high fluidity of the state of both the pandemic and geopolitical landscape, we will keep following the situation and decide how to approach the final major and minor of the season as the weeks progress."
If you haven't been following the 2019/2020 DPC Season, the fourth major was supposed to be the EPICENTER Major 2020. This was to be held from May 2 to May 10 in Moscow. The accompanying minor was to be the AMD SAPPHIRE Dota PIT Minor 2020, and was scheduled for April 23 to April 26 and would have been held in Split, Croatia.
In a statement, Epic Esports Events Event Director Evgeny Kalganov shared that he was very sorry and that the "tournament we were all looking forward to has been cancelled." He went on to say that for those who had "already purchased tickets for EPICENTER Major will receive a refund as soon as possible."
That’s means there’s just one more major: the ONE Esports Singapore Major 2020 slated for June. Considering the location, there’s a high possibility that it’s going to be cancelled as well, unless, of course, the health crisis starts to subside.
What about you? What are your thoughts on this? Should Valve just wait for the International and cancel all Majors? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
