- Valve recently had to back down on its idea of hosting a DPC season with three Major events
- The Winter Major was canceled, sending the company back to the drafting board
- According to reports, Valve will now host winter regional finals instead and will expand TI11
Valve had to cancel its plans for the Winter Tour Major which completely messed up its DPC plans. Luckily, according to sources, a solution has been found.
Valve Replaces the Winter Major with Regional Finals
Despite its initial plans, Valve had to make some last-minute changes to 2022’s competitive Dota 2 season. The company wanted to return to a format with three Major events a year but eventually had to cancel its plans for the Winter Tour Major. This threw Valve’s plans out of the window and sent the organization into disarray. However, a report claims that a solution has been found.
According to Shannon “SUNSfan” Scotten, a prominent Dota 2 content creator, Valve is going to replace the Winter Tour Major with six smaller regional finals – one for each region. The teams that will advance to those finals are the four best teams from each of the six DPC regions. Those mini-tournaments will be held in two consecutive weekends in February – each weekend will see three of the regions play which is why SUNSfan warned there might be some overlaps.
The two best teams from each region will earn some precious DPC points. Furthermore, there will be a prize pool of $100,000 for each of the six regions.
It is also worth noting that Valve allegedly gave up on the idea of redistributing DPC points in the next two Majors, meaning that the second Major will offer a total of 2,700 DPC points and the third one will offer another 3,500.
The International 11 Will Reportedly Feature Two More Teams
While the change of format isn’t anything good, there is still some good news for Dota 2 fans – if the rumors are correct, Valve will be expanding The International 11. According to SUNSfan, the company behind the most exciting esports event is planning to add two more teams to it for a total of 20. This way the next iteration of The International will have two groups of 10 teams each with two teams getting eliminated from each group prior to the main stage.
The two extra teams will be selected in the following way: the second and third-place teams from each of the six regions will be gathered to play in a new LAN event. Not only will this provide some extra LAN competition for the fans but it will also give two of those 12 teams a second chance to join TI11.
Fans should take this information with a grain of salt as it’s yet to be confirmed by an official source, but in any case, it’s an interesting possibility to consider. While it’s unfortunate that the Winter Major had to be canceled, a refreshed TI11 format is sure to make up for it.
