It’s the finale for the ESL’s DreamLeague series this year as DreamLeague Season 26 is the last tournament on the ESL Pro Tour (EPT) 2025. Finally, our Dota 2 teams and perhaps fans alike, can catch a quick break for the year because it’s been tournament after tournament since the beginning!
DreamLeague Season 26 (Image credit: ESL)
If you’re bored of watching yet another DreamLeague tournament, well catch this last one too from May 19 – June 1 at ESL’s official Twitch channel, where the live broadcasts are available.
Much like its predecessors, DreamLeague S26 features a standard tournament format. The Group Stage 1 has two single round-robin groups of eight teams each, where each series is best-of-two. Only the top four teams from each group advances to Group Stage 2. Here, one single round-robin group of the remaining eight teams unfolds. This time, all matches are best-of-three to really bring out the top eight teams’ best strategies and performances.
The top two seeds from Group Stage 2 will advance to the upper bracket of Playoffs, while third and fourth place teams can still compete in the lower bracket. The rest are eliminated at fifth-eighth place finishes.
Finally, the Playoff is brief, but stakes are much higher among the top-four teams. It’s a double elimination bracket, where each match is best-of-three, except for the best-of-five grand final.
As we prevail into the mid-season of the year, we have familiar faces competing at DreamLeague Season 26, like in recent tournaments. The four Dota 2 teams that received direct invites to DreamLeague S26 are PARIVISION, BetBoom Team, Team Falcons and Team Liquid. These teams make up the top-four on EPT Leaderboard, except for Team Liquid, which received the invite after Team Spirit declined their direct invite .
The other participating Dota 2 teams qualified via their respective regional qualifiers:
It’s a shame that the former champions of the DreamLeague series, Team Spirit, is absent to defend their title. They have declined their invite and withdrawn from DreamLeague S26, likely to catch a break before other upcoming big tournaments in 2025.
This is a common practice many pro players and teams have been onboard due to the stress and exhaustion from frequent tournaments. Many even opted to ‘retire’ from the pro scene to rest.
PARIVISION has become an absolute powerhouse of a Dota 2 team since their debut. From winning top-four at DreamLeague S24 and S25 to most recently, winning ESL Raleigh 2025 altogether. All these accomplishments place PARIVISION at the top of EPT Leaderboard by a huge margin to its rivals. With these feats, PARIVISION is the fan favorite going into DreamLeague Season 26 for all the good reasons.
Led by veteran player, Volodymyr “No[o]ne-” Minenko, fans are calling PARIVISION his second forthcoming of success. With his impressive leadership, coupled with a dream team of prodigies, PARIVISION is the last team anyone anticipated to be the strongest Dota 2 team in 2025.
PARISION may be the team with highest points on EPT Leaderboard on paper. However, we wouldn’t count these teams out of DreamLeague Season 26 just yet. Notably, Team Liquid, BetBoom Team and Tundra Esports are excellent teams that can surely give PARIVISION a run for their money. These teams are consistent throughout the season with frequent top three finishes in multiple tournaments, such as PGL Wallachia S3, BLAST Slam I and FISSURE PLAYGROUND 1.
Another honorable mention is Team Falcons, which has done relatively good, but fallen off recently at PGL Wallachia S4 . Let’s hope that this team resolves their issues and come back stronger than ever at DreamLeague S26.
All in all, DreamLeague S26 is your typical million-dollar tournament, brought to you by the folks at ESL. Let’s enjoy one last hurrah before the Esports World Cup 2025 .
