All 12 DreamLeague teams known

The qualifiers for DreamLeague's upcoming season have been played with Cloud9, Team Dog, MYM, Sigma, Empire and RoX.KiS joining in the six invited teams from last season - Na`Vi, Fnatic, Alliance, Liquid, Virtus.pro and Evil Geniuses. The season starts on Monday.

The kick-off season of DreamLeague was wrapped up at DreamHack Winter during the last days of November 2013, with four teams going into the playoffs. This was of course a rather big change-up since the DH-event prior to this, where 16 teams competed first through groups and then a single elimination bracket. Despite the new DreamLeague format resulting in fewer teams attending Dreamhack, the tournament itself is more focused and easy to follow. Combined with a better stage and a better show, it was overall a more interesting event even though one could argue that the "Dreamhack dream" is dead. This is simply because it used to be a goal for a lot of teams to win a Dreamhack qualifier and attend the event itself in Jönköping, Sweden where they would meet up with all the players met online but never face to face. This aspect have unfortunately vanished somewhat as the qualifiers will get you into the online season first and after only after a tough and successful competition will you get to travel to Dreamhack.

Six teams invited

The teams who were invited to the kick-off season were also invited to the first real season of DreamLeague. It was therefore a bigger commitment than just the stand-alone season which is why organizations considered to be stable by Dreamhack were the ones who got the first invites. Six teams played that season and all six will return this season, lead by Natus Vincere who managed to win the first DreamLeague title. It was also their first Dreamhack title, at earlier events they finished at best second place which was as far back as Dreamhack Summer 2012. Since then they have only reached the quarter finals. But the curse was lifted as they overthrew Fnatic (who also will be competing the upcoming season) in the grand finals, with the impressive game score 3-0. Other returning teams are Alliance, being the Dreamhack veterans they are by now, as well as Team Liquid. Both teams qualified for the playoffs in November. The remaining two are Virtus.Pro and the new roster of Evil Geniuses, they did not manage to finish within the top four last time but perhaps they will have a better go at it this time around.

Six teams qualified

This season will see the addition of six new teams - thus doubling up the league and adding plenty of more matches to follow. None of the new teams were invited directly, instead they were invited to the qualifiers where they joined up with various teams who went through the open pre-qualifiers. The American qualifiers were won by Cloud9 whereas Team Dog fought their way through the lower bracket to take the second American slot. Amusingly enough, neither of the teams have a majority of American players. Western European slots were grabbed by Meet Your Makers followed by Sigma International, no real surprise there as the western EU-scene have not been producing a whole lot of successful teams lately. The Eastern division had Empire taking the first slot, PowerRangers and RoX.KiS battled in the lower bracket final for the 12th and final one and in the end RoX.KiS won 2-1, thus qualifying for DreamLeague.

The online season is scheduled to start on Monday (March 3rd) and will last for ten weeks, until the beginning of May. The six teams with the most points will compete at the playoffs over at Dreamhack Summer, Sweden between June 14th and 17th. The team count is not the only thing being doubled up since the kick-off season, the prize pool has been buffed to $100,000. However, any community funding has not been announced so far. Not only is the ticket sales share sort of mandatory these days for a premier tournament, it is also greatly rewarding for the organizers and the top-finishing participants. Three different tournaments (all who started at $50,000) have managed to more than double their purses through this method. Those were MLG Columbus, StarLadder season 8 as well as Dota 2 Champion's League, season 2.

Participating teams of DreamLeague, season one

Natus Vincere (EUeast invite)

Virtus.pro (EUeast invite)

Alliance (EUwest invite)

Fnatic (EUwest invite)

Team Liquid (NA invite)

Evil Geniuses (NA invite)

Team Empire (EUeast qualified)

RoX.KiS (EUeast qualified)

Meet Your Makers (EUwest qualified)

Sigma International (EUwest qualified)

Cloud9 (NA qualified)

Team Dog (NA qualified)

All matches of DreamLeague will be broadcasted from the new Dreamhack TV6 studio in Stockholm, Sweden.

Qualifier brackets - EUwest, EUeast, NA

Photos by - Team Empire (Vanskor), joinDota (unicornxoxo), GosuGamers (the rest)