Get ready for the biggest post-TI shuffle you’ve ever seen.
Every year after The International, the Dota 2 community expects a big post event shuffle and most of the time it’s not. But this year, it is actually going to be it.
The Dota 2 competitive scene is about to witness big changes, and not only in team compositions. With the Dota Pro Circuit discontinued and Valve focusing on game updates rather than the esports side, the scene is once again left to sort itself out. This year’s huge shuffle is mainly triggered by what 2024 is about to bring to the competitive scene.
Dota 2 competitive scene landscape for 2024
While the Dota 2 community was focused on catching the games at TI12 last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced an annual Esports World Cup to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event will replace Riyadh Masters and will feature “the largest prize pool in esports history,” which is expected to be more than $45,000,000.
For the Dota 2 scene, that means that the DPC will be replaced by the ESL Pro Tour. DreamLeague seasons and LAN tournaments organized by the ESL FACEIT Group will count towards the Esports World Cup, which will take place sometime in the summer of 2024. Tier 2 teams and below will have open qualifiers to fight through for a chance at making it to the ESL One $1,000,000 LANs, which can now be regarded as the old Dota 2 Majors.
It is still unclear even for Valve how the teams will secure a spot at next year’s The International. Will we return to an invite system where nobody will know if they made it to TI13 until Valve reveals the invites list or will there be points allocated to all LANs depending on the event size and prize pool?
Those are questions yet to be answered by Valve, but in the meantime, the scene is gearing up for an exciting 2024 year where big money is at stake.
With that in mind, 2024 might actually be the year when Dota 2 will welcome several big organisations to the scene. The likes of G2 and Heroic were rumored in the past to sign a team in the space, but they never did. This year, however, the Savvy Games Group investments are too appealing for those organisations to miss on the opportunity. Even MOUZ are expected to make a return to the Dota 2 field.
All regions will most likely feature at least a new organisation and almost no roster will be the same by the end of 2023. Because the DPC is no more, there is no “official’ roster lock deadline this year. However, the shuffle will mostly be done by the time ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 open qualifiers are set to begin, on November 12.
New orgs, new regions, new rosters
With the money injection coming from Savvy Games Group, the regional split will also feature MENA as a full-fledged region. There will be more than Nigma Galaxy and PSG Quest to represent the region and in fact, fans should expect some of the biggest names coming from Middle East, including the King, to play under new banners.
- Read also: Around the world; Dota 2 in MENA region
Western Europe is expected to become even more stacked if that’s even possible. Besides MOUZ, there are more teams eyeballing Dota 2 right now and players from other regions might finally decide to change continents. WEU shuffle will probably shock the most.
China will follow suit and no roster will be the same. Former TI winners and runners up are reportedly going to team up in search of yet another China super team, but be ready to see them actually playing far from home.
Southeast Asia is ready to welcome home its prodigal son. We should also expect at least a new organisation to form a Dota 2 roster in SEA.
But while the future looks bright for most of the regions, North and South America are scrambling. None of the teams we come to know so far will be the same and a lot of talent from these regions is expected to find a new home across the ocean.
To sum it up, big changes are truly coming and the official announcements are due to come sooner rather than later. ESL One Kuala Lumpur will mark the beginning of the 2024 competitive year in Dota 2 and it will be the first big tournament to feature some of the newly shuffled teams, so stay tuned, exciting news is on the horizon.
