ESL has today announced that it will host the upcoming Dota 2 Major, to be called the ESL One Stockholm Major between May 12-22, 2022. The doors to the arena will be thrown open to audiences for the playoffs, from the 20th to the 22nd of May.
As the first Dota 2 Major event with a live audience since early 2020, ESL One Stockholm marks the rebirth of Dota 2 events with fans on-site. The tournament will conclude the Spring Tour of the Dota Pro Circuit 2021-2022 season. The first Major of the current season, which would conclude the Winter Tour and was set to take place earlier this year, was replaced by six regional finals events produced online all around the world.
The Major features 18 of the world’s best Dota 2 teams from each Region’s Division I bracket with two to four slots available per region (China, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe). The teams battle it out to take home their share of the grand $500,000 prize pool, as well as to earn more Dota Pro Circuit Points in order to qualify for the renowned The International.
The group stage, which uses a best-of-2 round-robin format, sees the participating teams split into two groups of nine teams and will take place in a studio environment. The top six teams of each group will proceed to the double-elimination playoff stage where they will face off in front of the live audience at Stockholm’s Hovet arena to ultimately raise the trophy on May 22.
“It has been a long two years for Dota 2’s esports ecosystem, and we couldn’t be more excited to finally invite Dota 2 fans back on-site,” said Artem Bykov, General Manager, Game Management at ESL Gaming. “Organizing a Major is always special, but with so much at stake right now, ESL One Stockholm will simply be awesome. We can’t wait for it to get started!”
If you'd like a ticket, ESL announced the ticket sale for ESL One Stockholm will start on Thursday, February 17, at 5 pm CET, and can be purchased for singular days, or for the entire playoff weekend. More information about the different ticket types and how to secure your particular ticket can be found at esl-one.com/dpc/.
