posted by Abelle,
We'd heard nothing from Valve since the end of The International 2017, but now they've finally broken their silence and posted a wealth of information about the rules for the upcoming competitive season.


Valve's announcement blog, titled "The Dota Pro Circuit" was released late last night. In addition to linking to a page with full details on the qualifying points system, it also announces that a change is coming to the LAN drafting stage. Prepare yourself for a deluge of details.

New Coach Rules
That change is that coaches will be allowed to stay with their team to help out during the draft, but must depart once all picks and bans are finished.

Many teams already have a coach, but those who don't have already started to seek one out. It seems that this new competitive season is not just expanding opportunities for players and casters, but team support staff as well.

Alright looking for coach guys— Saksa (@Saksadota) September 15, 2017

As Team Secret's coach SunBhie points out however, it remains to be seen whether Valve or the Major and Minor tournament organizers will take the new coach role into account.

pls give coaches PCs in LAN events, and flight tickets too please ._. https://t.co/dR7BrVgv5m— SunBhie (@SunBhieDota) September 16, 2017
Roster Locks
The final piece of information is how the roster locks will function this year. After going through an entire shuffle season without them, some wondered if we were on track for a return to the "Wild West" of unregulated roster moves, but thankfully Valve have provided a publically available set of rules.

The roster lock will consist of two phases, but they are no longer known as "drop" and "add" phases, though they function somewhat similarly.

Phase One consists of making changes to existing teams, i.e. teams that have already been registered within the system. Players may be dropped and players may remove themselves but all players who wish to remain in their existing team must confirm their spot. This is achieved by accepting the "invite" sent by their manager. Any player that has not been reinvited or has not accepted the invite by the end of the phase will automatically be removed from the team.

In Phase Two, any players already registered to a team cannot be dropped or leave. New teams may be registered and any free agent may be invited. If any player does not accept their invite by the end of the phase, that invite is cancelled. Rosters lock at the end of phase two.

TL;DR existing teams can remove players and must confirm existing members in Phase One, new teams and existing teams can invite free agents in Phase Two.

For the first roster lock, Phase One has started and will end Sept 23 at 2:00 CEST (Sept 22 at 17:00 PDT). Phase Two will follow and rosters will lock Oct 4 at 2:00 CEST.

No date is set for the next roster lock, but the rules page promises another registration period in "early 2018".

Qualifying Points
Perhaps the most exciting bit of news from all of this is the clarification on Qualifying Points. Valve have mapped out every Major and Minor this season and included details on dates, location, prize pool, total number of Qualifying Points and the organizer.

The number of Minors on the list has seen a noticeable increase since Cyborgmatt's tweeted list of events during TI7. There are now 16 Minor events throughout the year, including the recently announced Captains Draft Season 4.

There was some discussion in the Dota 2 community yesterday regarding whether this event should be classed as a Minor since it uses a different game mode than every other Valve event before or since, but with this list, Valve have confirmed that it will give 300 Qualifying Points, just like (almost) every other Minor.


Back when Valve first announced the Majors and Minors, they included a couple of nuggets of information that raise questions now.

The only exception to the 300 points per Minor pattern is ESL's Minor in January. It has a $400,000 prize pool instead of $300,000, so it gives 400 points instead of 300. This appears to follow Valve's initial statement regarding Qualifying Points, which was that "Qualifying Points will be awarded based on the total prize pool of a tournament".

Another statement from Valve said that they would "directly manage the schedule of Majors and Minors to help avoid collisions during the year." Perhaps they've been doing this for the scheduling of the LAN finals, but the scheduling of qualifiers certainly seem to have encountered a few "collisions" already.

Finally, Valve told us that "The total points per tournament will also partially scale based on the time of year, with tournaments closer to The International awarding additional points." It might seem like Valve have kept this promise by having the final Major of the season give 2250 points, but that event also has an increased prize pool of $1,500,000. That's a 50% increase in prize pool over the other Majors and a 50% increase in points, following the earlier rule of more money = more points.

Valve's Dota Pro Circuit website also includes tabs for tracking Team and Player standings, but as we haven't had the first LAN of the season yet, nobody's got any points. There's also a lengthy FAQ section digging deeper into the inner workings of the points system.

What do you think? Have Valve delivered, or do you still have questions about the upcoming season?

  • Abelle
    Abelle

    Abelle

    Annabelle Fischer
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