Esports clubs Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro have collaborated on a $50,000 Dota 2 league.

Ukranian eSports team Natus Vincere (Na'vi) and Russian eSports team Virtus.pro announced today in a press release that the two teams have collaborated to launch the Dota 2 Champions League (D2CL). The online league will feature ten of the world’s top Dota 2 teams and boasts a guaranteed prize pool of $50,000. Twenty-five percent of the tournament’s in-game ticket sales will also be added to the prize pool.

The prize distribution is follows:

First Place - $25,000

Second Place - $15,000

Third Place - $7,000

Fourth Place - $3,000

Na’vi owner Alexander Kokhanovskyy noted in the press release that one of the major goals of the tournament is taking online events to a, ’qualitatively new level.’ He continued, ’ We believe that players and teams should receive additional bonuses for participation in such projects that will encourage them to give all 200%. Also, we are following the footsteps of Valve and are confident that crowd funding should be part of any big event."

The league’s regular season will consist of round-robin group play between two groups of five. Matches will be a best of three with each map won being worth one point towards a team’s overall standing. The second stage of tournament play will be tiebreakers, if necessary, between the teams that tied in points for second and third in their group stages. These matches will be a best of three. The third, and last, stage of the tournament will be playoffs and finals. All matches in the playoffs will be a best of five.

Matches begin on October 16th and will continue through December 12th. At the time of publication neither the full list of teams nor the list of casters was public. Updates can be found on the tournament’s official website and on their Twitter here.

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