Valve has announced that following the conclusion of The International 2020 (TI10), the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) will have a new Regional League system.

Under the new system, the yearly DPC will be divided into three seasons –Fall, Winter, and Spring — each composed of six regional leagues. Each season will conclude with a Major event that will feature the best teams from each regional league.

As always, the DPC will conclude with The International in August.

The Fall League will run from October 5-November 15, with the Fall Major set for December 7-19. The Winter League will run from January 4-February 14, with the Winter Major set for March 8-20. The Spring League will run from April 12-May 23, with the Spring Major set for June 21-July 3.

“[We wanted to] introduce a new system that presents competitive Dota in a more scheduled and consistent way during the year and features a better structure for the development of Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams,” said Valve in the announcement on the official Dota 2 blog.

Competition in the regional leagues will consist of full best-of-three Round Robin format matches among all the participating teams over the course of six weeks, with three days of competition each week.



Each of the six regional leagues will feature a prize pool of US$280,000 per season and will be divided into an Upper and Lower Division with eight teams each, for a total of 96 teams participating in the DPC all across the world.

The regional leagues will also feature a system for promoting and relegating teams, with the bottom two teams of the Upper Division moving down to the Lower Division, and the top two teams of the Lower Division moving up after each season.

The bottom two teams of the Lower Division will be eliminated from the league and replaced with two new teams coming from Open Qualifiers to allow for new teams and talent to be introduced into the scene over time.

“We believe the consistency and regularity of the league throughout the year, paired with a flat and deep prize pool distribution will, over time, nurture healthy and strong Tier 2/3 competition,” Valve said.

As for the seasonal Majors, they will feature 18 teams from all regions and sport a prize pool of US$500,000 plus DPC points. The 18 participants will be comprised of the top teams from each regional Upper Division.

Regions will have a fixed amount of slots in the Majors throughout the year, with Europe and China having four slots, North America and Southeast Asia having three slots, and CIS and South America having two.

At the end of the third season, the top 12 teams with the most DPC points will qualify for The International 2021 (TI11).

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. Starting with TI11, TI will no longer have any Open Qualifiers.

READ MORE: Here’s the full list of teams that have qualified for the Los Angeles Major