An In-Depth View into Dota 2 Tournaments

Dota 2 is an eSport known to be the most rewarding in terms of the tournament prize pools that the professional gamers get the chance to fight for in the Dota 2 tournaments.

The Format of Dota 2 Tournaments

The format of the majority of competitions differs. But before we get down to how it looks, let us specify the four types of Dota2 tournaments you can come across:

1. Tier 1, which used to be called Premier. They boast immense prize pools and gather the most prominent Dota 2 teams from around the globe in the world’s largest arenas for an offline game.
2. Tier 2 tournaments (former Majors) are usually participated by top-tier teams and promise $50 000+ prize pools.
3. Tier 3 tournaments are less interesting from the viewers’ standpoint but many quality teams go for it to earn some Dota Pro Circuit points.
4. Tier 4 are low-ranked tournaments that are usually held online. Such competitions are mostly for amateur players.

So if you want to enjoy the battle of real titans, you’d better choose to watch Tier 1 and Tier 2 champs. The upcoming Dota 2 tournaments schedule on the Pro Gaming Online website is full of such events.

A single season of Dota 2 Pro Circuit lasts for about a year, starting in autumn and ending in the summer of the following year. During this time, the teams earn Dota 2 Pro Circuit points that will allow them to enhance their ranking and enter the largest tournament of the year – The International.

Each season comprises three Tours, which, in their turn, consist of a Regional League and a Major tournament. What’s the difference between these?

• Regional Leagues are based on the round-robin system that allows teams to win their place in the Major tournament of the Tour.
• The Dota 2 Major tournaments are super-important for the teams as they allow earning the DPC points for the top 8 teams as well as the monetary prize for the winners. Unlike Regional Leagues, Majors use an elimination-type system, which means losing is leaving the championship with nothing.

The further the team moves in the season Tours, the more points it can earn as the worth of the Tours grows towards the final event of the year.

Dota 2 Prize Pools – the Highly Paid eSports

Even if you haven’t heard a lot about the Dota 2 online tournaments you should probably know that this eSports discipline sets mind-blowing prize pools for its tournaments. No other eSports discipline can break the record that Valve (the Dota 2 game administrator and the organizer of such events) has set for its tournaments. In 2021, the Dota 2 tournament prize pool for The International reached whopping 40 million US dollars! Let us explain how this is possible.

In 2011, when Valve debuted with The International tournament, funding it with a 1.6 million dollars cash prize. This was the first time in the history of eSports tournaments that the prize pool crossed a million-dollar range. However, it didn’t take the organizers long to find a way to increase the prize money to the huge figures we’ve seen above.

In 2013, the company presented the Compendium feature to the game. This is an in-game battle pass that allows the players to upgrade their in-game abilities. 25% of the total revenue received from selling Compendium is headed to the Dota 2 World Championship prize pool. In simple words, the company has developed a crowdfunding mechanism that allows it to impress Dota 2 players and tournament viewers with those immense sums of prize money.

While the initiative started working in the spring of 2013 only, by the time of the main tournament of the year, the company managed to increase the base amount of prize money from $1.6 million to $2.8 million, breaking the world record again. Still, that was only the beginning. A year later, in 2014, the teams got the chance to fight for the prize pool of over $10.9 million.

The trick with crowdfunding made a huge difference not only in the popularity of this eSports discipline but also attracted more people willing to become professional players. The total awarded sum for all the Dota 2 tournaments is $315,617,027.

The only time when the prize pool of the new World Championship didn’t break the previous prize pool record happened in 2022. That year the total prize money was a bit under $19 million, which was the lowest since 2015. Hopefully, things will get back on track in 2023, and we’ll see the teams battling for a sum exceeding 40 million US dollars.

Live Broadcasting and Sponsorship

Where there is big money, there is attention from the media and companies involved in online betting on Dota 2 matches. By concentrating their attention on creating the mind-blowing prize pools for the Dota 2 major tournaments, Valve managed to turn a regular eSports discipline into a multimillion-dollar business with huge investments and international media fame.

Since the growing popularity of the game, the Valve company started receiving requests for broadcasting their events live. All the Dota 2 events are broadcasted live on Twitch, YouTube, and Stream.TV. To attract the maximum audience to the events, they are broadcasted in a variety of languages, including English and Chinese.

