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Dota2 developer and Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) tournament organiser Valve has cancelled both OGA Dota PIT Minor 2020 and EPICENTER Major 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The news comes shortly after the firm indefinitely postponed the ESL One Los Angeles Dota2 Major due to the ongoing spread of coronavirus and the visa issues Dota2 teams have endured ahead of the third Major of 2019/20 DPC.
“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 fourth Minor and Major tournaments of the DPC season,” read the announcement on the official Dota2 Twitter page.
“Given the high fluidity of the state of both the pandemic and geopolitical landscape, we will keep following the situation and decide how to approach the final Major and Minor of the season as the weeks progress.”
With this decision, Valve is supporting the idea of limited international travel in a bid to keep the fans, players and other individuals involved in Dota2 esports safe. That said, removing two DPC events will have serious consequences for those teams which have yet to secure their spot at The International 2020.
As it stands, only four teams have over 4,000 DPC points: TNC Predator (5,320), ViCi Gaming (5,100), Team Secret (4,950) and Evil Genuises (4,450). Filling the remaining eight spots in the top-12 are Invictus Gaming (3,100), Alliance (1,920), Team Liquid (1,820), business associates (960), beastcoast (820), Team Aster (440), Fnatic (400) and Chaos Esports Club (251.44).
Meanwhile, some prominent names in the Dota2 scene sit below the cut-off line, namely Royal Never Give Up (232.8), Gambit Esports (231), Natus Vincere (226), EHOME (216), Virtus.pro (172), Nigma (170), Ninjas in Pyjamas (151.2), Newbee (50), and even the reigning back-to-back TI champions, OG, who have accumulated only 100 DPC points after rebuilding their Dota2 roster earlier this year.
There are still two more Majors scheduled and 30,000 DPC points up for grabs, not including the last Minor tournament with 660 DPC points on offer. It is still unclear when and where the postponed ESL One Los Angeles Major will be played, while we can’t know for certain whether the last Major of the season (ONE Esports Singapore Major) will take place without any further complications.
The Singapore Major qualifier is scheduled to take place from May 17-22, with the Minor set to be played from June 9-13 and the Major tournament from June 20-28.
The cancelled OGA Dota Pit Minor 2020 was scheduled to be played from April 23-26, with EPICENTER 2020 initially slated to take place from May 2-10. Their cancellation gives teams a period of no international competitions up until the end of May when the qualifiers for the Singapore Major begin.
The scale of the COVID-19 outbreak could see all DPC tournaments cancelled – including The International 10, which is slated to take place in Stockholm, Sweden, in August.
