ESL Pro Tour Dota 2 - Season 1 Explained
The ESL Pro Tour is a new Dota ecosystem facilitating top quality international Dota games for fans all around the world.
The best teams from around the world will be invited to compete in compact, high quality events to earn a direct spot in the group-stage of Riyadh Masters.
DreamLeague Season 19 and 20 will serve as the main qualifying events, featuring a standalone prize pool of $1,000,000 each season.
Two more weeks of unforgettable, top-tier Dota are coming your way on June 11th!
ESL Pro Tour
Season 1 - 2022/2023
'Bigger, Better, More DreamLeague than Ever.'
DreamLeague S19 is taking place after Division 1 DPC ends, from the 9th to the 23rd of April the best performing players from around the world will be flown into Europe to compete for an insane $1,000,000 prize pool!
DreamLeague S20 is taking place after the final DPC Division 1 Tour, DreamLeague S20 will happen from the 11th to the 25th of June. More Top-Tier International Dota content delivered to you almost every day for 2 weeks straight with another $1,000,000 prize pool up for grabs.
DreamLeague is back, and it's going to bring us all back to what's really important — spending time with friends, and enjoying the best Dota games you could hope to see.
Alongside the top 5 average placed teams from both seasons, the Champion and Grand Finalists of each DreamLeague season respectively will start at the Group-Stage of Riyadh Masters, avoiding the intense play-ins phase of the event.
Should a team be eligible for more than one of these slots (Gaimin Gladiators), the slot will pass to the next best average placement team.
Group Stage #1
16Teams
- Two round robin groups
- All matches best-of-two
- 1st-4th place teams in each group advance to Group Stage #2
- 5th-8th in each group are eliminated
8 Teams Advance
Group Stage #2
8Teams
- One round robin group
- All matches best-of-three
- 1st & 2nd place move to Playoff Upper Bracket
- 3rd & 4th place move to Playoff Lower Bracket
- 5th-8th Place Eliminated
4 Teams Advance
Playoffs
4Teams
- 4 Team Double Elim Bracket
- 2 Teams Start Upper Bracket, 2 Start Lower Bracket
- Playoffs Bo3
- Grand Finals Bo5
Season 19
Champion
Season 20
Top 2 Teams
At the end of season 1, Riyadh Masters begins.
With only the best teams from each season of competition fighting for a staggering $15,000,000 prize pool, only those special few that can withstand the immense pressure and still stand tall will be victorious, in this final test of talent, tenacity and teamwork.
Play-Ins
12Teams
- Two round robin groups of six teams
- All matches best-of-two
- 1st-2nd place teams in each group advance to Group Stage
- 3rd vs 6th & 4th vs 5th matches are played from opposite groups - winners qualify to Group Stage
8 Teams Advance
Group Stage
16Teams
- Two round robin groups of eight teams
- All matches best-of-two
- 1st-4th place in each group advance to Playoffs Upper Bracket
- 5th and 6th place in each group advance to Playoffs lower bracket
- 7th & 8th Place are eliminated
12 Teams Advance
Playoffs
12Teams
- 12 Team Double-Elimination Bracket
- Eight teams start upper bracket, 4 teams start lower bracket
- All matches Bo3
- Grand Finals Bo5
Riyadh masters Invite system
12 slots are for the Play-In Stage and are assigned as follows:
Per Region
6Teams
- 1 per region: WEU, NA, EEU, SA, CN, SEA
- All slots assigned by the EPT Ranking System
EPT Ranking
5Teams
- 5 slots assigned via the EPT Regional ELO system, then assigned within each region by the EPT Ranking System.
MENA QUALIFIER
1Team
- 1 slot to the winner of the Riyadh Masters by Gamers8 MENA Qualifier
All these DreamLeague related slots progress straight to the Group Stage of Riyadh Masters
DreamLeague
1S19 Winner
1S20 Winner
1S20 Runner Up
-
DreamLeague Season 19 Winner
(Gaimin Gladiators) - DreamLeague Season 20 Winner
- DreamLeague Season 20 Runner Up
Dreamleague
5Teams
- 5 slots for the remaining best average placement across DreamLeague Season 19 and 20.
The invite process
Twelve teams start their Riyadh Masters campaign in Group Stage 1, otherwise known as the Play-Ins. The first team, qualified via the MENA qualifier, is Quest Esports.
The remaining eleven slots are awarded using our Regional Rankings, which are only used to rank teams within their own region. Each region is automatically assigned one of these slots, to be awarded to their highest ranked team that isn't already qualified. These slots go to 9Pandas, beastcoast, Execration, Team Aster, Team Liquid, and TSM.
