As a final present for the year of 2020, Valve decided to drop new details everyone has been waiting on in relation to the Dota Pro Circuit for 2021. The DPC was originally set to begin in October of this year, but with the global pandemic ongoing Valve was forced to delay.
Valve will be moving Dota 2 esports from a Major/Minor system to a league format.
Regional Leagues
The DPC will consist of two leagues per region – Upper and Lower Divisions – competing over six weeks culminating in a Major. Valve will not be using the previous seasons’ DPC points as a way to seed teams into their divisions. The developer itself will select the first four teams while the other 12 will earn their spot in closed and open qualifiers. There’s no word yet on when exactly qualifiers will start, but registration is already open.
At the end of each season, the bottom two teams in the Upper Division will be relegated to the Lower Division and vice versa for the top Lower Division teams. The bottom two from the Lower Division will then be eliminated and open qualifiers will determine their replacements.
While Valve has the oversight into everything DPC, third party tournament organizers will be handling a brunt of the work throughout the season:
Europe: DreamHack
CIS: ESL
China: Perfect World
SEA: PGL
NA: Beyond the Summit
SA: DotaPit
We also now have concrete dates as to when the league’s season will be held:
Season 1: January 18th – February 28th. (March 14th for China with a break in the middle)
Season 2: April 13th – May 23rd
The Majors & The International
A major complaint, no pun intended, of the current Dota Pro Circuit format is that the Major tournaments have lost the weight of importance that events such as the Boston, Shanghai or Manila Majors held. It appears that Valve will be increasing their involvement with the Majors this time around and trying to revive their previous prestige. In the 2020-2021 DPC season, Major attending teams will have a shot at part of a $500,000 prize pool and hundreds of DPC points. Participation from each region will be as follows:
EU: Top 4
China: Top 4
SEA: Top 3
CIS: Top 3
NA: Top 2
SA: Top 2
The first Major will be held March 25th – April 4th with the second held June 2nd – June 13th.
The hopes of TI10 happening in 2020 were crushed earlier in the year but Valve is still planning on holding it August 2021 in Stockholm. Teams will earn DPC points based on placements at the end of each season and Majors to earn them a spot in the biggest competition of the year.
