Dota Pro Circuit Rankings
Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) is a format of carrying out a professional season in DOTA 2 esports discipline which was originally introduced by Valve Corporation in 2017. The main goal of the innovation was to provide an impartial distribution of direct invitations for teams to take part in The International series of competitions.
Over the last few years, Valve has been severely criticized by fans and professional players due to the non-transparent system of distribution of the desirable invitations. Thus, there were many cases when organizations showing really weak results during the whole gaming season got invited to the final tournament of the year. On the other hand, the teams that were taking prize positions at major LAN tournaments could be ignored by game developers and had to get qualified for TI.
DPC - season 2023
The sixth DPC season began in December 2022 and will run until the autumn. The format of the Dota 2 tournaments has changed very little. The composition of the competitive regions as well as the number of participants remain the same.
Features of the game year
The developers have decided to shorten the time of regional leagues. So all the matches are to be played in 3 weeks instead of 6 weeks from the last season. Also the first and second league matches are separated and not played in parallel. The teams from the second division start after the first division.
After each of the three rounds, namely winter, spring and summer, a Major series tournament will be played. These will be The Lima Major 2023, The Berlin Major 2023 and The Bali Major 2023.
As the season progresses, teams continue to collect DPC points for places in the top 5 of the first division and the top 8 of the Major. The 12 teams with the most DPC points over the season will qualify for The International 2023, which will conclude the league year. The remaining participants will be determined by World Championship qualification.
DPC - Season 2022
The fifth DPC season ran from November 2021 until October 2022. Traditionally, ranking matches were played in six competition regions: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China, South-East Asia, North America and South America. The season was divided into 3 rounds, each ending with a Major Event.
Particular features of the game year
There were 16 teams in each region. They were divided into two divisions. In the first division, participants competed for prize money, DPC points for The International 2022 as well as Major slots which varied according to the region.
The first round was marked by a lack of a Major tournament. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Valve decided not to hold one major tournament and instead held regional finals in each region. These featured the four strongest teams from the first division.
Later on, the pandemic subsided, allowing ESL One Stockholm 2022 and the PGL Arlington Major 2022 to take place. The International 2022 gaming season was completed with the number of participants increasing from 18 to 20. The World Championship was able to raise $18,930,775 in prize money through traditional crowdfunding from Combat Pass sales, a significant drop from last year's figures.
DPC — 2019-2020 season
In the third season, it was decided to combine qualifiers for minors and majors — at least two teams from each region will pass to the main tournament and the teams getting consolation third places will make it to a minor.
Peculiarities of the gaming year
The number of tournaments is still the same — 5 majors and 5 minors. The format of the elimination stage has been changed dramatically — eight leaders will get to the closed qualifiers directly in the follow-up of DPC points in their regions and two more slots will be received by the winners of open quals.
The participation in the group stage of closed qualifiers in the new season gives ten complimentary points and passing to the playoff guarantees 20 more points. As a result, even if you are not qualifiers for a minor or a major, you can get up to 30 desirable points that are necessary for a direct invitation to the closed competition at the next DPC tournaments.
DPC — 2018-2019 season
The second season of the Dota Pro Circuit eliminated many flaws of the previous gaming year. The number of teams that got to The International 2019 according to the DPC rating was increased up to 12, and each of the six regions got only one slot at the gaming qualifiers which looked pretty fair.
Peculiarities of the gaming year
The number of rating tournaments was increased up to 10 including the equal number of interrelated majors and minors. It was possible to get to any tournament only through qualifiers — invitations were banned. Any major had 15 thousand DPC points and $1,000,000 while minors had 500 points and $300,000.
In the second season, Valve was trying to revivify the Тir-2 stage — now, if the team is a participant in the nearest major, it cannot sign up for the antecedent minor automatically. As a result, the weaker roster could fight for good prize money and also get one extra slot to a major in case of the win at a LAN event in case of the absence of Top teams.
Points are now given to the team exceptionally — if there was a transfer of a player to another team, their new organization didn't get extra points. In the case of the club's performance at the rating tournament with an officially unregistered roster, the number of points decreased by 40%. During qualifiers, the teams were allowed to make only one replacement in the current official roster if necessary.
DPC — 2017-2018 season
From autumn 2017 on, the first professional Dota Pro Circuit season came on line including 22 tournaments where rating points were played for along with prize money funds. The game year included 9 majors and 13 minors held throughout the world. The first directly invited teams were 8 teams with the biggest amount of earned points in the follow-up of all Dota 2 tournaments where rating DPC points were played for.
Peculiarities of the gaming year
Despite the appearance of the new rating showing results of the teams at tournaments, the first Dota Pro Circuit season caused a lot of criticism due to a number of illogical moments and numerous events. Coaches of teams got a chance to take part in the stage of picking out characters and also they had some time to develop a strategy for the immediate map and after that, they had to leave their teams.
It was possible to get to a LAN event either with an invitation or through a qualifier. Majors and minors were not interrelated. Theoretically, any roster could participate in tournaments if they did not overlap each other’s holding time. Prize points were given out not only to the whole team but also to each player separately and the final position of the team at the rating DPC season got defined by marks of three players that had the biggest number of the points. Apart from solitary exceptions, at majors teams were fighting for $1,000,000 of prize money and 1500 rating points and at minors — $300,000 and 300 points correspondingly.
If there is a potential transfer of a player to another team, their previously earned points moved to the active of a new team which led to a lot of criticism because of the appearance of many controversial points. The most clamorous precedent was Lil’s transfer to Natus Vincere in the middle of the season. This situation moved the Ukrainian team to Top 8 from the bottom of the tournament bracket automatically. As a result, «Born to Win» managed to visit some major LAN tournaments directly. One of the tournaments was a supermajor in China, even though the team’s game was quite weak.