Hello LD2Lers! I apologize for the long wait. First off, a quick announcement on the MMR cap. Due to the changes introduced by the Glicko system the cap has been increased to 4000 MMR. Secondly signups are finally open for Season 17!

The proposed schedule is as follows:

• Dec 17th - Draft Day
• Dec 24th - Off for Christmas
• Dec 31th - Off for New Years
• Jan 7th - Week 1
• Jan 14th - Week 2
• Jan 21th - Week 3
• Jan 28th - Week 4
• Feb 4th - Week 5
• Feb 11th - Off for Super Bowl
• Feb 18th - Week 6
• Feb 25th - Week 7
• March 3rd - Playoffs Begin

If you have any questions or concerns drop me an @

Signups are now open for Season 12. Games will continue to be played on Sundays at 5 PM EST. The calendar schedule will be:

• Nov. 7th - Captains Draft their teams
• Nov. 14th - Week 1
• Nov. 21st - Week 2
• Nov. 28th - Thanksgiving break
• Dec. 5th - Week 3
• Dec. 12th - Week 4
• Dec. 19th - Week 5
• Dec. 26th - Christmas break
• Jan. 2nd - New Year's break
• Jan. 9th - Week 6
• Jan. 16th - Week 7
• Jan. 23rd - Playoffs begin

Just like the seasons prior, we will have a 3500 mmr cap, and teams of 5. We will be capping the number of teams this season to either 12 or 14, depending on signups, and revert back to an 8 team playoff format. In addition, since this schedule includes a few extra breaks, during the holidays, we may try to get together some mini-events on some of these break weeks, which are still being discussed. If you have any questions about signing up, please feel free to ask in the Discord.

Signups are now open for Season 11. Games will continue to be played on Sundays at 5 PM EST. The calendar schedule will be:

June 27th - Captains Draft their teams July 11th - Week 1 July 18th - Week 2 July 25th - Week 3 Aug 1st - Week 4 Aug 8th - Week 5 Aug 15th - TI Finals break Aug 22nd - Week 6 Aug 29th - Week 7 Sept 12th - Playoffs begin

It's finally here, season 11!! This season we will have a hard cap of 3500 MMR, just like last season. We'll continue with the 5 man teams, which we all think went really well. If you have any questions about signing up, please feel free to ask in the Discord.

Signups are now open for Season 10. Games will continue to be played on Sundays at 5 PM EST. The calendar schedule will be:

• Feb 21st - Captains Draft their teams
• Feb 28th - Week 1
• Mar 7th - Week 2
• Mar 14th - Week 3
• Mar 21st - Week 4
• Mar 28th - Week 5
• Apr 4th - Easter
• Apr 11th - Week 6
• Apr 18th - Week 7
• Apr 25th - Playoffs begin

This season all signups will be done under the same link, with a hard cap of 4000 MMR. After we see the MMR distribution of the sign ups, we will make a final decision on how the division split will be handled. This will allow us to have enough players for both divisions. If you have any questions about signing up, please feel free to ask in the Discord.

Signups are now open for Season 9. Games will continue to be played on Sundays at 5 PM EST. The calendar schedule will be:

• Oct 4th - Draft
• Oct 11th - Scrim Week (Maple Thanksgiving)
• Oct 18th - Week 1
• Oct 25th - Week 2
• Nov 1st - Week 3
• Nov 8th - Week 4
• Nov 15th - Week 5
• Nov 22nd/Nov 29th - Week 6 (Thanksgiving)
• Dec 6th -Week 7
• Dec 13th - Playoffs begin

Like last season, we will be having two divisions separated by MMR. The regular LD2L division is for players below 3000 MMR, with some potential leeway given, by the admins, for those slightly above the cap. LD2L Masters is for players between 3000 and 4000 MMR, with subjective leeway given for those within 500 MMR of the cap or floor. If you have any questions about signing up, please feel free to ask in the Discord.

Signups are now open for Season 7. Games will continue to be played on Sundays at 5 PM EST. The calendar schedule will be:

• Friday, January 24th - Signups End
• Sunday, January 26th - Player draft
• Sunday, February 2nd - Week 1
• Sunday, February 9th - Week 2
• Sunday, February 16th - Week 3
• Sunday, February 23rd - Week 4
• Sunday, March 1st - Week 5
• Sunday, March 8th - Week 6
• Sunday, March 15th - Week 7
• Sunday, March 22nd - Playoffs Week 1
• Sunday, March 29th - Playoffs Week 2
• Sunday, April 5th - Grand Finals

As usual, inhousese will be available to introduce new players. Additionally we will try to gather daily from now to draft around 8 or 9 PM EST to play inhouses or pubs with new and returning players in a format that may be more familiar to season 0/1/2.

Pod racing has been removed, so we are moving the normal season up slightly. This makes it easier to work around holidays and still finish before the end of the year.

• Friday, Oct. 4th: Signups End
• Sunday, Oct. 6th: Captains draft teams
• Sunday, Oct. 13th: Week 0 games
• Sundays, Oct. 20th, 27th, Nov. 3, 10th: Regular season matches
• Sundays, Nov. 17th, 24th: Playoffs Weeks 1 and 2
• Sunday, Dec. 1st: Thanksgiving Sunday, no games
• Sunday, Dec. 8th: Lower division finals, Masters all star game
• Sunday, Dec. 15th: Masters finals, lower division all star game
• Sunday, Dec. 22nd: Sunday before Christmas

As mentioned before, 5 inhouse games (including previously played pod racing games) are required to sign up for the league.

