Evil Geniuses tops list of team invites to NA DPC league

North America’s Dota Pro Circuit league is heading in an interesting direction.

Beyond the Summit revealed the four invitees for the upper division. There are no surprises to be found, as North America has been thin on pro Dota 2 teams over recent months. The list of invited teams includes:

• Evil Geniuses
• Quincy Crew
• 4 Zoomers
• SADBOYS

Who is on Evil Geniuses?

Headlining the list is Evil Geniuses, which comes as a modest surprise. Since the team’s participation in Omega League’s Europe Immortal Division, there has been speculation that the team may opt to relocate its Dota 2 roster to Europe. Evil Geniuses has fully registered its roster with Valve, with the lineup reading as follows:

1. Artour “Arteezy” Babaev
2. Abed “Abed” Azel L. Yusop
3. Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang
4. Andreas Franck "Cr1t-" Nielsen 
5. Tal “Fly” Aizik

Cr1t- and Fly have spent the majority of their careers competing in Europe, while Arteezy had multiple stints with European juggernaut Team Secret. That outlook changed when the organization dropped offlaner Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev in favor of popular Southeast Asian player iceiceice. 

The team also registered Abed to its roster for the upcoming season, indicating that he will return to Evil Geniuses after 10 months away from the team. The team will play together for the first time in the upcoming DPC league, but will actually have some competition in terms of maintaining Evil Geniuses as the top North American team.

Evil Geniuses will face familiar foes in DPC League

Quincy Crew has been North America’s top team in 2020, crushing the competition in online leagues. The team won seven straight tournaments during the spring and summer, and split its matchups with Evil Geniuses before then. The team could be a serious competitor on the international stage, but will need to take command in league play first.

4 Zoomers hasn’t been as impressive as Quincy Crew in online leagues, but has been stable and solid since coming together in April. The team of North American journeymen has struggled to surpass Quincy Crew and will soon look to change that.

The final invitee is SADBOYS. The squad reunites The International 2015 champions Peter “ppd” Dager and Clinton “Fear” Loomis and puts them alongside TI6 runner-up David “Moo” Hull, Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu, and Devid “dnm” Kossio. The team has competed in just one tournament thus far, taking third in BTS Pro Series Season 4, but the thinness of North American Dota 2 and strong pedigrees of most of the players included was enough to get them the final invite.

When will the 2021 DPC start?

The 2021 Dota Pro Circuit is set to begin on January 18 with all six regions having action on that day. It will be preceded by multiple series of qualifiers in each region to decide the competitors in the upper and lower divisions. The leagues determine the competitors for The International 10, which is projected to take place in August 2021.