Epicenter Major and Dota PIT Minor have been cancelled

A few days ago, ESL and Valve announced that ESL One LA had been cancelled because of the spead of the Covid-19 coronavirus. Today, Valve announced that the 4th set of DPC Major and Minor (Epicenter Major and Dota PIT Minor) will also be cancelled due to health risks the virus presents to everyone involed in the events.

After careful consideration of the current state and trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the health risk that this presents to competitors, staff and fans alike, we have made the difficult decision to cancel to the 4th minor and major tournaments of the DPC season.

With only two Majors and Minors being played before the coronavirus situation, that leaves us with only one last set of Major and Minor, which was originally intended to be the fifth set of the year. Valve added they were deciding on how to approach these events. The Minor is scheduled from June 6th to 13th and the Major, which is the ONE Esports Singapore Major, is scheduled from the 20th of June to the 28th of June.

Whether the dates will remain the same as planned, it cannot be said. It is a bit too early to guess whether the fifth Major will take place or not and the decision will probably be made looking at the pandemic scenario close in the next few weeks.

With two Majors being cancelled, considering TI10 does happen, the DPC system will be very skewed as it will have points only from three DPC Majors and Minors. Valve will have to change up the qualifying criterias to ensure fair qualification for the 10th iteration of The International. Statsman Ben ‘Noxville’ Steenhuisen had an interesting solution to this problem.

At this stage Valve should should probably just do something like:
* directly invite the current top 7 teams (TNC/Vici/Secret/EG/IG/[A]/Liq)
* do regional qualifiers (1 slot per region = 6 teams)
* have a wildcard tournament for 6 teams (1 per region) where the top 3 get into TI.

What Valve will actually end up doing is bit hard to say now. The only thing which is clear is, like most things, the DPC season has been drastically affected by Covid-19. As more news comes from Valve, VPEsports will bring you updates to the situation. Till then, stay safe, healthy and take all the necessary precautions.

Related articles:

Source: Read Full Article