Valve to Introduce Regional Dota 2 Leagues and Reduce Amount of Majors

Valve have revealed the structure of the next competitive Dota 2 season. Dota Pro Circuit 2020/21 will feature three seasons of regional leagues as well as three major LAN-tournaments. As usual, the season will conclude with The International.

Leagues

The leagues will be played in six standard regions: Europe, CIS, China, North America, Southeast Asia and South America. Each season will feature a $280,000 prize pool for each region. Leagues will be split into two divisions of eight teams. At the end of each season, the bottom two teams from the Upper Division will be relegated to the Lower Division, while two teams placed last in the Lower Division will be replaced by two teams from Open Qualifiers.

Each season of the leagues will last for six weeks. The teams will compete in a round-robin format with best-of-three series. The matches of the Upper Division will have a professional broadcast, while the games within Lower Division will be available in DotaTV. The matches will be played on the same time on three competitive days per week – for example, the European league will be played on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Majors

Each major will feature 18 teams competing for a $500,000 prize pool and Dota Pro Circuit Points. Throughout the year, each region will have the same amount of spots at the majors: Europe and China will be represented by four teams, North America and Southeast Asia will have 3 slots, while CIS and South America will send only two teams to the majors.

The majors will have a Wildcard Stage, during which six teams (two from Europe and China, one from North America and Southeast Asia) will play in a round-robin format with best-of-two series. Top two teams will advance to the group stage. The group stage will feature two round robin groups with bo2 matches. Top two teams from each group will advance to the Playoffs upper bracket, while the teams placed 3rd-6th will compete in the lower bracket. The playoffs stage will feature a double-elimination bracket.

The International

The final event of the season will feature 12 teams with the most DPC points, the rest of the participants will be determined through the regional qualifiers. Next season the regional qualifiers will feature best eight teams that were not invited to TI. There won’t be open qualifiers to The International.

Schedule

The detailed schedule for the entire next season is as follows:

• S1 Fall League: Oct 5th – Nov 15th
• S1 Major: Dec 7th – Dec 19th
• S2 Winter League: Jan 4th – Feb 14th
• S2 Major: Mar 8th – Mar 20th
• S3 Spring League: Apr 12th – May 23rd
• S3 Major: June 21st – July 3rd