It took a while, but someone at Valve finally had the sense to address the concerns of the Dota 2 community. In particular, what's going to happen with the first Major being canceled. The answer is the upcoming DPC 2021-2022 Regional Finals.
It's going to be next month with three regions playing from February 11 to February 13 and the other three from February 18 to February 20. The tournament has the top four teams of each region fight in a double-elimination format for a large share of the $100,000 prize pool.
For those wondering how this came about, it all started when Valve canceled what would have been the first Major of the new DPC season. The reason was, of course, the pandemic and the new variant around. Valve cited that it was "unfeasible" to have a LAN tournament considering the increase in travel restrictions. Back then, Valve only said that the points allocated to the Major were to be redistributed for the next two Majors. With no Major tournament, that posed a problem for many Dota 2 teams.
In its latest statement, Valve revealed that when a LAN tournament wasn't possible, it couldn't come up with an alternative that offered a positive outcome. For example, postponing the Major to a later date would be unfair to teams that had to change rosters. Having a global online tournament wasn't a good option as well due to differences in the latency of participating regions.
In the same statement, Valve apologized for not "being mindful of players participating in the DPC." It was after discussions with Teams and Tournament Organizers that there was indeed an alternative, which would make the most sense for everyone. While it isn't the perfect solution, having a Regional Finals tournament is one that most teams could get behind.
Here are additional details of the Regional Finals:
- Schedule
- February 11 to February 13
- Western Europe
- Southeast Asia
- South America
- February 18 to February 20
- China
- Eastern Europe
- North America
- Prize Distribution
- 1st place:
- $50,000
- 250 DPC points
- 2nd place
- $25,000
- 130 DPC points
- 3rd place
- $15,000
- 4th place
- $10,000
While not the perfect solution, it does serve as a good alternative for now. What about you? What do you think of having a Regional Finals?