The interest of spectators in the events taking place in the Dota tournaments attracted a lot of sponsors who want to promote their brands in some of the largest eSports competitions in the world. Among the companies that took the opportunity of promoting their name among the Dota 2 public, there were such brands as Bitget, NVIDIA, Intel, GG.Bet, and even such a mastodon as Mercedes-Benz.

What Do the Dota 2 Tournaments Get from This?

First of all, sponsorship funds become the basis for the prize money the teams can win by participating in the events. Secondly, partnership with famous brands adds to the recognition, popularity, and interest of spectators in the discipline. Finally, teams working with the brands get an opportunity of using the sponsorship funds for boosting their skills and creating favorable conditions for the team’s training and preparation for the championships.

Qualifications for Dota 2 Major Tournaments: How Are the Participants Selected?

Despite every new Dota 2 team dreams of gaming for the main prize, few of them really make it to the top. The selection to the major tournaments is tough and it starts from the very beginning when a team has to go through the qualification games. What are they and who can get there? Let’s find out!

As we’ve mentioned earlier, each Dota Pro Circuit season includes three Tours: winter, spring, and summer. To qualify for one of the three major events, the teams should first pass the qualification stages. What does this look like?

Teams from the six Regional Leagues figure out which of them is better than others by playing against each other in the round-robin tournament. The more rivalries the team defeats, the higher it gets on the rating, thus becoming closer to the goal of entering a Major. At least two teams from each regional league are guaranteed to get to the Major tournament. Some Leagues have the benefit of being represented by 3 or 4 teams.

However, this is not as easy as this may seem at first. Before one can get to the Regional Leagues, they have to pass qualifiers. These comprise two stages – the open and the closed one. Open-stage regional qualifiers are open for all Dota 2 teams who want to try out their skills on the professional stage. At this point, the number of participants is counted by hundreds.

Those, who show their high level, transition to the next round – closed regional qualifiers. Some teams manage to skip the first stage and make it directly to the closed qualifiers by receiving an invitation from the organizers. The only prize of such tournaments is the chance to fight for a win in the Regional Leagues and a Major event.

The system of selection in Majors is different from that of the Regional Leagues. This is an elimination-style tournament, which aims to determine the best ones. The Major tournament starts with 18 teams participating. They should go through the Group Stage of the championship in a single round-robin competition. The four best teams get to the play-off upper basket, and teams taking the 5th and the 6th places enter the lower basket of the play-off. All the rest leave the competition. Play-offs are as double-elimination brackets. Teams making it to the grand final get the chance to win not only points but also cash.

Teams winning Majors get DPC points. The more they earn the higher their chances of entering the largest tournament of the year – The International. Some top-tier teams with the biggest number of DPC points get a direct invitation to the event, while other participants enter the rivalry by qualifying through the Regional Leagues.

Dota Tournaments that every eSports Fan Knows

The International

This is the biggest and most expected event of the year, which crowns the effort of all the teams. Those getting first place in the tournament get the title of the Dota 2 World Champions as well as the biggest share of the prize pool.

History of the Dota 2 Championship and All the Winners of The International

The first The International took place in Cologne, Germany, in 2011. It got in the history of eSports due to the record prize pot that no other eSports tournament has ever offered. Since that year, the championship prize pool has been growing, attracting more and more people to this world-size fan club.

Overall, there were 11 tournaments of The International. The only year Valve canceled it due to the pandemic was 2020.

DPC

Dota Pro Circuit refers to a series of tournaments taking place throughout the Dota 2 gaming season. While each of the competitions included in this series can bring some money, the primary goal of players participating in DPC is to collect points, which form the team’s rating and give it a chance to get to the main tournament of the year – The International (TI).

The points reward system was introduced in 2017. Its primary goal was to make the criteria for entering TI transparent and fair.

ESL One

ESL One stands for Electronic Super League One, which is one of the biggest and oldest eSports leagues in the world. Its predecessor, ESL, was established in 1997 and went through several reformations before receiving its current form. The ESL One league has several eSports disciplines under one roof, including Dota2, CS: GO, and Battlefield 4.

Always Up-To-Date Dota 2 Tournament Schedule at Pro Gaming Online!

If you are looking for a Dota 2 tournament schedule, Pro Gaming Online has you covered. Our website features everything you may want to know about these competitions. By the way, we provide information not only about the biggest Dota 2 tournaments but also about events for beginners. So whatever category you think you are interested in, Pro Gaming Online is there for you.