For fans of professional Dota 2, mid through late September has been more than a little overwhelming. There’s been a wealth of information about the new season, and more official matches to watch than any one person can manage.

I can say this with certainty because I’ve tried!

The big picture stuff is that Valve released information on September 15th, 2017 defining the 2017–2018 (or TI8) season, what it calls the Pro Circuit. With a schedule of 27 official events (11 Majors, 16 Minors), and rules for “Qualifying Points” and rosters, this was a treasure trove of details for those who had been begging for them. I’m thrilled there’ll be a clear storyline to follow across the season — which 8 teams will acquire enough QPs to earn their invite to TI8? — as well as more encouragement to see the entire season as connected instead of individual tournaments scattered across the landscape, with good performances at these probably earning a team an invite, but who knew for sure? I’ve already started tracking team tournament attendance — direct invites, and teams competing in qualifiers and so on — , and there are great sites in place and forthcoming to see who has earned those precious QPs, how many are left to earn, and so on.

With so many points invested in Major events, most being worth 1500 QPs, I’m not sure how much Minor events will matter in the long run, with only 300 QPs available at each one. I can see they might be enough to give one team the edge over another, but winning Minors consistently is very unlikely to be enough to place top 8 for the year. They could factor into the regional qualifiers for TI8 though, and I’m certainly not about to advocate for not bothering with them — just that teams consistently showing up to Majors probably don’t need to also try to attend all the Minors.

And that brings me to the best-worst thing about September: all the official matches. We wanted more Dota, and holy crap do we have it. Qualifier season started the first weekend of the month with Open Qualifiers, continued the next week with King’s Cup: Americas and is still ongoing. It’s been a full schedule, with open and closed regional qualifiers for StarLadder, for the PGL Open Bucharest Minor, and for ESL One Hamburg, the first Major of the year. And, of course, every tournament is using a different format — group round robin into top four single elim play-off, two GSL groups into a top four single elim play-off, a full double elimination bracket, and a single elimination bracket with four teams seeded into the second round. There’s a format for everyone, but good luck remembering which goes with what unless you’re willing to invest some time! All of it makes me long for something like the Major Hubs, when we had centralized sources of coverage, 24 hours a day, for the duration of qualifiers. Mind you, those lasted a week, not three or four or five.

King’s Cup stood out for me because it was easy to follow. The panel connected series from day to day, and kept me informed about future schedules. I didn’t have to rely on sites like Liquipedia, Gosugamers, and the Dota2 subreddit to keep me updated about when and where to find new games. Trackdota.com has become my go-to for finding English language casts of games. I would really like tournament websites to expand to include a match schedule page, with updates when games are rescheduled. More communication and centralized reporting is really the key to keeping me engaged as a fan.

Many games were also played off ticket, which is a huge frustration as a someone who wants to be able to check stats on games I can’t watch. Also, I’d like the tournaments to be better organized, with announcements about team invitations coming much sooner. I can’t get hyped about a tournament if I don’t know who is playing in it. And knowing who’ll be playing in qualifiers for a tournament a few days, maybe even a luxurious week, before they start gives me time to understand the match-ups, to get invested in the outcome, and to plan ahead to watch!

Three weeks of regional qualifiers, and I’m primed for a proper tournament. I want to watch a full tournament without worrying about what games I’m missing. I want to see the entire thing unfold from start to finish, follow the storylines that develop, see how the drafts evolve. But I’ve got another two and a half weeks to wait: StarLadder doesn’t start until October 11th.

And until then? I’ll be overdoing it with AMD SAPPHIRE Dota PIT League and Perfect World Masters qualifiers. How about you? How are you keeping up with the games? Have any of the qualifiers stood out above the rest?

Click here for my ICYMI wrap-up of Regional Highlights!