The International is an annual Esports competition to identify the best Dota 2 team in the world. The International 8 was the eighth iteration of the coveted competition, which took place from 20th Aug 2018 to 25th Aug 2018. It took place in Rogers Arena, Vancouver, Canada. This was the first time the tournament was held on Canadian soil.
How does the The International work?
1. Team Selection
Now the tournament consists of 16 teams out of which 14 of them are invited on the basis of their rankings in the Dota Pro Circuit and 2 of them are selected through the Eastern and the Western Qualifiers.
2. Preliminary Round
16 teams are placed in 2 groups of 8 teams each. Each team plays with every other team in their group twice. The top 4 from each group go into the Winners Bracket and the bottom 4 from each group go to the Losers Bracket.
3. Main Event
All rounds of the Winners Bracket, except for the grand finals, are Bo3. Rounds 1 through 4 of the Losers Bracket are Bo1. The last two rounds of the Losers Bracket are Bo3. The winner of the Losers Bracket will face the winner of the Winners Bracket in the grand finals in a Bo5 in order to determine the champion
The International 8 Dota 2
Group Stage
The group stage round was played from 15th August to 18th August. It witnessed the formation of two groups consisting of all the 18 members(9 in each group). With 13 wins and 3 losses, Team Liquid topped group A while VGJ. Storm topped Group B with 12 wins and 4 losses. The top four teams qualified to the upper bracket while the bottom five teams went to the lower bracket.
Main event
In the upper bracket matches of the main event, Team Liquid lost to PSG.LSD to crash out of the upper bracket in the semi-finals. It indeed was a shocking defeat, as Team Liquid were the outright favourites. In the finals of upper bracket, OG defeated PSG.LSD by a margin of 1 game to book a place in the final. PSG.LSD got a second chance to qualify in the lower bracket finals. They defeated Evil Geniuses to qualify for the finals.
Finals
The best-of-five grand finals took place between OG and PSG.LGD, with OG winning the series 3–2. While PSG.LGD earned an direct invite to the tournament by finishing third in the 2017–2018 Dota Pro Circuit standings, OG earned theirs by playing through and winning the European open qualifiers, which they were required to do per tournament rules. OG took away the lucrative prize money of $11 million.
