Hosted and produced by Valve, The International is an annual Esports world championship of the prolific game, DOTA 2.
The tournament consists of 18 teams of which 12 earn a direct invite based on their results from a series known as Dota Pro Circuit and six from winning regional qualifying playoff brackets. The playoff brackets include the regions of North America, South America, China, Europe, South East Asia and the CIS region. The International has been a major success and has attracted a plethora of gamers and fans to its lucrative tournament. Since 2011, it has been held every single year. The sought after Aegis of Champions trophy is the trophy which is awarded to the champions of an International. The backside has the permanent engravings of the winners of the competition.
THE INTERNATIONAL 1
The inaugural edition of the event was held in Gamescom in Cologne and since then it has been held once every year. This was the time when the game was unveiled to the outside world. Initially, it didn’t receive a massive response, not because the game was poorly developed but because only selected people were allowed into the early beta. The first event was held in Koelnmesse, Cologne from the 17th to the 21st of August with a whopping prize pool of $1,600,000.
GROUP STAGE
The group stage of the TI 1 witnessed the 16 teams getting divided into teams of 4. It was a best of one series, where the top 2 teams from each group went to the Winner’s bracket R1 and the bottom 2 teams went to the Loser’s bracket R2.
PLAYOFFS
The 16 teams were divided into winners bracket and losers bracket. The consolidation final was best of three, while the finals were best of five. Both the teams, NaVi and EHOME waded through ups and downs throughout the length of the tournament, to ultimately reach the finals of this coveted tournament.
The Finale
The inaugural edition was won by Ukraine’s Natus Vincere(NaVi). The final was played between NaVi and China’s EHOME, with NaVi winning the series 3-1. EHOME took home $250,000, with the rest 14 teams splitting the remaining $350,000.
Thus, with such lucrative prize money, The International did attract a lot of fans and players and once again reassured everyone that e-sports can still be taken up as a career option. The International 1 organized in 2011 became a landmark moment in history and an ice-breaker in terms of organizing such high-profile tournaments with so much money involved.
Read Dota 2 Remembering The International 2 (TI 2012) for Dota 2. Remembering The International 3 (TI 2013) on Myesportsglobe.
Dota 2 Remembering The International 4 here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 5 here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 6 here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 7 here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 8 here
Dota 2 Remembering The International 9 here
