Prize pool: $10,923,977 TI4 was the first Dota 2 tournament held at Seattle’s Key Arena. It was the only International with two Chinese teams facing one another in the final and the first to have over 100 heroes involved in the pick and ban phase. Mirana was at the top of most teams interests because the hero was so versatile. The International 2018: A Practical Guide to All 18 Teams. July 18, 2018 It’s that magical time of year again. Players are going into stream hibernation as bootcamps begin, Arcana propaganda campaigns are getting increasingly heated, and gaming blogs are prepping their annual piece of Dota 2 coverage to report on whichever way the prize pool goes. So far the prize pool is right around $24,859,772. To put this in perspective, the first place team will be taking home just shy of $11 Million. The International 8 also marks another history-making event as DOTA 2 has taken the largest prize pool of all time in esports.

1. Dota 2 Ti 2018 Prize Pool Table
2. Dota 2 Ti 2018 Prize Pool Calculator
3. Dota 2 Ti 2019 Prize Pool
4. Dota 2 Ti 2018 Prize Pool Breakdown

The International, the highest paying esports tournament in the world, begins today in Shanghai. Here's all you need to know about the event.

What is this tournament?

The International, aka TI, is the world championship tournament of the video game Dota 2. It is, and has been every year since 2013, the highest-paying esports tournament in the world.

This year is the ninth edition of the International, which began in 2011, so it is known colloquially as TI9.

Sorry, what's esports?

Competitive video gaming.

It's becoming increasingly popular, with players streaming to fans over Twitch, and tournaments in several different games offering multimillion-dollar prizes.

We reported on the hype and attraction of TI6 three years ago if you're interested in seeing what the grand finals event is like, or check out these two Kiwis who had hoped to win the Fortnight World Cup last month.

So, how much money is at stake this time?

More than $US32,986,815.

Unlike most other esports, the prize pool for this tournament has since 2013 been partly based on in-game sales of the 'Compendium', with 25 percent of the sale price going back to support the pros.

As of now The International 2019 prize pool represents approximately 72% of all earnings in Dota 2 since the last TI.
The highest share since TI4. pic.twitter.com/R7nRKl5lCm

— Liquipedia Dota 2 (@LiquipediaDota) August 13, 2019

It also gives players access to various in-game cosmetics, a fantasy league, collectible player 'cards' and other stuff for fans.

This has meant the prize value each year has been higher than the last. It has already surpassed last year's and as sales are still going on, the prize pool could yet climb higher.

Where is it being held?

Shanghai's 18,000-seat Mercedez-Benz arena in China. Although Dota 2 is hugely popular in China, this is the first year The International has been held there, though there have been high-profile Dota tournaments in China before

The first one in 2011 was in Cologne, then it was in Seattle for six years. Last year it was in Vancouver, Canada, when Seattle's Key Arena went under construction.

Mercedez-Benz Arena in Shanghai. Photo: AFP / Philippe Turpin / Photononstop

The 18 Chinese players far outnumber the number of players from other regions, with the nine Philippines players the second-most.

In some quirk of fate too, the winning team has gone back and forth between a Western-based team and a Chinese-based team every year until last year when Chinese team LGD lost the grand final to EU team OG.

Don't let those labels fool you, either. Many teams will be based in one country but have players from several other countries and regions.

Wait. Did you say $32 MILLION!?

Yep. It's a lot of money for playing a video game.

As it stands, the winning team of five players will get a total of at least $US15,009,001 this year, second place more than $US4,288,286 and so on.

Okay, what game is it?

Dota 2, a game with more than 10 million monthly active players.

In this game, two AI-controlled armies continually run at each other trying to attack one another's fortresses, defended by powerful but destroyable towers.

The two teams of five players pilot hero units to swing the tide of this battle by earning money from destroying the armies and the opposing heroes, eventually attacking and destroying the enemy's base. If they die, they come back after a delay.

If you've never played it can be a bit confusing to watch, but the strategy and skill involved is at an extremely high level.

It's also a free game, and spending money on it does not give you any advantages - so anyone with a computer can simply sign in and start playing.

So... how do I win all this money?

Basically, you can't.

First off, the players are professionals - that is, playing this game is their job. They work year-round for team organisations, often with big sponsorship deals (one of the leading Chinese teams, LGD is sponsored by Paris Saint-Germaine).

