SUNSfan: Valve will hold tournaments for every region instead of the Major
On the We Say Things podcast, the Dota 2 caster Shannon "SUNSfan" Scotten said that Valve would hold a series of tournaments for each region instead of the Major. In his statement, he referred to information from unnamed clubs.
According to his information, there will be smaller tournaments for each of the 6 regions in February, with the top 4 teams in the DPC's Upper Divisions. The prize money for each tournament will be $100,000. In addition, there will be DPC points awarded to the top 2 teams from each region.
He also explained the changes for The International 11. The tournament participants increased from 18 teams to 20. The last 2 slots will be drawn between 12 participants from all regions in the LAN tournament. There has been no official announcement from Valve about this yet.
Last week Valve announced the cancellation of the Winter Major, citing the difficult situation with the new strain of the coronavirus "omicron". After the community reacted negatively to the news, the developer promised to come up with a way to hold the Winter Major. It was originally supposed to take place on February 17-27, 2022. The tournament had a prize pool of $500,000 and 690 DPC points.