A new and exciting route from the amateur Dota 2 scene to becoming a professional player...
The Dota 2 Battle Pass has long been a way to bring players seasonal challenges, weekend Battle Cups, match wagering and a few in-game goodies.
The Fall 2016 Battle Pass isn’t too different to its predecessors, apart from its colour, and that’s fine. Dota 2 is always better, bigger and more bombastic during Battle Pass months.
Despite not being particularly experimental this time around, there is one very interesting change that the Fall Battle Pass is bringing. It won’t affect the vast majority of players, but has significant ramifications for the eSports scene.
Battle Cups will now take on a more important role in the game, as the best players from Battle Cup events will gain access to a ‘Champions Cup’ – an exclusive tournament – at the end of the season.
So they’ll get to play some more Dota 2? Well, that’s nice – they must enjoy it after all. But there’s more.
Winning the Champions Cup will grant players access to the Spring Major Battle Cup Qualifiers, and then the Regional Qualifiers. That’s right – they’ll be playing with the professionals.
Sure, it’s a road so long and challenging that even Sam and Frodo might call it a day.
But it’s also an unprecedented route for amateur players to make it into a major Dota 2 tournament and rub shoulders with the game’s big beasts.
This could have a number of effects on the eSports scene. First, and perhaps most obviously, this could be an exciting new way for fresh talent to make a name for themselves.
It may also help inject renewed competition into Dota 2. All eSports risk becoming dominated by the same handful of big teams, and it can become hard to break into the scene and challenge the game’s grandees.
Providing the means for new teams to fight their way into the Regional Qualifiers could give birth to the next Wings, the next Evil Geniuses, the next OG. And at the very least it will help to keep the professional teams on their toes.
The Champions Cup is also a great way to bring the wider Dota 2 community closer to the Dota 2 eSports community and the professional sphere itself. After all, it’s important to keep fans interested if the game is to thrive as an eSport.
In fact, fans have already reacted enthusiastically to the idea – a quick perusal of game forums and reddit will reveal the excitement. It isn’t hard to understand.
If becoming a pro eSports player had always seemed an impossible dream, it’s now that little bit more tangible.
Of course, there are some unknowns going forward, too. The main question marks hangs over whether the new Champions Cup will mean that the Open Qualifiers are scrapped.
It does seem unlikely that Valve would want to do away with the Open Qualifiers, but they might have a reason. High level teams that want to circumvent tournament deadlines have often used the Open Qualifiers as their route forward – we’re looking at you, Team Secret and EG.
While technically there is nothing really wrong with this, from some perspectives it may seem to violate the spirit of Open Qualifiers – to allow the talented unknown players to flourish.
Of course, the Open Qualifiers could well be kept, and the number of teams invited may be reduced – presumably from six to five. Either way, this is a subtle but significant shake-up of the relationship between the amateur scene and the professionals.
Here’s hoping that this new path to the big leagues delivers more competition, more raw talent and more bloodletting – in the true spirit of eSports.
