The International 2015 was the 5th edition of the annual event of DOTA 2 hosted and organised by Valve Corporation, the developer of the game. The tournament featured one of the biggest Prize Pools for any Esports tournament amounting up to a whopping $18 Million. The qualifiers started in May 2015 and the tournament ended in August with the key event taking place at KeyArena (Now known as NewArena) in Seattle. How successful the edition was can be found out by the fact that the tickets were sold in a mere 5 minutes in March way before it was even decided what teams were playing.
How does the tournament work?
Apart from the 10 teams that are invited the rest 6 are chosen by the method given below
Selection Process
- Open Qualifiers– Open to all the teams. This round featured a single elimination strategy. The winner then proceeded to the regional qualifiers.
- Regional Qualifiers– This consisted of 4 regions with each region having 10 teams. Again featuring single elimination matches, The winner advanced to the main event where as the runner up advanced to the wild card series.
- Wild card series– 4 runners up from each of the 4 regions compete in a best of 3 match series and the top 2 proceed to the Main event
The teams selected were:-
- CompLexity Gaming
- MVP.Hot6ix
- EHOME
- Natus Vincere
- CDEC Gaming
- MVP Phoenix
Dota 2 The International 5
Preliminary Round/Group Stage
16 Teams are divided into 2 groups of 8 and a round robin format is followed. At the end of the round Top4 from each group advance to the winners bracket while the bottom 4 advance to the loser bracket.
Main Round
16 teams, double elimination. 8 teams begin in the upper bracket, 8 in the lower bracket. First lower bracket game is best of one, others are best of three. Grand finals are best of five.
The enormous amount of the prize pool added a lot of pressure on the teams and it could be clearly seen in the game play. The tournament involved a lot of surprises involving different teams and kept the fans on the edge the whole time.
The Grand Finale
The finals between Evil Geniuses and CDEC gaming was a full packed game. The finale was a best of 5 and just as the drama ensured, the 1st game bagged by EG was followed by the second game being won by CDEC. But then there was a surprise turn of events as EG went on to win the next 2 consecutive games and also the tournament.
One could almost feel the adrenaline in the air with all the shouting and cheering going on.
On Myesportsglobe we have covered the all the TI. Check the link below:
Dota 2 Remembering The International 1 (TI 2011) here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 2 (TI 2012) here
for Dota 2. Remembering The International 3 (TI 2013) here.
Dota 2 Remembering The International 4 (TI 2014) here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 5 (TI 2015) here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 6 (TI 2016) here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 7 (TI 2017) here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 8 (TI 2018) here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 9 here
