Valve has confirmed that it will be the organization to determine the format for both the majors and minors for the Dota 2 2019/2020 Season. This includes the format for the qualifiers.
For the Dota 2 community, the announcement does not come as a surprise considering what happened at the recently concluded OGA Dota Pit Minor 2019. The tournament faced criticisms for the way it was implemented. The Group Stage, for example, took three days and didn’t really have that much of an impact on the seeding. What made it worse was that three Lower Bracket rounds, a total of five best-of one matches, were all done in one day.
It was not just about the main event, as the qualifiers also faced criticisms from the community. Apparently the tournament organizers made use of different formats for the same event.
In fact, Valve has already started to start making its presence felt. Some changes have already been made for the qualifiers for the EPICENTER Major in June.
#dota2 According to Valve's notice, #EPICENTER Major China open qualifier will postpone to May 11th and May 12th, to start together with other regions' open qualifier.
— Huomao (@huomao_cn) April 28, 2019
Other information still remains the same. @epicentergg https://t.co/IiAF6VvnCM
Based on Valve’s announcement, next season has five major tournaments and five minor events.
The dates for the majors are scheduled for:
- Nov 16-24
- Jan 18-26
- Mar 14-22
- May 2-10
- June 20-28
For the minors, the expected dates are:
- Nov 5-9
- Jan 7-11
- Mar 3-7
- Apr 22-26
- June 9-13
Along with the announcement, Valve also said that it was accepting proposals from organizations who are interested in hosting these events. Proposals must contain as many details as possible, such as a venue and location. Valve said that the deadline of the proposals is May 25. In choosing which organizations are to host the events, Valve said it would select hosts for the Majors first, followed by the Minors.
This 2018/2019 season will end with The International 2019, scheduled to begin August 20 and end August 25. So far four Dota 2 teams have qualified for TI9. These are Virtus.pro, Team Secret, Vici Gaming, and Evil Geniuses.
There are two more Major tournaments with the MDL Disneyland Paris Major slated to begin this Saturday. At stake is a prize pool of $1 million and 15,000 DPC points.
