Dota Pro Circuit 2019-20 Season

Each Major awards different levels of points to teams dependant on their placement. The higher a team place, the more points they receive. The 12 teams with the most DPC points at the end of the season will receive invites to that year’s TI competition, which regularly boasts the largest prize pool in esports.

Valve has introduced some new rules and made changes to tournament formats to this season’s DPC events. Many Majors are yet to be announced but we do know we’ll be heading back to China for first Major at MDL Chengdu.

The 2019-20 DPC Season Schedule

Minor – Dota Summit 11 Minor – Nov 7th-10th

Major – MDL Chengdu Major – Nov 16th-24th

Minor – WePlay! Bukovel Minor – Jan 9th-12th

Major – DreamLeague Leipzig Major – Jan 18th-26th

Minor – Starladder Dota 2 Minor – Mar 5th-8th

Major – ESL One LA – Mar 15th-22nd

Minor – TBA – Apr 23rd-26th

Major – EPICENTER Major – May 2nd-10th

Minor – TBA – Jun 11th-14th

Major – ONE Esports Singapore – Jun 20th-28th

Dota Major & Minor changes

This season of the DPC features an updated points system where Majors will be worth 15,000 points and minors handing out just 660 points. Teams who participate in the regional qualifiers will also receive DPC points, making the competition for the all-important TI invite even fiercer.

This season introduces new rules when it comes to roster changes. Following the ‘Matumbaman’ situation, Valve introduced a new rule that means roster line-ups will be locked upon the final minor commencing. Harsher penalties for playing in Majors and Minors with a substitute or stand-in are also being introduced with teams facing a 20% point deduction. This will improve player security in teams that do qualify for the Major events.

Valve has also updated the tournament formats of both the Minor and Majors, with both featuring GSL group stages. Due to the shorter nature of the Minors, only the top 2 teams from each group will continue to the playoffs. As always, grand finals will be a BO5 in both formats.

Teams to watch

Ex-Liquid

‘Kuroky’s long-standing Team Liquid squad announced their departure from the endemic organization in what appears to be mutual terms. In their farewell message, Team Liquid explained that the roster had left “to build a team of their own”. After a strong 2nd place finish at TI9, the Ex-Liquid roster features some of the greatest talents in Dota in ‘Miracle-‘ and ‘Kuroky’ and they’re expected to put on another strong performance throughout this year’s DPC.

TNC Predator

The Filipino team impressed the Dota world with their performances towards the end of the 18-19 season with strong placements at the Epicenter Major and taking games and series from some of the world’s strongest teams at TI9. Since The International 9, they have strengthened their team by bringing in former Newbee Carry ‘kpii’ and former FNATIC coach ‘March’. The new-look roster is yet to be tested and we will be keeping a keen eye on how the team performs without their former position five and captain ‘Eyyou’.

VICI

After announcing his retirement, the VICI captain ‘Fade’ enjoyed a fortnight break from competitive Dota before announcing his return on team Keen Gaming. His replacement, former captain of Team Serenity 'Pyw’, will be looking to continue his success in the Chinese powerhouse by implementing his own system that saw Serenity take games to form strong competition throughout the DPC 18-19 season.

FNATIC

FNATIC continue their SEA Dota roster after a disappointing performance at TI9, with the acquisition of ’23savage’ and ‘Moon’. After an exciting stint in Team Jinesbrus, ‘23savage’ has shown himself to be a very capable mid-laner narrowly missing out on the SEA TI9 qualifiers spot and ‘Moon’ is a hardened veteran playing around the SEA region playing professionally since 2014 on teams like WarriorsGaming.Unity and Mineski since 2017. We have some high hopes for the talent in this team!

Evil Geniuses

EG seems to be one of those teams that has all the right pieces but just can’t make them fit properly. In the recent shuffle, they dropped ‘S4’ and ‘SumaiL’ arguably one of the best mid-laners to ever play Dota. In their place, EG picked up ‘RAMZES666’ and ‘Abed’ to play offlane and mid respectively. Whilst ‘Arteezy’ continues to play carry, we can expect ‘RAMZES666’ to bring a more aggressive space-making playstyle to the team. Along with ‘Abed’s mechanical prowess, this move could make the puzzle a lot simpler for the North American organisation.