Format: BO3
North America's first DPC league of the 2021/22 season continues on Saturday, January 08. Evil Geniuses and 4 Zoomers will meet in the elite division's first match of the day.
DPC NA 2021/22 Tour 1: Division I is an online Dota 2 tournament from November 30, 2021, to January 22, 2022. The eight strongest teams in the North American region will compete for $205,000. In addition to the cash prizes, the teams compete for two tickets to the majors and the important DPC points needed to qualify for T11.
Get Your Sign-Up Bonus!Evil Geniuses: They must win
Evil Geniuses is the major disappointment of the first DPC season of the new series for T11. Nobody understands how these star players could lose to teams like Black N Yellow (1-2) and Wildcard Gaming (0-2).
It's worth realising that this is a revamped Evil Geniuses squad. After two 2021 major finals in Singapore and Kyiv, the organisation was unhappy with the past squad's failed performance at TI10. The replacements were spotty: the Russian Nightfall took the position of three, and the legendary Finn JerAx, who has not played on the pro scene for almost two years, took the position of five. Substitutions have not done any good so far. However, the problem is not even Nightfall, who in my subjective opinion is the best player of the new team, but the old guys like Arteezy, who are not finishing their game.
Victories over Arkosh Gaming (2-0) and simply TOOBASED (2-0) give no reason to rejoice. Theoretical chances for the major still exist, the more the leaders in the next match of the day will deal with each other, ahead and in full-time games with QC and Undying. Still, if not to beat 4 Zoomers now and even more not to progress in the quality of the game - the first major can be forgotten.
4 Zoomers: Hope springs eternal
This team is a mediocre team that dreams of going to the majors but always finishes DPC league in 4-5 places, away from the majors' zone. Right now, the guys have 2-2 stats, the same as EG, who sensationally started the new DPC cycle just abysmally. There is a theoretical chance for 4 Zoomers to be in the top 2 of their region, but to do so, they need to beat EG and generally all the remaining games, but even the first point in this plan will be extremely difficult to cope with.
4 Zoomers is a renowned American team that has claimed the top spot in every tournament. They only managed to win the 2021 BTS Tournament in their fifth season, but there have been several silver medals, with the boys staying one step away from the main trophy and upsetting their usual peers from stronger teams.
Here, too, the renewed squad had already managed to snatch themselves another silver for the tag. This happened in the ninth season of BTS, where the renewed Thunder Predator opposed the Zoomers. The final was a close encounter, 1-3, and they went their separate ways. Overall, the team was slightly rejuvenated before the start of the DPC league. Note the arrival of Brazilian Costabile from SG e-sports. Otherwise, the American team is represented by the same old guys associated with 4 Zoomers for many years.
This team is always a contender, but they lack the skill to beat their tough opponents, so the loss from EG might put the Zoomers in a difficult situation, in which you can forget about the majors.
Expert Betting Tips
It's been quite some time since the last Evil Geniuses game. The lads have celebrated Christmas, although this international squad celebrates it differently. I think the lads themselves are not happy with the state of affairs in their region, that they have made an awful lot of mistakes that urgently needed fixing. I'm sure we'll see a different EG in 2022, but it's not certain it will help them fight for the majors, but they have to beat these 4 Zoomers with a handicap (-1.5) on the maps for 2.25.
Both teams will show a close first map, which means the game will not be fast so that you can catch odds of 1.86 on Total Over 47.5 kills.
Other predictions
