Dota Pro Circuit 2021 Season 1 NA Details
The league takes place between January 19th – February 28th. The winner qualifies for the Major Playoffs. The runner-up qualifies for the Major Group Stage. The bottom 2 teams are relegated to the Lower Division. Everyone else remains in the Upper Division for the second season of DPC 2021 NA.
Rewards
A total of $205,000 and 1,150 Pro Circuit Points will be offered. The money will get distributed almost evenly, with the winner getting $30,000 and the 8th place team getting $22,000. But the DPC points is another matter. All of them will go to the top 5 competitors:
1st place: 500 2nd place: 300 3rd place: 200 4th place: 100 5th place: 50
Teams
The 8 competitors that will take part in the tournament are the following:
Evil Geniuses Quincy Crew 4 Zoomers Sadboys Undying Black N Yellow A-Team 5ManMidas
Favorites
Here’s a brief analysis of the 5 favorites that will play in the Upper Division of Dota Pro Circuit 2021 Season 1 North America.
Evil Geniuses
After 6 months of absence from North American tournaments, Evil Geniuses is finally back. Since we last saw them, they made one roster change. RAMZES is gone and iceiceice has been brought in to replace him. This move will likely result in better teamplay because RAMZES was a carry player competing in the offlane position while iceiceice is a pure offlaner who knows exactly how to play that role. The other 4 players are all world-class, so I fully expect Evil Geniuses to dominate the league. Their only real rival is Quincy Crew.
Quincy Crew
Quincy Crew was the best team in North America last year, but we need to keep in mind one thing: this happened in the absence of Evil Geniuses. That tiny detail aside, QC played in 12 Grand Finals in 2020 and won 8 of them. Two of those losses came against EG, while Fly’s team was still competing. Both of them happened in April. Quincy Crew has an excellent roster: YawaR, Quinn, Lelis, MSS, and SVG. All of these players are highly skilled and highly experienced. The group has been playing together for more than 6 months, so there’s no need for any type of accommodation. Perhaps with the game’s latest patch, but the players themselves know each other very well at this point. Going into the Upper Division of Dota Pro Circuit 2021 Season 1 North America, I expect Quincy Crew to finish 2nd.
4 Zoomers
4 Zoomers is another serious team with quite a few good players, including Gunnar, Brax, and Sammyboy. But it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to change the situation at the top. Most likely, this squad will finish somewhere around 4th – 6th.
Sadboys
Sadboys is ppd’s new stack. This lineup has great potential because of him. The rest of the players are all highly experienced in their respective roles. All they need is good leadership and ppd, while not being an outstanding support player, is without a doubt a legendary captain who can make a big difference in games. His results with OpTic Gaming and NiP clearly proved that. So I’m curious to see what he can do with Fear and Moo. Keep in mind, Fear played the same position (carry) back in 2015, when EG won The International with ppd at the helm. And Moo played in the Grand Final of The International 2016 from the same position he’s playing now (offlaner). Going into the tournament, I expect Sadboys to finish somewhere around 3rd – 4th. If ppd manages to find a way to win against the big giants, EG and QC, then we might even see this team qualify for the Major.
Undying
With Timado as its carry and players like Moonmeander and Dubu in the roster, Undying is no doubt a team to be respected, even at this competitive level. So far we’ve only seen them in the qualifier for this tournament and they did an excellent job. If they can keep up the great performances, I think a 4th – 5th place result shouldn’t be a problem. I doubt they can do more given the strength of the competition, but to maintain their position in the Upper Division would definitely be considered a success.
