JoinDota League used to feature all the top teams, and now they struggle to maintain interest or team participation. There is zero incentive for league based format and online play, both from teams and from organizers. Unfortunately, the ‘everyone must play qualifiers’ ruling kept the schedule packed and destroyed a huge chunk of the year that could be used by third party LANs or leagues. This year’s system tried to keep the big teams out of the minors, protecting the money and experience meant for developing players. The best teams accepted invites and appeared to ‘monopolize’ minors while tier 2 teams fought for the remaining spots. Endless qualifiers, sometimes with different TOs not playing very nice with schedules, pitted the same teams against each other again and again with brutal travel and playing schedules. The 2017-2018 season may have seemed flush with cash, but teams were TIRED. (Let’s also not forget that many are still waiting on the money from several of those tournaments). Making a living playing Dota when you aren’t at the top seems to have gotten harder with time, not easier. This is still all about the money - there was less of it in prize pools this year with less tournaments to give tier 2 teams a chance at LAN experience and a shot at prize pools. This year, we had 10 DPC events with $6.5 million available and approximately $2.5 million in third party international LANs.

Majors were as fierce as ever, but we had 22 DPC events for a total of $13.5 million in DPC prize money and about $935,000 in third party international LANs. The top teams in each region were invited, and the minors usually only boasted a handful of tier 1 teams and then was filled with tier 2 teams. In the 2017-2018 season, we had a plethora of tournaments that were part of the DPC system. Switching regions shouldn’t be the answer, and regional depth shouldn’t be something that inhibits the playing pool of developing talent. If that team had been playing in NA, they would have potentially found a larger income share from a region with less depth. No matter what region they're in, the prize money they won doesn't seem like an accurate measurement of the team's skill. The Final Tribe was a reasonably successful team that barely missed their shot at TI, arguably in large part because of Liquid making roster changes. As interested as I am in an overhaul that looks at team earnings, prize pool shares per region, and saturation levels - that is a distraction from the main point Chessie is looking to make. Chessie’s team (Complexity) in the 2017-2018 season netted $119,250 in prize money. The Final Tribe made $52,000 in prize money the previous year, with less time as an existing team.

The final tribe dota 2