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Everything you need to know about The International
The International is not just the biggest event in the world of Dota 2, it’s the biggest event in all of esports.
The amazing documentary Against All Odds, charting OG’s incredible victory at TI8, is coming first to Red Bull TV. Find out more here.
Dota 2’s annual championship, run every August by the game’s creators at Valve, is the jewel in the esports crown. Whoever lifts the trophy, the Aegis of Champions, will have their fortunes changed in an instant.
For most pro players, grinding a living playing the popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, which sees two teams of five players controlling different fantasy heroes face off across a large map in an attempt to destroy their opponents’ base, is hard. Salaries can be low, and prize winnings never guaranteed, but a win at TI is a ticket to the big time. Why? The answer: the fans.
Over the course of the eight Internationals that have taken place so far, over $100 million in prize money has been given away, which is considerably more than most esports have given away in their entire lifetimes. Legacies are cemented, superstars created and lives are changed when TI kicks off every year.
Who gets to play?
18, or some years 16, of the best Dota 2 teams in the world compete over a fortnight for the title of Champions of The International, and a share of the gigantic prize pool (This year’s tally has already passed $30 million, and is still growing).
In previous years Valve would extend invites to top teams and run qualifiers for a few final spaces. These days players are competing for an invite to the competition year round, with those that just miss out having to run the gauntlet of challenging regional qualifiers to even get a chance to play at TI. With so much money on the line now, it’s make or break: a bad season becomes a great one with a good TI, and a good season becomes worthless if you don’t make it.
How did The International start?
It all kicked off back in 2011, with the first International which took place at Gamescom, the largest games industry exhibition in Europe, in Cologne, Germany. Nestled between the hottest new games launching later that year, the small Dota 2 booth played home to the largest video game tournament ever, with a (still staggering) $1.6 million prize pool and 16 teams mostly made up of the best players from the original DotA mod from which Dota 2 emerged. At the time the game wasn’t even publicly available – even some of the teams competing only got access to the beta weeks before the tournament took place – but for developers Valve, this was how they introduced Dota 2 to the world. With a bang.
Ukrainian team Natus Vincere (NaVi) won TI1, taking home $1 million and a place in the history books as the first ever TI champions. They took down Chinese side EHOME in the grand final, starting a run of what would be three straight TI finals appearances from NaVi, but they never managed to lift the trophy for a second time. In fact no team, or even player, has ever managed to achieve that feat. Every single year a new organisation with five players who have never won TI have lifted the trophy, proving that Dota 2 is one of the most competitive games out there.
TI levels up
Following on from the massive success that was TI1, Valve decided to make some changes for the second version of The International. The Gamescom setting was gone and instead the event was held at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington. The 2,500 capacity concert venue in Seattle was the perfect place for TI. It was just down the road from Valve HQ, it allowed spectators to watch in comfort and the iconic set-up of the venue created some incredible visuals. Benaroya would go on to host TI3 as well, but soon the event outgrew the venue.
As TIs go TI2 is perhaps a little forgettable. Outside of the change in venue the tournament was very similar to the first one, with the same prize pool and format, so it’s easy to forget just how big of a deal it was at the time. Chinese side Invictus Gaming took home the trophy, beating NaVi in the final, and starting off a chain of alternating wins between East and West, with a western team winning every odd numbered TI and a Chinese team winning every even numbered TI, until western side OG won TI8, breaking the cycle.
Teams compete to hoist up the coveted Aegis of Champions
© Valve
Crowdsource to success
TI3 in 2013 on the other hand is without doubt the most iconic Dota tournament ever. Player numbers were skyrocketing, the production values were drastically ramped up and most importantly, the idea of crowdfunding the prize pool was added. Shortly before TI3 kicked off Valve added what was known as the compendium (since renamed to Battle Pass) to Dota 2 an in game item that players could buy with real money. A quarter of all sales was then added to the prize pool for TI, on top of the base $1.6 million Valve was putting in. Players embraced the idea, and by the end of the tournament, the prize pool was at a massive $2,874,380, smashing The International’s own record for the largest prize pool in esports.