We've collected end of season feedback and ignored most of it as we prepare for the next season. Season six will feature several notable format changes compared to previous LD2L seasons:

1. Pre-season inhouses are now optional, but remain encouraged. The inhouse leaderboard has been reset for season six and the website queue is now live.
2. The season is being reorganized into two connected halves, incorporating pre-season activities directly:
   • Pod Racing - For the first half of the season, everyone will play pod games as discussed below on Sundays at the usual time.
   • Regular Season - For the second half of the season, players will be broken into draft pools as before (masters and regular LD2L), draft teams, and play a shorter Swiss-style tournament to generate playoff seeds, which is discussed further below.
3. We're replacing the vouching process with a new system where players should bring concerns about new (or existing) community members to their pod moderator or the admins in private. By default, new signups will be allowed to participate in the pre-season mixers and join the draft list automatically, but if their behavior is disruptive or breaks the posted rules, they may be removed before draft day.

Pod Racing

The biggest change this season is the introduction of pod racing. Signups will be assigned to one of four player pods, each run by a pod moderator (poderator) with the goal of creating role and MMR balanced player pools. These pods will play against each other in a "meet style" event each weekend where the poderator will create and rank teams to play against their corresponding teams from the opposing pod in a best-of-2 series. For example, with 40 signups, each pod would have ten players. These ten players would then be organized into two teams, numbered 1 and 2 by MMR or perceived skill, and then play against the matching 1 and 2 teams from another pod in two simultaneous best-of-2s. The pods will score points equal to the total number of games won.

The pod racing will continue for six weeks, so each pairing of pods will play twice, and the final winning pod (PodChamp) will be the one that has the most points over the entire season. The pods will form as many teams each week as they have available players (+1 team for each 5 players that join). When the pods do not have enough players to form another full team, the leftovers will form a built-in standin pool for their pod and are expected to show up on Sunday. These players are encouraged to play inhouses, cast games, or do something else during game time to get to know one another and the rest of the league..

The goal of the pod season is to create an opportunity for new players to meet and get to know each other and veterans alike before the player draft, while alleviating some of the common complaints about inhouses. Consistent pod attendance shows that a player is dedicated to playing at the standard game time on Sunday, and the replacement of the vouching system streamlines the new player experience, as we will focus on removing bad players rather than whitelisting good players.

Regular Season

A Swiss pairing system for 16 teams can determine the top overall seed in only 4 weeks, rather than the 7 weeks that we have played in the past. With pod racing taking more time, we are reducing the length of the normal season to just 4 weeks to determine the playoff seeds, and the top 8 teams in each division will advance to a three week, single elimination playoff bracket as usual.

MMR and Divisions

Currently we're planning on keeping the same MMR cap and division structure as in season 5 for the regular season portion (only the MMR cap affects pods, which will remain at 4k), but we're still working out the precise details for division separation and the draft.

Signups

Signups for the pod season, which is required to participate in the regular season, will open in the coming days. The final schedule will be posted at the same time, but the season is expected to run roughly from September 1st through mid December.

Welcome to all of our new players for Season 5 of LD2L, and welcome back to all of our veteran League Players!

The draft pools for Season 5 will be set on Friday, May 3. In order to be added to the draft pool you must:

1. Be signed up for an appropriate division for your MMR (LD2L is 0-3K; Masters is 2.5-4K)
2. Provide a link to a current screenshot of your MMR that includes your account name, badge, and both MMRs (i.e. a full-width shot of your ingame stats page)
3. Have public match history turned on and visible via Dotabuff/OpenDota
4. Play at least 5 games in our preseason inhouse league.
5. Be vouched by a veteran LD2L player.

You can check all of these things here on the website. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with one of the League Admins via Discord.

The upcoming season will feature a few notable changes that we're excited to announce.

First off, we're transitioning to using the highest of players' party and solo MMR instead of badges for our drafts. Accordingly, players will need to provide a full page screenshot of their in-client stats page when signing up.

Secondly, the primary Learn Dota 2 League will now be capped at 3000 MMR to better accommodate the tier of players for which the league was originally made. We believe the influx of ~3k+ players has greatly decreased the quality of matches for many of our sub 3k userbase. That said, we would also like to allow the higher MMR segment of our community to continue enjoying the LD2L experience, so we are now introducing the LD2L: Masters division for players between 2500 and 4000 MMR. We understand mmr is not always accurate due to both flaws inherent in the system and intentional abuse and thus will exercise our discretion above it. Although we will be generally use the predetermined mmr cap to determine who can and cannot play in the Masters division, we may in some cases find it necessary to disallow a player from participating if we believe their skill level is inappropriate for the league, even if they are below the cap. In extraordinary cases, players whose MMR is above the cap may be allowed to play if it is determined both that their skill level is not inappropriate for the league and they are a good fit for the community. Finally, you may have noticed that the floor for the Masters division is lower than the cap for the primary league. If a player falls within that 500 MMR range, they may choose to register for either or both divisions. When players select the latter option, the admin team will look to place them in the division that best facilitates overall playerbase balance.

Look forward to more announcements about the upcoming season over the next week and, as always, feel free to ping us incessantly with questions you may have.