WePlay! has announced that it will be hosting the online WePlay! Pushka League starting on April 23 and featuring seven teams each from Europe and CIS, all vying for a prize pool of US$250,000.
There will be 12 directly-invited teams. Team Secret, OG, Team Nigma, Team Liquid, Alliance, and Ninjas in Pyjamas will represent Europe, while Natus Vincere, Virtus.pro, Gambit Esports, HellRaisers, B8, and Team Spirit will represent the CIS.
Each region will also be joined by an additional team that will come from an open qualifier.
Each regional group will have their teams compete in best-of-three round-robin matches to determine who will advance to the playoffs. The four teams with the best record in each group will advance, while the three remaining teams will be eliminated.
The playoffs will be a double-elimination bracket with full best-of-three matches except for the Grand Final, which will be a best-of-five series.
- Nigma steal one from Secret with last-minute Hail Mary backdoor
- Adroit clutch out a thrilling game 5 despite Geek Fam’s Divine Rapier Void Spirit
WePlay! is set to release more information regarding the online league’s full schedule, prize pool distribution, open qualifiers, and more soon.
“We are grateful that esports can go on during these times. Having online leagues is the right approach, and we appreciate being able to participate. We want to provide a good show for everyone watching,” Nigma said in a statement.
“Online tournaments are definitely what Dota 2 fans, players, and teams were hoping for during the period of quarantine. In some sense, we’re going back to the roots when the majority of tournaments were played online. Players are hungry for competitive Dota, so I believe 99% of teams would agree that launching online tournaments with such speed is huge for the Dota 2 community,” added Virtus.pro general manager Sergey Glamazda.
The WePlay! Pushka League is the second online league to be announced this week since the Dota Pro Circuit was ground to a halt by the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this month with the postponement of the ESL One Los Angeles Major and the cancelation of the DOTA PIT Minor and EPICENTER Major in May.
READ MORE: ESL One Los Angeles and Birmingham will be played online
