Captains Draft announced as Minor with finals in Washington, D.C.

Captains Draft 4.0, a unique tournament held by Dota Cinema in conjunction with Moonduck Studios, has been announced as a Valve Minor. There will also be a LAN finals held in Washington, D.C., taking place January 4-7, 2018, the first-ever LAN for this event.

The Captains Draft event is named after the official game mode available for Dota 2 players, which is utilized instead of the traditional Captains Mode. In this drafting style, instead of the full roster, seven heroes of each attribute (Strength, Agility and Intelligence) are randomly made available for a total of 27. Each team bans three and then draft lineups from those remaining.

In the past, Captains Draft has featured plenty of tier-one teams; in its 2016 iteration, participating orgs included Liquid, Virtus Pro and Evil Geniuses. It also offered monetary prizes, with over $120,000 in the purse for the prior event.

Now, with Valve sponsorship, that prize will nearly triple, and the finals will be held as a LAN event, as opposed to the prior online finals that teams would participate in. The prize pool will also be a minimum of $300,000, though it’s unknown if Moonduck and Dota Cinema will be able to crowdfund again this year.