The teams are often player-owned companies, run by the players, for the players. They have coaches (usually former players themselves) and often have strict schedules for play and training for hours every day. Many have diets and daily workout regimes, to keep their reflexes quick.

Members of OG sit in their booth as they play against PSG.LGD in their grand final Dota 2 match of The International 2018. Photo: Jeff Vinnick / Getty Images / AFP

To get to this tournament, players had to train like this to be good enough to be recognised, join a team, then do well enough in other, smaller tournaments throughout the year to be seeded/invited to this main one, or by winning a regional qualifier.

However, if you work very hard and play thousands, THOUSANDS of hours of Dota, it's just possible you could compete next year.

Does New Zealand have any players?

Sadly no.

There are a couple of Australian players (OG player ana and Mineski's kpii), but most of the top players in our South East Asia region are based in Philippines and Malaysia, where the game is very popular in internet cafes.

How does the tournament work? What's the format?

Group stage: Starting at 1pm today (NZ time), until Sunday 18 August, the 18 teams are divided into two groups, who play best-of-two match-ups in a round-robin format.

Main event: The bottom team in each group is eliminated while the top four teams in each group advance to the Upper Bracket. The remaining eight teams go to a lower bracket.

China has had the most participants historically (201) but even though The International 9 is held in China, this is the year with the fewest Chinese participants.#TI9pic.twitter.com/hP2iAbtcTn

— Liquipedia Dota 2 (@LiquipediaDota) August 14, 2019

Lower-bracket teams are progressively knocked out, while upper-bracket teams get knocked down to the lower bracket. These are all best-of-three matchups except the first round of the lower bracket, which is single matches.

The grand final, on Sunday 25 at 6pm (NZ time) is a best-of-five (although the upper bracket finals will also start that day about 2.40pm).

Who are the favourites?

It's looking a fairly tight competition. According to esportsbettingtop, Team Secret are the favourites to win, but Vici Gaming, Team Liquid, Virtus.Pro, Evil Geniuses, and PSG.LGD are all strong contenders.

Secret's captain Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov was on the winning team Na'VI at the first TI, came second in 2012 and '13, but has not been able to reach those heights at this main tournament again despite being one of just two players to qualify with a team every year.

Chinese fans watching the 2018 Dota 2 World Championships. Photo: Jeff Vinnick / Getty Images / AFP

The team was expected to do very well last year too, but only reached eighth place in a big upset.

Dota 2 Ti 2018 Prize Pool Table

The International is always a bit unpredictable.

It's that drama, combined with the skill of the players, the spectacle of the arena, the complexity of the strategy - and, of course, the memes - which makes this game so fun to watch.

Where can I watch it?

Since many of us can't make it to Shanghai, there's a range of options for watching it. You can either jump into the free game app on a computer and watch it there, check out the streams on streaming platform Twitch, or look into attending one of the 'Pubstomp' live viewing events in bars across the world.

Copyright © 2019, Radio New Zealand

• The International 2018 is currently ongoing now until August 25, with a prize pool of over RM100 million.
• This year there will be 4 Malaysians in 3 different teams, including the legendary Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung who will be leading the Southeast Asian favourites, Mineski.

The International 2018 or TI8 has begun. An annual Dota 2 e-sports championship tournament, hosted by Valve Corporation—the game’s developer—TI8 followed a year-long series of tournaments awarding qualifying points, known as the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), with the top eight ranking teams being directly invited to the tournament.

In addition, ten more teams earned invites through qualifiers that were held in June 2018, with the main event being played at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver right now.

As with every International, the prize pool was crowdfunded by the Dota 2 community via its battle pass feature, with the total being over US$24 million. It currently has a total prize pool $24,791,176 (as of writing), which has surpassed the previous year’s prize pool, making it the biggest prize pool for an e-sports tournament.

To get a sense of the scale, even the team in last place walks away with US$61,982 (around RM254,312).

There is still less than a week to go before the crowdfunding for TI8 ends, so the pool will most likely hit $25 million (RM102 million).

Malaysia has been present since the first Internationals and we are the second most represented country in total for all Internationals, sitting at 55 players (even narrowly beating USA). Malaysia boleh!

