ESL One LA is back, however, there are some major changes.
Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic pretty much changed everyone’s plans for 2020. Prior to it, ESL One Los Angeles was set to be the third DPC Major for this year. The teams already went through the qualifiers and were ready to go. However, when the coronavirus news came out, Valve and ESL had no other choice but to cancel the event.
Now, a few weeks later, ESL announced that they will host the event online. However, instead of just 16 teams, there will be 34 Dota 2 teams. They will compete in a regional league format with a prize pool of $375K USD, which is still pretty impressive for an online event.
The event will begin on the 28th of March and will continue until the 19th of April. Each region will be divided into groups, where each series will be played in a Bo3 format. However, reach region will be different:
- China will have one group of six teams
- EU and CIS will have two groups of eight teams
- SA/NA/SEA will have one group of four teams.
Apart from all of the original ESL One LA Major participants, the organizers also invited a lot of other teams. They were chosen based on their performance in the DPC so far, so we can definitely expect a pretty wild event.
In addition to that event, ESL will also host ESL One Birmingham 2020 as an online tournament. It will take place from May to June and will have a prize pool of $335K USD.
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