TPL's goal was to replace our dear Dota-League in this brand new world that Dota 2 offers. They tried to feature teams from the entire world in single best-of-two league that would offer a constant competition. The project had all the tools they could possible need to run it: a solid sponsor (TwitchTV), a established caster (Luminous), a known organizer (Ange) and a good site (DotaCommentaries).
Two months later, they succeeded on several fronts despite several problems, expected and unexpected. TPL indeed featured a worldwide chart. We had a lot of epic games to watch, and the league offered a long-term goal for the teams involved. But they suffered a lot to reach this point. Their chart changed dramatically from the first one featured in the beginning of the season to the last standings, which meant a lot of rematches. There were forfeits and postponements because of their tight schedule, and the main issue in online intercontinental gaming: lag. This last issue was not TPL's direct fault but they have some responsibility since this was what the competition promoted.
| Teams invited to TPL in their announcement | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 SK-Gaming FnaticMSI Na`Vi Mineski Powercolor  World Elite |  10,000h DK LGD Nirvana.MSI MUFC | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams that reached the end of the competition | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Quantic Gaming FnaticRC Na`Vi Mineski Powercolor World Elite |  Counter Logic Gaming  compLexity Gaming Absolute Legends Team Dignitas MYM | |||||||||||||||||||||||
EG also took part in the event for a couple weeks, but they were kicked out of the competition. You can read TPL's official statement about this here and Maelk's explanation here. I personally encourage you to read both links at least before making an opinion about the issue.
But the teams didn't seem care about this and they delivered some great games anyways. Dignitas vs Na'Vi first game can be cataloged as one of the most mind-blowing comebacks in Dota 2 so far while WE's second game against DD was epic to say the least. You can browse through TPL's schedule (which contains the results and VODs from the matches) in the following link. You may hear one of our own casters co-casting with Luminous since GoDz and specially Purge joined Luminous multiple times.
| Final standings | |||
| TEAM | W/D/L | POINTS | PRIZE |
| Na`Vi | 8/1/0 | 25 | $5,000 |
| coL | 6/2/1 | 20 | $3,000 |
| aL | 5/2/2 | 17 | $2,000 |
| Quantic | 4/3/2 | 15 | |
| CLG | 3/5/1 | 14 | |
| FnaticRC | 3/3/2 | 12 | |
| Dignitas | 2/2/4 | 8 | |
| MYM | 1/5/3 | 8 | |
| WE | 1/1/7 | 4 | |
| Mski.PColor | 0/0/9 | 0 |
The logic prevailed in TPL's podium in the end, which was composed by a team from Europe, America, and Oceania. Na'Vi confirmed once again that they are the top Dota 2 team while both coL and aL took their deserved places as runner-ups. They had to play all their games in the last three weeks since they replaced other teams and they proved to be able to handle all their official games anyways. Quite an achievement in all aspects.
The Nordic teams, Quantic and CLG, finished close behind them. It's worth noticing that they weren't in their best shape in the beginning of the competition but they both are teams to fear now. Fnatic couldn't bring their A-game in the first few match-ups until their last games against coL but they managed to get in a decent position anyways.
The Asians had a very rough time in the competition. Their only hope to have a team out of the bottom three was MYM, who was on top of Dignitas until the very last match. They ended-up sharing the seventh position. Also, WE and Mineski dropped several games through the tournament because of the Chinese new year and DotA's competitions. This doesn't mean that they didn't leave a positive impression: WE's crazy picks and MYM's amazing comebacks deserved some recognition. They should be more prepared for the next season if they are invited (remember that only the top eight teams are automatically invited to the next one).
The Premier League's first season was a really hard test, but they succeeded. It would be amazing to see their mistakes corrected with the same level of competition in the next season. Time will tell, but we should allow some room for a deserved hype.
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