The defining narrative of TI3 was the run of Alliance, a team that had only been formed months before but had quickly become one of the best teams in the world. They went on an impressive run at TI, and eventually found themselves in the final against NaVi, in what would become the most iconic Dota 2 match in history. Some of the most impressive Dota games in history resulted in the teams being tied at 2-2 heading into the final map. Then as things were coming to a close, the iconic “million dollar dream coil” play happened, where Alliance’s Gustav "s4" Magnusson managed to stop multiple teleports back to base using his hero’s dream coil move to secure the win for his team. In a matter of seconds he secured $1.4 million for his team, and sent the audience at Benaroya crazy. To this day it remains the most iconic moment in Dota history.
The hemispheres go head to head
After the highs of TI3 expectations were high for TI4, especially with a new home at the 17,000 seat KeyArena in Seattle. This was of course the biggest event yet, and the crowdfunding drive returned once again, this time with the Battle Pass offering up even more cosmetic items for players to use in game. Players went crazy for it and the total prize pool grew to a near unthinkable $10,923,977.
The final between eventual winners Newbee and fellow Chinese team ViCi Gaming was a tad underwhelming, but next year’s TI5 was a bounceback of epic proportions. Crowd favourite Evil Geniuses took the win after a crazy season that saw them pick up a totally unknown 16-year-old Pakistani player in the form of Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan, who turned out not just to be one of the greatest Dota rookies ever, but players period. Once again the prize pool skyrocketed, this time hitting $18,429,613. In the final, the five million dollar Echo Slam play from North American squad Evil Geniuses against the Chinese CDEC became another iconic moment in Dota history.
By the time TI6 rolled around the prize pool had broken the $20 million mark for the first time with a total of $20,770,460. This meant that the winning team, Wings Gaming from China, took home over $9 million between the five players, truly life changing money. Wings played a completely different style of Dota to anything we had ever seen before, and despite entering the tournament as underdogs they dominated everybody, in one of the most impressive TI wins of all time.
TI7 was the final event to be held at the KeyArena, or even in Seattle in general. By this point the mammoth crowdfunding drive was pretty much accepted as standard, with Valve finding more and more ways for fans to add their money to the prize pool. Increasing the level of your Battle Pass, which was easiest to do by spending more money, got you more in game items, which meant some people were putting in thousands of dollars, and Team Liquid benefited massively. Liquid became the winners of TI7, in the final year where winners alternated between East and West, becoming the first team to take home over two million dollars per player for winning.
OG are looking to make an iconic TI run again
© Valve
OG breaks the cycle
After visa issues continued to impact TI, Valve decided to move the eighth iteration a little further north to the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada for TI8 in 2018. Despite the venue change the event was still the premier event in all of esports, even if the increase in prize pool from the previous year was smaller, with the total coming in at $25,532,177. OG had come into the tournament as major underdogs, having to build almost an entirely new roster just months prior to the event that forced them to qualify through the open qualifiers. But once they made it to the event they went on a run we still can’t quite believe.
They reached the grand final, and then in a match that rivals the TI3 final, they managed to pull off the unthinkable and win, becoming the first ever team to win TI after qualifying through the open qualifiers, as well as breaking the cycle of East and West alternating winners. In the history of TI victories, this may have been the most impressive.
This year
This year for TI9 the action heads to Shanghai, China for the first time, becoming the first event since TI1 to take place outside of North America. The prize pool has already smashed last year's record and broken the $30 million mark. The line-up of teams is one of the strongest ever, the Chinese crowd is sure to be crazy and the game is in a great state. And of course OG will be there, complete with the same squad that won last year – a rare thing in the fast changing landscape of professional esports. It’s never easy to predict what will go down at TI, but this year looks set to be one of the best yet. Could OG break another cycle and become sophomore champions? We’ll soon see.
