The arenas might be different, the star players might change, and every year new teams will rise while others fall. But while many things change, one thing is constant: The International remains a chronicle of the same journey, following the best Dota team in the world as they conquer every obstacle, overcome every challenge, and carve their names into the Aegis.
The original TI was a five-day event, hosted on the show floor of GamesCom in Cologne. Valve has been hosting The International for more than a decade since, and every year we've learned new things — everything from booth design to sponsorships to specific details of tournament design. Every year we try to capture the best parts of prior decisions while looking for opportunities to try some variations that might work even better.
So, with tickets going on sale soon (details below), we wanted to walk you through this year's tournament format.
The Road to The International
We set out this year to create a structure such that every single match had stakes, and that those stakes were clear to the teams and the viewers. We wanted to do this without losing the massive amount of foundational, tournament-meta-defining games that fans of the group stage enjoy every year. And at the same time, the new format needed to avoid issues we've seen in previous years, where individual round robin games didn't matter at all, or only mattered to teams that weren't in the match.
This year, The Road to The International starts with a five-round Swiss bracket: Over the first three days, sixteen teams will play best-of-three matches against other teams with the same series record (a 2:0 team will face another 2:0 team, a 1:3 team will face another 1:3 team, etc.). A fourth series win will cause that team to automatically advance to The International; a fourth loss will cause that team to be eliminated.
After five rounds of Swiss, the three teams with four wins will have secured their spot in The International and the three teams with four losses will have been eliminated. The ten remaining teams will face-off in a special elimination round (strongest against weakest) with the five winners advancing to the International and the five losers being eliminated.
Swiss formats come with unique challenges, and we've taken special care to make sure fans can know in advance when their favorite teams are playing, and that no team with a winning record ever has to play two series in a row (including a last-game-of-the-night followed by a first-game-of-the-morning).
The Road to The International runs from Thursday, September 4th through Sunday, September 7th, including both the Swiss rounds and the following elimination rounds. In total, the Road to The International will eliminate eight of the sixteen invited teams and the other eight will advance to the arena for The International.
The International
The International starts Thursday, September 11th and runs in the arena for four days, culminating in the Grand Finals on Sunday, September 14th. The eight teams that advanced from The Road to The International will compete for the Aegis in Barclays Arena in front of thousands of fans.
All eight teams start in the upper bracket of a standard double-elimination bracket, seeded based on Road to the International performance (highest against lowest). All matches are best-of-three except for the Grand Finals, which are best-of-five.
Tickets
Single-day and multi-day bundle tickets for The International will go on sale on AXS starting 10am CEST, Tuesday, April 15th. We can't wait to see you there.
