Valve announce shake-up to Dota 2’s competitive scene

It’s all change in Dota 2, with Valve announcing a complete overhaul to the way the competitive season will work after The International in Seattle next month.

Dota 2’s competitive scene at the moment hinges on several Major tournaments. These tournaments are backed by Valve, and in addition there’s an invite system which has been suggested is somewhat opaque, and sees teams that are doing well often invited to tournaments run by Valve.

However, in a shake up, Valve will be ditching the invite system and also see the developer, Valve, back a number of third party tournaments, both minor and major

Explaining the change, Valve said in the announcement blog post:

“In the past year, we’ve had two Valve Majors shape the competitive landscape leading to The International. However, for the next year we will be taking a more organic approach to growing the competitive ecosystem, working more closely with third-party tournaments.”

“To help teams and fans keep track of standings throughout the year, a leaderboard of individual player Qualifying Points and team Qualifying Point Rankings will be available for everyone to follow along with as teams fight their way towards next year’s International. Best of luck to the teams competing in August, and we look forward to the upcoming season once a champion is crowned.”

For majors, the prize pool must be least $500,000. Valve will step in to match an events prize pool, meaning that each of the third party major tournaments will have a pool of $1m+

Minor tournaments will have their prize pools matched too, and must start at $150k.

Instead of invites, tournaments will now award points to victors, although these points will be attributed to players. When players leave a team and join another, they’ll take their points with them. A team’s point total will be made up of the three highest scoring players on the team, a step which should discourage teams only stacking their teams with guaranteed points scorers and take a chance of newer talent.