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  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, who is led by famous old school DotA player  Jonathan "Loda" Berg. . On January 31st, Nirvana.cn disbanded and therefore left the Premier League. Standing at zero points with three losses out of three games, all their games were invalidated. They were replaced by Absolute Legends. Citing time issues, Evil Geniuses has also dropped out to be replaced by up and coming team  FIRE. During the course of the tournament FIRE and  Experience were picked up by Complexity Gaming and Counter Logic Gaming.