The Basics of The International

The International takes place once per year and the location is different each time. Until 2018, every edition took place in Seattle, USA, because that’s where Valve Corporation, the developer of Dota 2, has its headquarters. But after a while, Valve decided to popularize its game by organizing The International in places like Canada, China, and even Romania.

The International Participants

The International features 18 teams. This has been the standard number of participants for quite a long time and it will likely continue to stay this way for the forseeable future. The teams are selected based on merit.

12 of them come from the Dota Pro Circuit and are invited because they’ve earned the highest number of points. This circuit takes place in 6 regions around the globe: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Southeast Asia, and China. The best teams from every region qualify for Major tournaments and earn qualification points. At the end of the circuit, the top 12 teams get direct invitations to The International.

The remaining 6 teams come from the TI Qualifiers. These qualifiers take place in each of the 6 official regions and the winner of each tournament goes to the big event.

Overall, the process is extremely thorough and guarantees that The International is the best Dota 2 tournament of the year. So far, every time we had the opportunity to see something special. And this yearly event started in 2011.

TI Format and Details

The International generally takes place at the end of Summer. It lasts for 11 days and is divided into 2 stages: Groups and Playoffs.

The Group Stage consists of 2 groups. In each of these groups, 9 teams compete for the opportunity to start the Playoffs in the Upper Bracket. They also compete to avoid elimination, because the 9th place competitor leaves the race at the end of this stage. The 5th – 8th place teams advance to the Lower Bracket of the Main Event. But that’s also an unpleasant situation, simply because in the Lower Bracket, the first round of the Playoffs matches uses the Bo1 format.

The Playoffs of The International uses the double-elimination format. 8 teams start in the Upper Bracket while the other 8 start in the Lower Bracket. With the exception of the first round of the Lower Bracket (Bo1) and the Grand Final (Bo5), every match is a Bo3 series.

The Group Stage lasts for 4 days and the matches take place in parallel, on 4 Twitch streams. This means that you will need at least 2 monitors if you want to bet on as many games as possible. After this stage ends, there’s one break day and then the Playoffs Stage begins. This 2nd stage of the tournament lasts for 6 days. The Lower Bracket Final and the Grand Final take place on the last day.

How to Bet on The International

Every esports betting site covers The International thoroughly. But some Dota 2 gambling websites do a better job than others, in the sense that they provide a lot more Dota 2 betting markets for every single match. So instead of being limited to just a few of them, you get to bet on dozens of aspects of the game. For example:

• Game winner: If the match is Bo3, you can bet on the individual games as well. This is even more important for the Group Stage matches, which are Bo2 and can end in a draw. If you don’t want to take the risk of predicting the result of the entire match, you can take a smaller risk by predicting the outcome of a single game.
• First Blood: You can predict which team will get First Blood or the first kill of the game.
• First Roshan: You can predict which team will be the first to kill Roshan, or the dragon that sits inside the cave from the river.
• First Tower: You can predict which team will be the first to destroy one of its opponent’s towers.
• First Barracks: This type of Dota 2 betting option gives you the chance to predict which team will be the first to destroy a Melee or a Ranged Barracks of its opponent.
• Below / Under: If you think the match will last less or more than a given number of minutes, or if you think it will have less or more than a given number of hero kills, you can use this Dota 2 betting market to your advantage.
• Handicaps: For Bo3 matches, you can predict that a team will either win with a score of 2 – 0 (-1.5 maps handicap) or win at least one game (+1.5 maps handicap).

Finding a Great Dota 2 Betting Site

If you want to bet on The International, make sure you’ve signed up ahead of time on one of the top Dota 2 betting sites, such as Rivalry, Betway, and Arcanebet. These sites offer you substantial welcome bonuses upon registering and making your first deposit. On top of that, they are fully regulated and provide exceptional services to esports bettors from around the world. Their features include:

• A large number of payment methods
• A beautiful and intuitive UI/UX
• A highly secure platform
• Excellent odds
• A huge number of esports and esports betting markets
• Live betting
• The ability to withdraw your money quickly, at any given time