The 2022 Dota Pro Circuit has wrapped its Winter Tour regional leagues, and even with some mid-season controversy plaguing the entire competitive Dota 2 community, a handful of teams in each region managed to make a name for themselves in the first leg of the season.
Because Valve canceled the Winter Tour Major, the top four teams from each region will now be playing in an online Regional Final amongst themselves to give a definitive end to this section of the 2022 DPC. This means that most regions will have more teams competing in the end-of-Tour event than expected.
Just within the first few weeks, almost every region saw new teams or rosters step up while old favorites began to crumble in the face of increased competition. In fact, only one of the six regions had a team repeat from the 2021 DPC, claiming the top seed for the Winter Tour—Quincy Crew in North America.
QC managed to repeat as regional champs despite bringing in three new players in a rebuild around Quinn and YawaR to start the season. They overcame Team Undying’s strong performance and lost their only series Evil Geniuses’ revamped roster featuring Nightfall and JerAx, to stay on top.
Team Liquid pulled off a similar feat in Western Europe, bringing in MATUMBAMAN and zai from Team Secret after The International 11 to break up a core that had played together since June 2018. That decision has already paid off, as the new squad went a combined 6-1, with their only loss coming against Nigma Galaxy.
For the first time since this new DPC format was adopted, Team Secret, Nigma, and Alliance won’t be attending the Major, or in this case its replacement. Alliance has been relegated to Division II for the Spring Tour, and the combined leap in performance from Team Tickles, formerly Vikin.gg, and Tundra Esports led to a massive shift in power within the region.
To no one’s surprise, reigning TI champions Team Spirit rolled the competition in Eastern Europe, going 7-0 and continuing the trend of CIS teams winning the DPC regional league with an undefeated record.
Virtus.pro’s revamped lineup wasn’t able to dominate the region, but they did finish in third and continue to be a hard out. PuckChamp and HellRaisers surprised a lot of fans, both leaping into the top four after a middling end to last season for the former and the latter coming from the lower division.
China also saw one team stand far above the rest, with PSG.LGD also going 7-0 for its first top seed in the regional league era. The TI10 runner-up did lose a few more games than Spirit, but they still handily managed to take the top spot and even ensured that Invictus Gaming would be relegated to Division II for the next Tour.
Royal Never Give Up’s new roster is already performing well, taking second and putting the now-defunct Elephant’s spot to good use. Team Aster remained in the top four again and EHOME is back on the map, rebounding from a slow 2021 DPC season thanks to an entirely new roster signed back in November.
BOOM Esports was only able to remain in Division I for Southeast Asia’s Winter Tour due to Omega Esports being removed from the tournament due to several of its player’s match-fixing activities, but they quickly proved to be a front runner in a region that went through more changes than most.
With BOOM taking the top spot at 6-1, Fnatic, T1, and Team SMG all tied for second and had to compete in a round of tiebreakers to settle the seeding for the Regional Final. Fnatic won those matches 2-0 to finish in second place, while T1 and SMG took third and fourth respectively.
Rounding out the six regional leagues, South America saw only two returning teams playing with the same roster from last season finish in the top four, with beastcoast falling to third place after losing three weeks in a row and Infamous earning second as the team continues to improve their placements.
Thunder Predator went 7-0 with its new roster made up of mostly former NoPing e-sports players and finished with the top seed, while King of Kings debuted in the Winter Tour and managed to slide into fourth place.
With the top four in every region now decided, each region will host its own Regional Final, with individual prize pools of $100,000 and 380 DPC points. All six tournaments will be held across two weekends in February, and here is the full schedule.
- Feb. 11 to 14
- Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America
- Feb. 18 to 20
- China, Eastern Europe, and North America
The top two teams from each region will take home DPC points, which will add to their chances of receiving a direct invite to TI11 at the end of the season.
