Dota 2's The International 2023 will be held in Seattle this October
This marks the first time since 2017 that Dota 2's world championship tournament will be hosted in Seattle.
Dota 2 developer Valve Software announced on Sunday (7 May) that The International 2023 (TI 2023), this year's iteration of the game's annual world championship tournament, will be hosted in Seattle, the United States in October.
TI 2023 will be held in Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena from 14 to 29 October and features a revamped format similar to last year's tournament, which was held in Singapore.
Valve said in its announcement that TI 2023 will have a revamped format featuring two main stages: a preliminary stage called 'The Road to the International' followed by the tournament's main event.
While the developer has yet to reveal the full details on this new format, it seems very similar to that followed by last year's tournament.
While TI 2022 in Singapore had two main stages, the Group Stage and the Playoffs, the latter was split into phases.
The first phase of the TI 2022 Playoffs featured the 16 Playoff-qualified teams playing through the first two rounds of the upper bracket and four rounds of the lower bracket.
On the other hand, the second phase only featured the Top 4 teams playing through the upper bracket finals, lower bracket semifinals, lower bracket finals, and the Grand Finals.
The TI 2022 Playoffs were also hosted in two venues, with the first phase held in Suntec Singapore while the second phase took place in the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Aside from its revamped format, TI 2023 will also see the tournament's return to Seattle in six years. From 2012 to 2017, TI was held in Key Arena near Valve's headquarters in Bellevue.
Since the last time TI was held in Seattle, the tournament has been held in Vancouver, Canada; Shanghai, China; Bucharest, Romania; and Singapore.
TI is also known as the biggest tournament in all of esports in terms of prize pool, which regularly reaches tens of millions of dollars in winnings. TI 2022 had a prize pool of US$18.9 million, with champions Tundra Esports claiming the grand prize of US$8.5 million.
The biggest TI by far was TI 2021 in Bucharest, which had a whopping US$40 million prize pool. Team Spirit claimed the grand prize of US$18 million.
TI 2023 will be the concluding event of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season. Teams in the DPC can earn their spot in the tournament by either earning direct invites or playing through regional qualifiers.
Direct invites to TI 2023 will be given to the 12 teams that earned the most DPC points throughout the season in the regional leagues and Majors. One team from each of the circuit's six regions will then earn their spots in the event through the regional qualifiers.
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