The Major's Speculation Thread. Teams, Winners, Types, Times and prizes...

SOOOOOOoooooo

with the crazy crazy TI just gone and the majors starting in like november. its time.

to start the hype.....

H Y P E T R A I N I S C O M I N G B O Y S ! ! ! !

so questions:

1). What will the majors be? Where and When?

2). who will be the strongest teams going into the first ever DotA 2 Season (so fangurling rite now when i say that ;PPPPPP)

3).Potential out of nowhere teams to look out for? *COUGH COUGH* alliance *COUGH*

4). Prizes ? will there be set amounts or will it be crowd funded?

5). Will the meta change drastically? or wont they want to disrupt it too much??

6). Will this "Season" lead to a more stable pro scene or will shuffles and kicks just be spread out but be more rapid?

7). Will this bring about a League? or Divisions? if yes, How?

One thing I think will happen is a set schedule for when patches get rolled out, now that there are set-in-stone flagpole tournaments throughout the year. I wouldn't be surprised if we get four patches a year, one after each Major, and that patches in general won't be as massive and game-changing as they'll be coming out more frequently.

As for picking strongest teams, it's probably best to wait until after roster lock to speculate, so I'ma keep my mouth shut for now. :p

Summer- The International
Fall- European Tourney
Winter- Dota Asia Championships
Spring- I'd Like to see a South American tournament

The only thing I'd look for is to see how this affects tournament hosts like BTS, ESL, Dotapit or joinDOTA and how they will go about planning their tournaments (some teams have been known to drop out of tournaments to prepare for the International).

I mean, personally I think the majors might be ESLOne Franfurt and New York respectively and DAC. DAC is a natural choice due to it being the second largest event in the DOTA calender, and the two ESL's are probably the second most major after that, given they are held in actual sporting arena's.

Could be Red Bull as well instead of New York but eeeh. Dates nobody knows, other than probably the second month of a given season.

Strongest team? Wait till rosters are announced, though many could argue EG if Fear steps in well.
Prizes? Each has a million base prize pool I think, and I imagine a little crowd funding, but not TI level.
Meta Changes? I can't imagine it'll be that different to now tbh. Maybe you'll see a lot of ESL like effects where teams suddenly bust out the patches new strats. I really hope that we don't get a patch for each new major just for the sake of having a different one, I would rather see patches come about at a more natural rate, or if there are actual problems to fix. B and C patches maybe after each one, but not whole patches.

Like the method of a lot more smaller patches is a start down the LoL method of balancing - I'm not saying that to bash LoL, but patches in LoL happen frequently and is essentially Riot dictating the meta, rather than leaving it to evolve fully in the hands of players. Even our current patch, despite having been here for months has had 3 somewhat distinct meta's, or at least 3 meta shifts, and only one of them as a result of a patch. If you have more frequent patches, that doesn't happen to the same extent, and I think that's a terrible thing to take away from our scene, it also creates more chances for heroes to get over-buffed due to not being noticed properly in a patch (Think of what would've happened if the patch had been cut off just before ESL, Techies and Naga Siren would've seen extremely low usage in the patch, and potentially have seen buffs in the next as a result)

Roster Stability? In a sense, there will still be a lot of shuffling, probably equivilant amounts, but I think it gives teams more reason to stick together especially if major teams start not going to smaller events to prepare for the Major's.

I think the bigger teams will just play the mahors exclusively, opening up these leagues to tier 2 teams.

I tend to agree, at least if participation in the Majors isn't invite-based (otherwise even bigger teams will need exposure elswhere). Seems pretty tough for smaller tournaments - who the hell will watch The Summit if the big teams don't come?