Valve is also planning a set of regional tournaments to replace the now-canceled Dota 2 Major in February.
Esports talent Shannon "SUNSfan" Scotten has revealed Valve’s esports plans for Dota 2 in his latest podcast, ‘We Say Things’ Episode 135. Valve is working on a new online tournament in February to replace the canceled Major. There will also be a Wildcard LAN event later this year just before The International, a final opportunity for Dota 2 teams to qualify to TI11.
After facing massive backlash for canceling the first Dota 2 Major of the year, Valve is reportedly working on a new online regional tournament system. The information was revealed during We Say Things Episode 135 featuring Shannon "SUNSfan" Scotten and Troels Lyngholt "syndereN" Nielsen. Sunsfan also reveals TI11 will feature twenty teams, up from 18 at TI10.
Valve plans for online regional tournaments in February
Valve canceled the first Dota 2 Major of the year, a massive surprise to fans and professional players alike. After facing a lot of criticism, it seems Valve might be reconsidering its plans of redistributing the DPC points to the next two Majors. After initially announcing the DPC Points redistribution, Valve is reportedly working on multiple online regional tournaments for each of the six DPC regions.
“There will not be a LAN. It will be an online regional tournament where the top four of each region will play in a regional final. This will happen during two weekends in February where one weekend is three regions and the next weekend is the other three regions.”
There will be six regional online tournaments, according to Sunsfan. Each tournament will send four teams to a regional final. The regional finals will take place across two weekends in February, which is roughly the dates for the first, now-canceled, Dota 2 Major.
“The format has not been 100% finalized. There will be $100,000 per region for these ‘tournaments’. The top two get DPC points. All the regions get the same amount of points distributed.”
He goes on to mention that each region will have a prize pool of $100,000. This means the total prize money for this new set of tournaments will be $600,000, which is 20% more than the first Major’s prize pool. The top two teams from each region get DPC points. Valve will roll back its previous decision to redistribute the DPC points across the second and third Majors.
What are the DPC points distribution of Dota 2 Majors?
- Second Dota 2 Major: 2700 DPC points.
- Third Dota 2 Major: 3500 DPC points.
The top twelve teams by DPC Points
TI11 to feature 20 teams
There will be a total of twenty teams at TI11, up from the current 18. There will be a last-chance LAN event after TI11 qualifiers which will send the top two teams to TI11.
Probably the biggest reveal on the podcast was that Valve will take the 2nd and 3rd-placed teams from each of the TI11 qualifier regions to play on LAN. The 12 teams (two teams from each region)will compete for the final two slots at TI11.
This means there will be twenty teams at The International 11. TI10 had eighteen teams forming two groups of nine each. If this information is correct, TI11 will feature two groups of ten teams each. The group stage will eliminate two teams per group, which means a total of four teams will be out of the tournament in the group stage.
More teams competing at TI11 is always a good look, mostly because the favorites mostly do not win at TIs. In 2021, Team Spirit had a miracle run through the lower bracket to win the largest prize pool esports tournament in history. Valve has not publicly confirmed any of this information. We will keep you updated if there is an official announcement.
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