This year we have a total of 4 players in 3 different teams, and here’s a quick introduction to all of them.

Kam “Moon” Boon Seng

Kam “Moon” Boon Seng, previously known as NaNa, is the mid lane player for Mineski. He began his journey in Dota a few years ago as a little-known player in the Invasion e-sports roster. His first major LAN event was the 2015 Major All Stars Dota 2 Tournament in his own homeground, Kuala Lumpur where they finished fifth in the tournament.

Things started to pick up for the 22-year-old when WarriorsGaming.Unity (WG.Unity) was founded. Moon created waves in the scene and made a name for himself as one of the most stable mid laners of the region. WG.Unity peaked at the 2016 Boston Majors, finishing in the shared fifth placing.

Since 2017, he has now joined Mineski, one of Southeast Asia’s top teams, partnering up with Malaysia’s Dota 2 legend, Mushi. Together they form a deadly team that has overcame every challenge thrown against them and will be one of the teams to look out for this tournament.

Jian Wei “xNova” Yap

Jian Wei “xNova” Yap has been seeing some spotlight in the recent days, especially after having assisted the Chinese region to secure their first Major of the 2017/2018 Dota Pro Circuit season.

He was already playing in local tournaments at a young age of 16 but in September 2016 his big break came when he joined WarriorsGaming.Unity. Teaming up with the likes of Jay Son “ahjit” Lai, Moon (mentioned earlier) and Soon Chuan “ahfu” Tue, the team took Southeast Asia by storm, finishing in podium places in multiple tournaments.

At the beginning of this year, he flew to China to join the LGD Dota 2 unit where xNova truly shone. He won multiple podium finishes under the LGD banner and was within arms reach of several Major championships but failed to go past the final hurdle. However, all the hard work finally paid off when the team claimed victory at EPICENTER XL, becoming the first Chinese team to win a Major.

Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng

Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng learned Dota from his brother and he kept on playing against him and his cousins in 1v1 matches. Despite losing, he had a competitive mindset and wanted to improve and beat professional players.

When he was 13, he joined a tournament and came second place and a few years later he joined small tournaments around Malaysia to further obtain knowledge and experience as a Dota 2 player.

After gaining a reputation in the local Dota scene, he received an offer from the manager of Fnatic (one of the top Dota teams at that time). After a number of negotiations he decided to seize the opportunity and join Fnatic. On April 29, 2016, he became the first player to hit 8000 MMR on the Southeast Asia servers.

Dictionary Time: MMR (Matchmaking Rating) is a value that shows the skill level of a player. MMR is used in ranked matchmaking to find similarly skilled players. Winning a match can increase your MMR, losing will decrease it. Players earn seasonal medals based on their MMR and each season will last for 6 months until everything is reset.

After coming within grasp of winning The International 2016, his nine month stint at Fnatic came to an end when he joined Team Secret on August 2016.

Over the past year and a half, MidOne has won multiple tournaments with Team Secret, such as the FACEIT Invitational and ROG Masters, made it to the final of the ESL One Hamburg Major and has developed into one of the most feared mid laners in the world.

Dota 2 Ti 2018 Prize Pool Calculator

Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung

Dota 2 Ti 2019 Prize Pool

Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung is one of Malaysia’s most well-known professional Dota 2 players, currently playing for Mineski. He most famously played for Team DK and for Orange as solo mid or carry, depending on which heroes the team picked.

Dota 2 Ti 2018 Prize Pool Breakdown

During The International 2013, his team was close to reaching to the finals until they lost to Natus Vincere, finishing at 3rd place. Mushi moved on from Orange e-sports to join Team DK during the post International 2013 roster shuffling.

After a year and no success with one of the strongest Chinese teams, Mushi moved back to Malaysia and created Team Malaysia with a full Malaysian team.

Team Malaysia went on a large winning streak, winning 16 games in a row and qualifying for many premium tournaments as well as earning them Southeast Asia’s only direct invite to The International 2015. Due to their good run, they were later picked up by Fnatic. After a short stint with Fnatic, he is now in Mineski with a Southeast Asian team and is looking to finally make it big this year.

• Do support our Malaysians playing in The International 2018 by watching their matches on Twitch and the in-game client.