This year’s big news is that tournament operator PGL has declared that it plans to conduct at least eight Dota 2 tournaments between 2024 and 2026. Every championship will have a prize pool of $1 million.
According to the company, in 2024, the first two tournaments will be held in Bucharest, Romania – the first PGL Wallachia Season #1 on May 10-19 and the second on November 15-24. We know that 16 teams will play in the tournaments, and they will be able to qualify for the championship.
Here is the schedule of PGL Dota 2 tournaments for 2025-2026:
- 2025 6-15 March PGL Tournament #1
- 2025 PGL 8-27 April Tournament #2
- 2025 PGL 7-16 November Tournament #3
- 2026 PGL 6-15 March Tournament #1
- 2026 PGL 17-26 April Tournament #2
- 2026 PGL 6-15 November Tournament #3
More details for those who care about Dota 2 odds will be revealed throughout the year.
Why Dota 2 Tournaments are so Important
Over the past few years, special broadcasts have been organised for beginners, where everything on the screen is explained to a new audience. Everything that happens is a real holiday for all Dota 2 fans and fans of other esports disciplines. Now, using Dota 2 as an example, it is very appropriate to say that esports is becoming a really important factor in social relations that can improve lives.
Many great motivational films have been made about the success of individual athletes (boxers, footballers, hockey players, etc.), which make you want to drop everything and build your path to success. But it is often insurmountably difficult to do so due to age, physical limitations, and so on.
Everything is different with esports and Dota 2. There is no such gap in the amateur-professional ratio as in regular sports. Here, you don’t need to spend decades from childhood to develop the necessary skills. And besides, you can face real professional players in a regular match, which will never happen in football or basketball. Can an amateur footballer kick the ball around with Messi? And an amateur player in Dota 2 can easily run into a Dendi (quite the equivalent of Messi on the Dota scene). In short, absolutely every player can succeed here.
There are already many opportunities to join a professional Dota 2 team. Firstly, there are tournaments with different divisions, from amateurs to professionals. All you need to do is join a team and play in the amateur division. After a few months, you can easily get into the next division, another higher level, and so on.
Secondly, if you are a good player, professionals may notice you and invite you to train with them. In a regular game, you can easily encounter champions of various tournaments.
There are many examples of success stories. Pakistani schoolboy Sumail Hassan became a world champion at the age of 16. His family moved from Pakistan to the United States for a better life, but things were not going well. The nine of them lived in a small house. Everything changed when Sumail won his first Dota 2 tournament as part of Evil Geniuses, earning $1.2 million for the five. His phenomenal play earned his team $6.6 million, and his share was a great help to his family.
Society often condemns Dota 2 and eSports as a phenomenon (“It’s not a real sport, you’re wasting your time, not like football,” says a 40-year-old, 100kg guy who hasn’t played a ball in twenty years), but this approach is wrong. Tournaments are the main example of how a computer game can improve lives.
