Since 2011, Valve has been organizing an annual major tournament in Dota 2 championship called The International or TI. After founding Dota Major Championships last 2015, Valve is also hosting numerous events that include TI on its structure and has remained the most prestigious and biggest event on the circuit.
Now, The International Dota 2 championship is on its tenth edition, and the event is also called The International 10 or TI10. The Dota 2 International 2023 will be the concluding tournament of Dota Pro Circuit, a recently developed format of Valve which allows teams to drop players until the start of the finals Minor. This event is the first time since 2011 to be held back again in Europe.
Before we continue to discuss The International Dota 2 2023, let us also learn its history on how it became the most prestigious and biggest event on the online market.
- 2011 – This is the year The Dota International was established and was held in Cologne, Germany. It was shown during the trade show of Gamescom, a trades fair for video games, to gather worldwide attention. The main highlight of this event was its prize pool worth of $1.6 million, where 16 teams were challenged to compete for the title and win $1 million as the champion. The winner of this event was Na’Vi or Natus Vincere.
- 2012 – The event’s location was moved to Seattle, Washington, and the prize pool remained at $1.6 million. There are only 14 teams invited to play, and was added two additional awards for the winners of the regional qualifiers round. The winner of this event was iG or Invictus Gaming.
- 2013 – This year was the start of the Dota 2 community’s ability to contribute to the prize pool. A total of $2.8 million was gathered as its prize for the year’s event and have Alliance or [A] as its winner.
- 2014 – From the last prize pool, it grew into $10 million because of the Dota 2 community. The winner of this year’s event was Newbee.
- 2015 – With the continuous rise of the Dota 2 community, the prize pool of this year reached $18 million and got EG or Evil Geniuses as its winner.
- 2016 – Held on August 2-13, 2016, the event got a prize pool of $20 million with Wings Gaming as its winner.
- 2017 – From 2012 until 2017, Dota International reached a prize pool of $24 million and got Team Liquid as the winner.
- 2018 – With 6 years straight location in Seattle, Dota international moved to Vancouver with total prize money of $25 million and got OG as its winner.
- 2019 – Hailed as the largest prize money for esports tournaments, it reached $34 million as its prize money and got OG again as the winner.
The International Dota 2 Championship And Dota 2 International Schedule
The International 10 is the 10th edition of Dota 2’s largest annual championship. Valve Corporation is still its host. It was announced to be held at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden, before the global Covid19 pandemic occurs and was declared for a postponement or delay. Live in-game or replay videos can usually be streamed on DotaTV or Steam. There are still no exact dates of when the competition will resume, but it was announced to be in the year 2023. However, as with most of The International event, the same schedule and format below are likely to be followed.
Open Qualifiers
This is the first event where the game is open to all teams. A single-elimination will be done, and the winners from each region will be the ones to advance in the regional qualifiers.
Main Qualifiers
All remaining teams from six (6) regions, namely from North America, South America, China, Europe, CIS, and Southeast Asia, will compete in this event. The winners from each region are only the ones given to advance in the main event.
Group Stage
This event will compose of two groups with nine teams each. The elimination will be done through the best of two Round Robin, where four top teams from each group can advance to the upper bracket in the main event while the bottom team gets eliminated in each group. The remaining 4 teams in each group will advance to the lower bracket of the main event.
Main Event
This is the last and most exciting part. This event will consist of 16 teams and will implement double elimination with 8 teams divided into each upper and lower bracket. The first lower bracket game is best of one, and the remaining are played in best of three. After that, the best of five games will be played in the grand finals.
Dota 2 International 2023 Prize Pool And Promotional Items
Last 2019, a total of $34 million was gathered by Valve and the Dota community for its prize pool. Although there is no exact Dota 2 International schedule, as of this time, a total of $40 million has already reached the Dota 2 International 2023 prize pool, notwithstanding the delay of the event.
Most of the money granted during the event is gathered through a few in-game items delivered by Valve, including The International 10 Battle Pass, a digital tournament pass, and bundle features connected to the event that includes numerous activities and cosmic items. Below are some promotional items that can be bought in the market. The chances to get these items are divided into 4 categories, namely regular, rare, very rare, and ultra-rare.
- The Immortal Treasure I 2023 – Under regular items are Arcanic Resonance Beam, Shadow of the Dark Age, Warden of the Hellborn, Dark Maw Inhibitor, Prominence, Fate of Hydrophiinae. Blossoms of the Merry Wanderer is under rare chance, Golden Shadow of the Dark Age and Golden Dark Maw Inhibitor are under very rare chances, and The Abscesserator Bundle is under the ultimate rare.
- The Immortal Treasure II 2023 – Under regular chance items you could get are Vigil Odyssey, Eyes of Ardenok, Fin of the First Spear, Scale of Bitter Spoil, Awaleb’s Trundleweeb, and Aspect of Oscilla. Under rare chance is Pyrexaec Forge, very rare are Golden Awaleb’s Trundleweeb and Golden Fin of the First Spear, and ultra-rare is Dipper the Destroyer Bundle. You also have the chance to get this cosmically rare item called Emblem of Divinity.
- The Immortal Treasure III 2023
- Trust of the Benefactor 2023
- The International 10 Collector’s Cache
- The International 10 Collector’s Cache II
Above are some of the many items you can get by purchasing the promotional items. With Valve’s only base prize pool of $1.6 million, the contributed prize pool of the Dota community, including its battle pass and bundle features as of the moment, already reaches a total of $38 million, hence having a total of $40 million. In the meantime, Valve released a statement that they are working on restructuring the DPC season for the fall and will be providing more information as soon as they have it.
It is said that the 10th Dota 2 International 2023 prize pool will be funded by 25% of sales of the next Battle Pass, which they plan to release sooner instead of closer to the schedule of the event itself. However, Valve officials also plead to its constituents that since their team is also working from home and things take longer to complete, the release date is at least later than a couple of weeks than the usual release of Battle Pass. And so, Valve hopes everyone in the Dota community is staying as safe as possible and look forward to a time when we can once again welcome everyone to enjoy the spectacle of the Dota 2 International schedule.
