South Korean team T1 Entertainment & Sports tapped Filipino star player Carlo "Kuku" Palad anew for the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC)-Southeast Asia set to roll off later this month.Â
"2021 DPC, Kuku still stand-in for T1 for the first major league," the pro player said through a post on his official Facebook page.Â
T1 is slated to slug it out with TNC Predator, Fnatic, BOOM Esports and the qualified teams in the upper division of the first SEA Regional League which will start at the end of January and run for six weeks until February 27, according to Romanian organizer PGL which was tapped by Valve to oversee the region.
Read: TNC, other PH teams set to compete in new DPC season
The four teams each received a direct invite to compete in the upper division where the top three finishers will qualify for the Major tournament.Â
Kuku, a four-time The International (TI) veteran, served as a stand-in offlaner for T1 in the Beyond The Summit (BTS) Pro Series Season 4 SEA where he helped the organization claim a third-place finish and a $6,500 (over P300,000) prize.Â
With the recent release of Samson offlaner "Sam_H" Hidalgo and hard support Wilson "Poloson" Koh Chin Wei, T1 decided to stick with Kuku and Indonesian position-5 Matthew "Whitemon" Filemon.Â
Completing the roster for the upcoming inaugural Regional League are Filipino midlaner Karl "Karl" Jayme and Laoatian carry Souliya "JaCkky" Khoomphetsavong, both 11k MMR players, and Indonesian soft support Kenny "Xepher" Deo.Â
Interestingly, Kuku, Karl, Xepher and Whitemon were part of the Geek Fam squad that won the BTS Pro Series Season 2 in June 2020 and ONE Esports Dota 2 SEA League two months later before it disbanded in September due to the extended suspension of the 2019-2020 DPC caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.Â
Kuku also serves as head coach of Smart Omega, which was seeded to the closed qualifier for the upper division along with other PH teams Execration, Neon Esports, Cignal Ultra and Vice Esports.Â