It has been roughly 2 months since the conclusion of The International 2016, and the competitive scene has seen a quite lul during the off season. Fortunately the new season will begin soon with the announcement of the first of the new set of Majors. Much like last year, Majors are Valve sponsored tournaments for Dota 2, which fill the gap between the annual The International events. For the first tournament of the season, Valve has decided to host the event at Boston. A change from last year, where the event was hosted in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Boston Major will be hosted by PGL eSports, who did a fantastic job hosting the Dota 2 Manila Major for Valve earlier this year. Much like previous Major tournaments, there will be four stages. Starting from October 23rd – 26th, the Open Qualifiers will allow any team to register and fight for a spot at the Main Stage. From there, the top teams in this bracket will be placed in Regional Qualifiers which will take place from October 27th – 30th. The winners and runner-ups from each Regional Qualifier will be invited into the Main Group Stage on December 3rd – 4th. Then, from December 7th – 10th the Main Stage will begin, and the winner of the Boston Major will be crowned.
Similarly, the prize pool is 3 million USD, with the winner taking home over $1 million. Tickets for the event will go on sale from Friday the 14th of October. The list of directly invited teams are not currently revealed yet, but based on team performances at TI, it’s safe to say champions Wings Gaming will make a return.