First season of the 2022 Dota Pro Circuit, the Winter Tour is due to end this weekend with North America, Eastern Europe and China Regional Finals.
Regional Finals are a last minute solution for the cancelled Winter Major and while online regional battles are perhaps not the most exciting way to end a season, they are here to give the top four teams from each region a chance at grabbing some extra DPC points and a share of the $100,000 prize pool.
Regional Finals format
- Top 4 teams of the Regional Leagues
- Double-elimination bracket
- BO3 series, BO5 Grand Final
Regional Finals prize pool distribution
- 1st place: $50,000 & 250 DPC Points
- 2nd place: $25,000 & 130 DPC Points
- 3rd place: $15,000
- 4th place: $10, 000
China competitors
PSG.LGD
Team Aster
Royal Never Give Up
EHOME
In the Chinese region, PSG.LGD are by far the favorites to take the Regional Finals title. They are one of the very few teams that made no roster change after TI 10 and amongst the few teams that finished the league season with a clean 7-0 series score. Their high calibre players dominate in what is considered to be the most competitive region and without a doubt, they are entering the new DPC year with most chances to take an early lead in DPC points to secure another TI presence.
While PSG.LGD are not a surprise this season, not even in their consistency, the Chinese region delivered plenty of unexpected results.
Starting with Invictus Gaming relegated to Division 2, despite also not tinkering with their roster after TI 10, to EHOME and Royal Never Give Up entering the new DPC year with new line-ups and locking themselves in the top four in the Winter Tour.
EHOME have barely avoided relegation in the previous DPC season with a sixth placement, and when the post TI10 shuffle came, they went for a new approach. The new EHOME roster is made of four members of the Phoenix Gaming line-up that was promoted in the previous season from second to first Division, joined in the Winter Tour by the Malaysian offlane player Nicholas "zeal" Lim Eng Han. The new formula has still a lot of work to do to reach the top echelon of Chinese teams, however, from promotion in the previous season to actually securing a spot at the first Major of the year, if it wouldn’t have been cancelled, the former Phoenix Gaming players have already made the first steps into the right direction.
A Major, where they could have tested their power against teams from around the world, would have been a blessing for them so early in the year, but for now, Regional Finals are all they can get and it will be interesting to see if they can improve on their fourth place finish.
A team that definitely has the power to push to a top two finish this weekend is Royal Never Give Up, who seized the opportunity in the post TI 10 shuffle and turned a Division 2 spot after relegation in the previous DPC season, into a fresh start in Division 1.
After Elephant disbanded, RNG snatched Lu "Somnus" Yao, arguably one of the best mid laners in the world and managed to reunite him with three of his TI8 and TI9 former PSG.LGD teammates. To add to that, they also inherited Elephant’s Division 1 spot in the DPC and went on making the most out of this opportunity by placing third in the Winter Tour regional league.
For Team Aster, the long trail of unfortunate events kept plaguing them even after TI 10. Stranded in Romania then in Southeast Asia for months, while trying to get back home from TI10, Aster made a slight adjustment to their team ahead of the Winter Tour. They moved Zhang "LaNm" Zhicheng back to coaching duties and brought in Yu "Siamese.C" Yajun, who for the entire 2021 year was nurtured at Aster.Aries, the organization’s secondary team.
So far, they managed to stay close to PSG.LGD, finishing second in the league with just two series losses. The upcoming Regional Finals will give them a second chance at taking down the region juggernaut. Their opening match will be, however, against RNG, while PSG.LGD will fight against EHOME this Friday, February 18 starting at 07:00 CET/14:00 GMT+8.
