The rumored Regional League system for the 2020-2021 Dota Pro Circuit has been confirmed and announced in full detail by Valve. Minor tournaments will completely disappear after TI 10 and will be replaced with 6 regional leagues divided into 3 seasons, each season leading up to a Major tournament.
Regional Leagues will feature an Upper and a Lower division, each with eight teams competing for a share of the $280,000 total prize pool and a slot to the season Major. DPC points will be earned only by the top 5 teams in the Upper league and by the teams that will finish in the top 8 at the Majors. At the end of the 2020-2021 Dota Pro Circuit, the top 12 teams with the most DPC points will qualify for The International 2021. The remaining spots will be decided through six regional final chance qualifiers, each with the 8 best teams from each region that haven’t been invited to TI. “There won’t be open qualifiers to TI11,” Valve announced.
2020-2021 Dota Pro Circuit schedule:
Fall League: Oct 5th – Nov 15th
Season 1 Major: Dec 7th – Dec 19th
Winter League: Jan 4th – Feb 14th
Season 2 Major: Mar 8th – Mar 20th
Spring League: Apr 12th – May 23rdSeason
3 Major: June 21st – July 3rd
Regional Leagues: divisions, prize pools, DPC points
Aimed at nurturing the tier 2 -3 competitive scene, the new system will feature a total of 96 teams from around the world competing each season in the six regional leagues. At the end of each league play season, the bottom two teams from the Upper Division will be relegated to the Lower Division, while the top two from Lower will be promoted to the Upper Division. The bottom two placed teams in the Lower Division will be eliminated from the League system but will have the chance to re-enter the next season Regional League via open qualifiers.
TI10 will not play a role in the initial seeding of the teams in the first season. Valve will allocate the teams for the inaugural season, but won’t fill in all the slots, leaving room for regional qualifiers to determine the full line-up.
Upper Division
- 1st place: $30,000, 500 DPC points, Qualifies to the Major Playoffs
- 2nd place: $28,000, 300 DPC points, Qualifies to the Major Group Stage
- 3rd place: $27,000, 200 DPC points, Qualifies to the Major Wild Card Stage
- 4th place: $26,000, 100 DPC points, Qualifies to the Major Wild Card Stage
- 5th place: $25,000, 50 DPC points
- 6th place: $24,000
- 7th place: $23,000, Relegated to Lower Division
- 8th place: $22,000, Relegated to Lower Division
Lower Division:
- 1st place: $17,000, Promoted to Upper Division
- 2nd place: $16,000, Promoted to Upper Division
- 3rd place: $15,000
- 4th place: $11,000
- 5th place: $9,000
- 6th place: $7,000
- 7th place: Eliminated from Lower Division
- 8th place: Eliminated from Lower Division
For a team to be eligible to play in a specific region, they must have three of the five players reside in the declared region. The leagues will have a duration of six weeks, and each region will consist of a full Bo3 Round Robin among all teams. A team can use a stand-in for maximum 4 matches in a seasonal league, as long as the stand-in is not a member of a team from the Upper Division. Rosters will be locked for the duration of each season, from the beginning of the league until the end of the Major. After the Major concludes and until the beginning of the next season, all teams can make changes to their rosters, but each player swap will incur a 15% penalty on current points for that team.
Majors: format, prize pool and DPC points distribution
Each season will conclude with a Major tournament with a total of 18 participating teams. The Majors will feature a $500,000 prize pool distributed only among the top 8 finishers. DPC points will also be allocated only to the top eight teams. Slots allocations for each Major for the entire year is as follows:
Europe & China: 4 slots.
North America & Southeast Asia: 3 slots.
CIS & South America: 2 slots.
Wild Cards:
The TI4 and TI5 wild card tournament stage will be brought back for next year’s Majors. Each major will begin with a Wild Card competition featuring 6 teams fighting in a two games series Round Robin format. The top two teams will advance to the Major group stage, the rest of the teams will be eliminated.
Group stage:
Eight teams will play in a two games series, Round Robin format with the top two finishers advancing to the playoffs upper bracket, 3rd to 6th placed teams going to the lower bracket, while the bottom two will get eliminated.
Playoffs:
Format: 12 teams Double Elimination.
Upper Bracket:
- EU League 1st place
- CN League 1st place
- SEA League 1st place
- SA League 1st place
- NA League 1st place
- CIS League 1st place
- Group Stage – 1st place
- Group Stage – 2nd place
Lower Bracket:
- Group Stage – 3rd place
- Group Stage – 4th place
- Group Stage – 5th place
- Group Stage – 6th place
Prize pool and DPC points distribution:
Starting with next year’s DPC the prize pool and the DPC points allocated to the Major tournaments will be split only among the top eight placed teams.
- 1st place: $200,000, 500 DPC points
- 2nd place: $100,000, 450 DPC points
- 3rd place: $75,000, 400 DPC points
- 4th place: $50,000, 350 DPC points
- 5th place: $25,000, 300 DPC points
- 6th place: $25,000, 300 DPC points
- 7th place: 12,500, 200 DPC points
- 8th place: 12,500, 200 DPC points
More details on the league schedule and games broadcasting can be found on the official Valve announcement on their Dota 2 blog website.
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