Valve Announces New Details and Schedule for Dota Pro Circuit 2021

After The International 2021, Valve will continue to use the Dota Pro Circuit as a system esports in Dota 2 Next season. This has been seen since they invited organizer the tournament submitted Minor and Major proposals for the 2021-2021 season a few months ago.

Valve today announced more details regarding next year’s Pro Circuit. As usual, there will be changes especially in roster lock, points distribution, as well as Minor and Major schedules.

Roster Lock More Flexible

Previously, Valve provided two periods roster lock all season. The team that changed roster they are out of period roster lock are deemed not entitled to a direct invitation to The International through Pro Circuit points.

The 2021-2021 season will provide more flexibility for roster team. No more period roster lock which means all teams can change roster any time. Teams will still be penalized when changing roster especially if too often, but in a different way.

Points Now Tied to Teams, Not Players

System Dota 2 esports always put the players first and tend to ignore the organization. Invitations to The International always go to five players, even though the five players change team names. This season Pro Circuit points are also brought in by individual players.

Starting next season Pro Circuit points will tie into teams. This means that the invitation to The International will also be given to the team or organization, not the players who are in it. Once The International’s invitations and qualifications are announced, teams are prohibited from changing roster them at all.

All teams still have to determine the five people who will play in their team at the start of the season. However as mentioned above, they can change roster any time before The International. As a punishment, each team will lose 20 percent of the points they have each time they remove a player from roster. While adding players will not change the team’s points.

When playing in a Pro Circuit tournament, a team must play with a minimum of four of the five players officially registered in the roster. Teams that play not with roster their official Pro Circuit tournaments will only earn 60 percent points.

One Team for One Owner

With more priority for teams and organizations, Valve is also managing team ownership in this Pro Circuit.

Each organization or individual team owner may only have one team that can play in The International 2021. They can have two or more teams playing in Pro Circuit tournaments. However, when The International starts, only one team can play.

If anyone has two (or more) teams entering The International, the organization or the owner must resolve the conflict before The International qualifiers begin. In other words, the organization or owner must release one of its teams to another organization or owner.

Until this season, there were many organizations or individuals who had two teams in the Dota Pro Circuit. One of them is basketball athlete Jeremy Lin’s VGJ. He has two teams, namely VGJ.Storm in North America and VGJ.Thunder in China. Both of them could have advanced to The International 2021. You can find the same thing in other Chinese organizations such as LGD and IG.

Major and Minor

Next season, the Minor and Major tournaments will be held in pairs over a period of time. Each will also have its own qualifications and this time on a set schedule. The Major qualifiers will be held first, and teams that do not qualify for the Major qualifiers can enter the Minor qualifiers.

All Minors will be participated by a minimum of eight teams, and Majors will be followed by a minimum of 16 teams. Minors must have at least one qualification per region, while Majors must have two qualifications per region. The team that wins the Minor tournament also gets the right to be a participant in the Major tournament in the same period.

The following is the schedule for the Minor and Major tournaments and their qualifications. The first Minor and Major series will start in September. If you want to participate, you must register roster before September 15th.

September-November

• September 17-21: Major Qualification
• September 23-26: Minor Qualification
• October 29 – November 4: Play Minor events
• November 8-19: Play major events

November-January

• November 26-30: Major Qualification
• 1-4 December: Minor Qualification
• January 7-13: Play Minor events
• January 17-27: Play major events

February March

• February 1-5: Major Qualification
• February 7-10: Minor Qualification
• March 4-10: Play Minor events
• March 14-24: Play major events

March-May

• 28 March – 1 April: Major Qualification
• April 3-6: Minor Qualification
• April 22-28: Play Minor events
• May 2-12: Play major events

May-June

• May 15-19: Major Qualification
• May 21-24: Minor Qualification
• 10-16 June: Play Minor events
• June 20-30: Play major events

Valve is also still accepting organizers’ proposals to hold the tournament on the above dates (except in November).

---

There are still many details that have not been explained regarding the 2021-2021 Pro Circuit later. Some things such as the difficulty of preparing Visa for two tournaments at once are also a concern.

The team participating in the Minor must prepare a Visa to continue to participate in the Major, even though they are not certain that they can come out as the Minor champion. That is also assuming that the Minor and Major are held in the same country. Otherwise, applying for a Visa will become even more difficult.

We’ll just have to wait and see what further details will be for this Pro Circuit.

Share :