The final five slots are allocated to regions based on an Elo rating, but ignoring a number of teams at the top of each region. This number is calculated by subtracting 1 from the number of teams that region already has qualified for Riyadh Masters.
As a result, only the #1 team from CN, NA, SA, and SEA are ignored, while the top 3 teams are ignored in WEU and top 2 ignored in EEU. With those ignored, the region with highest Elo receives the first slot, and has another team ignored when determining the next slot.
This process repeats until all slots are allocated - in this case, three to WEU, one to CN, and one to EEU. These are awarded to the next highest ranked teams, in the Regional Rankings, that aren't already qualified: OG, Entity, and Team Secret in WEU, Xtreme Gaming in CN, and Virtus.pro in EEU.
Still confused? This might help
The EPT Ranking System gives teams points based on their final positions in events. This provides an advantage for teams and, by extension, regions with more slots: more slots means more chances to place well. Because teams within each region are in similar circumstances, intra-regional ranks are accurate by the EPT Ranking System, but often inter-regional ranks are not so accurate.
As a result, we also calculate team performance ratings using an Elo-like model, and aggregate them by region. This allows us to quantify the performance of regions, as well as the reasoning about any modifiers to it like regional depth, or ignoring the already-invited teams from a region.
Both of these systems are used in determining the invites for any event - the Elo-like model is used to appoint slots to regions, and once slots are allocated, the EPT Ranking System is used to decide which teams from that region deserves the invite most.
As such, there's no benefit in comparing teams across regions in the EPT Ranking System, since it doesn't take into account who they're playing against. If Team A has 1000 points in the X Region EPT Rankings, that doesn't necessarily make them a worse team than Team B in Y Region with 3000 points, because they've both earned these points in different tournaments against different levels of opponents. Regions with more events will also tend to have more points that get counted, like South and North America.
Riyadh masters Groups Info
Groups | |
|---|---|
Region Assigned - WEU | EPT Ranking 1 |
Region Assigned - NA | EPT Ranking 2 |
Region Assigned - EEU | EPT Ranking 3 |
Region Assigned - SA | EPT Ranking 4 |
Region Assigned - CN | EPT Ranking 5 |
Region Assigned - SEA | Gamers8 MENA Qualifier Winner |
Groups | |
|---|---|
DreamLeague S19 Winner | Play-Ins Group A #1 |
DreamLeague S20 Winner | Play-Ins Group B #1 |
DreamLeague S20 Runner Up | Play-Ins Group B #2 |
DL Average #1 | Play-Ins Group A #2 |
DL Average #4 | Play-Ins Group A #3 |
DL Average #3 | Play-Ins Group B #3 |
DL Average #2 | Play-Ins Group B #4 |
DL Average #5 | Play-Ins Group A #4 |
ESL Pro Tour
PRIZE PoolS
Dreamleague | Prize Money |
|---|---|
Total | $1,000,000 |
1st | $300,000 |
2nd | $175,000 |
3rd | $120,000 |
4th | $85,000 |
5th | $52,500 |
6th | $47,500 |
7th | $42,500 |
8th | $37,500 |
9th - 10th | $25,000 |
11th - 12th | $20,000 |
13th - 14th | $15,000 |
15th - 16th | $10,000 |
Riyadh Masters | Prize Money |
|---|---|
Total | $15,000,000 |
1st | $5,000,000 |
2nd | $2,500,000 |
3rd | $1,700,000 |
4th | $1,200,000 |
5th | $800,000 |
6th | $800,000 |
7th | $500,000 |
8th | $500,000 |
9th - 12th | $300,000 |
13th - 14th | $200,000 |
15th - 16th | $100,000 |
17th - 20th | $50,000 |
Dreamleague | Prize Money | EPT Points |
|---|---|---|
Total | $500,000 | tbd |
1st | $150,000 | tbd |
2nd | $71,000 | tbd |
3rd-4th | $40,000 | tbd |
5th-8th | $20,000 | tbd |
9th-12th | $10,000 | tbd |
13th-16th | $5,000 | tbd |
ESL ONE | Prize Money | EPT Points |
|---|---|---|
Total | $500,000 | tbd |
1st | $150,000 | tbd |
2nd | $71,000 | tbd |
3rd-4th | $40,000 | tbd |
5th-8th | $20,000 | tbd |
9th-12th | $10,000 | tbd |
13th-16th | $5,000 | tbd |
Riyadh Masters | Prize Money | EPT Points |
|---|---|---|
Total | $500,000 | tbd |
1st | $150,000 | tbd |
2nd | $71,000 | tbd |
3rd-4th | $40,000 | tbd |
5th-8th | $20,000 | tbd |
9th-12th | $10,000 | tbd |
13th-16th | $5,000 | tbd |
THE EPT RANKING SYSTEM
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