The Premier League

The Premier League is an international professional league for Dota 2. Contested by 10 teams, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation. Seasons run for nine rounds with teams playing 18 matches each, totaling 90 matches in the season. After all games have been played, the top three teams will be awarded $10,000 USD distributed among them, while the two lowest teams have to go into relegation. In relegation they will have to fight their way back into the tournament with other teams through a series of qualifiers. For the first season, the top 10 performing teams of recent online and LAN tournaments were invited.

Every team is playing one series against every other team consisting out of a best-of-two series. Winning both games will score the winning team three points and losing one zero, while a tie will result in both teams gaining one point each.

Trivia
It was originally planned that Chinese powerhouses LGD and Team DK would participate in The Premier League, both have since pulled out of the tournament due to preparations for G-League finals as well as both teams' players Chinese New Year's vacation. They were replaced by Team Dignitas and Evil Geniuses.

One month into the tournament, 10.000th had to withdraw from the tournament due to roster problems. Their spot was taken by Experience led by famous old school DotA player Loda. Experience eventually was picked up by Counter Logic Gaming. .

Nirvana.cn disbanded on January 31st and was taken off The Premier League. All their games were invalidated and was replaced by Absolute Legends.

Citing scheduling issues, Evil Geniuses has also dropped out only to be replaced by up and coming team FIRE, who was picked up by Complexity Gaming during the course of the tournament.