As announced last February 25 this year, the Dota Pro Circuit will use a new system for the 2020-2021 season. Valve assured that the new system will present a better, consistent schedule and will give more opportunities to aspiring Dota 2 players with Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams to develop.

This system will divide the Dota year into three seasons with each season ending with a Major and, as usual, concluded with The International.

Regional Leagues

After The International 2020, each season will consist of six leagues with a $280,000 prize pool per league. The leagues will be divided into two divisions that feature eight teams in the Upper Division and eight teams in the Lower Division. This will result in a total of 96 teams competing across the world.

After each season, the top two teams from the Lower Division will replace the bottom two teams of the Upper Division. The bottom two teams from the lower division will be eliminated from the tournament and will be replaced by two teams from the Open Qualifiers to give opportunities to up and coming Dota 2 teams and players.

The leagues will last up to six weeks with all the matches being full Bo3 Round Robin among participating teams. All matches should follow the designated time frame and dates assigned to the match per region to give the viewers certainty when following the Dota 2 season. 

This new system will allow Tier 2 or Tier 3 competitive teams to strengthen their gameplay due to the consistency of the league, together with a deep prize pool. 

Meanwhile, all teams from the Upper Division will be presented for studio broadcasts. All teams in the Lower Division will be featured on DotaTV.

Each region will have three competitive days per week with a different schedule for every region. 

All schedules will be shown below: (All time in SGT)

For the inaugural season, Valve will allocate the initial teams to the Upper and Lower divisions. Teams need to declare the region where they will be playing before the season starts. The remaining slots will be filled through the qualifiers after The International 2020.

Prize Distribution:

 

¹ –EU, CN, SEA, and CHINA

² – EU AND CN

³ – Replaced by a team from Open Qualifiers

Three or more players within the team need to reside in the region to be eligible in participating in any Division within that region. Stand-ins are allowed to play as long as the stand-in is either competing in a lower division or not competing in any league at all.

If a team decides to change regions, they have to go through the open qualifiers and grind their way from the Lower Division to reach the Upper Division.

All rosters will be locked from the beginning of the season until the end of the Major for that season. A roster change may be possible from the end of the Major until the start of the next season. Each player change will have a 15% penalty on the current DPC points for that team.

Majors

Every season will end with a Major Tournament that will feature 18 teams from all over the world and a prize pool of USD 500,000 with DPC Points.

Each region will have a fixed amount of slots:

• Europe – four slots
• China – four slots
• North America – three slots
• Southeast Asia – three slots
• CIS – two slots
• South America – two slots

Majors Format:

Wildcard:

Format: Six teams Bo2 round-robin. The top two teams advance to the Group Stage. Four teams get eliminated.

EU League 3rd place.

EU League 4th place

CN League 3rd place

CN League 4th place

NA League 3rd place

SEA League 3rd place.

Group Stage:

Format: Eight teams Bo2 round-robin. The top two teams advance to the Playoffs upper bracket. Third to sixth place advance to Playoffs lower bracket. Two teams get eliminated.

EU League 2nd place

CN League 2nd Place

NA League 2nd Place

SA League 2nd Place

CIS League 2nd Place

SEA League 2nd Place

1st Wildcard

2nd Wildcard

Playoffs:

Format: Twelve 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

After all the Majors, the top 12 teams with the most DPC points will qualify for The International 2021. The remaining spots will be decided through 6 regional qualifiers, each will include the 8 best teams from every region that haven’t been invited to The International. Open Qualifiers will not be available for this The International.

Tournament Dates

The dates for each season are as follows:

S1 Fall League: Oct 4th – Nov 15th

S1 Major: Dec 6th – Dec 19th

S2 Winter League: Jan 3th – Feb 14th

S2 Major: Mar 7th – Mar 20th

S3 Spring League: Apr 11th – May 23rd

S3 Major: June 20th – July 3rd

Dates outside of this range will be available for third party tournaments.