BTS Pro Series: Teams, schedule, prize pool, format, and how to watch

Fasten your seatbelts, Dota 2 esports fans. Beyond the Summit (BTS) has announced the BTS Pro Series, featuring some of the top teams in the North American, South American, and Southeast Asia regions.

The BTS Pro Series kicks off later this week, on 10th April 2020, and will run until 26th April 2020, with two grand finals to look forward to. Here's everything you need to know about the BTS Pro Series.

What is BTS Pro Series?

The BTS Pro Series is hosted by Beyond the Summit in collaboration with Loot.bet and Monster Energy. There are two tournaments, both of which will be played entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This online league features a Southeast Asia (SEA) tournament, as well as a South/North America tournament. They will be played on the same dates, and for Dota 2 esports fans, it is the perfect distraction from lockdown woes.

Evil Geniuses (EG) could be considered the favourites going into the BTS Pro Series for the South/North America tournament. EG recently won the ESL Los Angeles regional league for North America.

Joining them as another favourite is Beastcoast. The team has been on a rampage, easily claiming the ESL Los Angeles South America regional league title last week.

In the BTS Pro Series SEA tournament, Fnatic stands out as the favourites, followed by TNC Predator, and Team Adroit, who recently showed they have what it takes to compete against top teams.

What is the format?

The group stages of both BTS Pro Series tournaments will have a round-robin format. All matches are best-of-three. Teams in each region will be placed into one group of eight. 

The top four teams will advance to the upper bracket of the playoffs. The bottom two teams in the group will be eliminated, while the 5th and 6th place teams will advance to the lower bracket of the playoffs.

All matches in the playoffs for the BTS Pro Series will be best-of-three, with the exception of the grand finals, which is best-of-five. The playoffs feature a double-elimination bracket.

Which teams are playing?

All teams in the BTS Pro Series received direct-invites. There are eight teams per region who will fight it out in over two weeks of Dota 2 action.

South/North America league:

• Evil Geniuses
• Quincy Crew
• Cr4zy
• Cloud9
• Business Associates
• Beastcoast
• FURIA Esports
• Thunder Predator

Southeast Asia league:

• Fnatic
• TNC Predator
• Team Adriot
• BOOM Esports
• Geek Fam
• CR
• T1
• Reality Rift

The BTS Pro Series teams (Picture: Beyond the Summit)

What is the prize pool?

The total prize pool for BTS Pro Series is $100,000. This is split between the two tournaments, so SEA gets $50,000 and NA/SA gets $50,000. The prize pool distribution for the BTS Pro Series (per region) is as follows:

• 1st place - $21,000
• 2nd place - $11,000
• 3rd place - $6,500
• 4th place - $4,500
• 5th to 6th place - $2,250
• 7th to 8th place - $1,150

What is the schedule?

The group stages for both BTS Pro Series tournaments are scheduled to run between 10th and 22nd April 2020. After the completion of the group stages, the playoffs will run from 23rd to 26th April 2020.

There will be two grand finals on 26th April, one for the SEA tournament, and one for the South/North tournament. 

Start time for each day of the group stages for the American region is 21:00 (GMT+1). For the SEA region, the start time for each day is 08:00 (GMT+1).

Due to the two tournament being played in different time zones, you should be able to watch both without much overlapping.

How can I watch the BTS Pro Series?

Two official streams for the BTS Pro Series has been announced so far. You can watch all the action from both the group stages and playoffs on the following two Twitch.tv channels.

• Beyond the Summit main channel
• Beyond the Summit channel 2

For additional information about the BTS Pro Series, head to their official website.