League Of Legends Season Two Prize Dwarfs Valve's $1 Million Dota 2 Tourney

Riot Games announced this morning that the second season of competitive League of Legends play will feature the largest total prize chest in all of e-sports. The $5 million pool more than one-ups the million-dollar Dota 2 tourney happening at GamesCom this week, though to be fair you're comparing a week-long tournament to a full season of play.

Rather than make one pro team millionaires, the Season Two warchest will hook up local, national, and international tournaments with varying amounts of prize money.

League of Legends Season One lasted for almost a full year, starting last July and culminating with the $100,000 grand finals held at Dreamhack in June. The game's popularity has exploded over the last year, of which Riot's announcement of the Season Two prize money is an emphatic affirmation.

Season Two starts this fall. Riot has yet to say whether the new Dominion gametype will feature in it. Variants in the Dota-alike subgenre have traditionally failed to gain any traction within the community, and it'll be interesting to see if Dominion breaks the trend or falls by the wayside like LoL's own 3v3 map.