Valve introduced the Dota Pro Circuit in 2017 (for DOTA 2), it has been the determining factor for The International invites since then. Before the implementation of this system it has been quite a suspense for all teams and fans to see who will get the direct invites for the prestigious event. The rest of the teams are determined by regional qualifiers.

Through the DPC system, the teams will go through a series of regional tournaments and earn points via winning their regions respectively and placing in the major at the end of the season. This made it clear and transparent who are the teams going to The International directly and who will go through the grueling qualifiers.

This implementation monopolizes the event calendar throughout the year and is the only tournament the teams are taking seriously. That’s not to say they are not trying their best in other tournaments with a big prize pool but the DPC really outweighs all other tournaments. All players want to become a T.I champion above anything else at the end of the day.

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Valve has determined that the DPC has caused some event organizers to innovate less and they want to change that. They want to go back to the chaotic house parties like the Beyond the Summit tournaments, the Dota Asia Championships and exciting one-off invitationals like MDL, Epicenter and ESL One. They want to bring back the mystery surrounding the invites and they want the organizers to compete for the viewer’s attention not theirs.

Valve have now decided that they are now ending the DPC system and the 2023 season will be the last one.

Only time will tell if this system will work, all the teams are already accustomed to the DPC system and changing it might have some additional problems for them. To be honest, the old ways before the DPC is more exciting for the viewers because it makes all teams go try hard in all tournaments until the invites are sent.