To kick off the new year, Valve has announced the details for the upcoming DPC season 2021 set to start on January 18th.
It has been a long wait for the highly anticipated details on the new season but it has finally arrived and now it is time to get hyped.
With all of the disruptions and delay to the new season, there will be only two league seasons that will lead up to The International 10 which is expected to take place in Stockholm, Sweden in August 2021.
Season 1
Season 1 league dates: January 18th – February 28th. (March 14th for China with a break in the middle)
Major 1: March 25th – April 4th
Season 2
Season 2 league dates: April 13th – May 23rd
Major 2: June 2nd – June 13th
Given that several teams experienced a lot of roster changes throughout the year and performance has varied among teams from the previous DPC season, we will not be using previous season’s DPC points as a way to seed teams into the leagues but rather selecting the top 4 teams in best form from each region to be directly qualified to the Upper-division, while a series of qualifiers, closed and open, will determine the remaining 12 teams in both divisions.
Major Slots
At the end of the league, the top teams from each region’s upper-division will qualify to the Major. For the first major, the distribution of the 18 slots will be as follows:
EU: Top 4
China: Top 4
SEA: Top 3
CIS: Top 3
NA: Top 2
SA: Top 2
Divisions
The bottom two teams of the Upper Division in each Region will be relegated to the Lower Division, while the top two teams of the Lower Division will be promoted. The bottom two teams of the lower division will be eliminated from the league and open qualifiers will decide which are the two teams that will occupy those slots on the next season.
Schedule:
The new schedule is as follows (All times Pacific Time):
Upper Division
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12AM | China | SEA | China | SEA | China | ||
| 3AM | China | SEA | SEA | SEA | China | ||
| 6AM | CIS | CIS | |||||
| 9AM | Europe | Europe | CIS | CIS | Europe | CIS | |
| 12PM | Europe | SA | NA | SA | Europe | NA | |
| 3PM | NA | SA | NA | SA | SA | NA | |
| 6PM |
Lower Division
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12PM | China | SEA | |||||
| 3AM | SEA | CIS | CIS | CIS | |||
| 6AM | CIS | Europe | Europe | CIS | Europe | ||
| 9AM | Europe | SA | SA | SA | |||
| 12PM | SA | NA | Europe | SA | NA | ||
| 3PM | NA | NA | NA | ||||
| 6PM | |||||||
| 9PM | China | SEA | SEA | China | SEA | China | China |
Tournament Organizers
The six regional leagues will be operated by the following tournament organizers. More information on qualifiers, broadcasting, show, and talent information for each region will come from the respective organizer within the next few days.
Europe: Dreamhack
CIS: ESL
China: Perfect World
SEA: PGL
NA: BTS
SA: Dotapit
Client Feature
In an upcoming update, by the end of January, the DPC circuit will become integrated with the client, featuring Standings, Schedule, and Tournament Information, as well as making it easy for people to follow their favorite teams and support them through purchasing seasonal Fan Support bundles.
