ESL announces ESL Pro Tour with a prize pool of $17 million

ESL has officially announced its own ESL Pro Tour tournament system for Dota 2. The first cycle will consist of three events with a total prize pool of $17 million.

A series of tournaments will begin from the 19th and 20th seasons of the DreamLeague, which, after the loss of ESL rights to organize regional DPC leagues, is not part of this system. The total prize fund of each season will be $1 million, of which the winner will get $300,000. Both seasons will be held online from April 9 to 23 and June 11 to 25, respectively, with 16 participants each.

There will be no qualifiers for the first season, and invitations will be distributed by region, according to the EPT (ESL Pro Tour) rankings as follows: 2 invitations per region plus 3 additional invites for Western Europe and one for North America.

The coverage of the tournament will take place from a studio in Sweden, and the teams will be required to bootcamp in any of the European countries of their choice. The winner of DreamLeague Season 19, the top 2 teams from Season 20, and the top 5 teams with the best average for both seasons will earn tickets to The Riyadh Masters 2023 group stage.

The main tournament of the ESL Pro Tour will be The Riyadh Masters 2023, which will be held from July 17 to 30 as part of the Gamers8 esports festival in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with the participation of 20 teams. The prize fund of the tournament will be $15 million. The event will consist of three stages: play-in, group stage and playoffs.

12 teams will take part in the play-in, where they will be divided into two groups. The two best teams from each one will go directly to the next stage, and two more tickets will be played in the tiebreaker. 16 teams will take part in the group stage, where they will also be divided into 2 groups. The first four places will go to the upper bracket, and 5-6 places will advance to the lower part of the playoffs.