The International is an annual esports world championship tournament for the video game Dota 2, hosted and produced by the game's developer, Valve. The International was first held at Gamescom as a promotional event for the game in 2011, and has since been held annually with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament consists of 20 teams; 12 based on final results from the Dota Pro Circuit and six more from winning regional playoffs from the North America, South America, Southeast Asia, China, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe regions.
The tournament's prize pool has been crowdfunded via a battle pass system within the game since 2013, with a quarter of all revenue from it directly funding the event. Internationals have the largest single-tournament prize pool of any esport event, with the most recent one reaching US$40 million. The most recent champion is Team Spirit, with OG being the only repeat winner in the tournament's history.
List of tournaments
Year Champion Total purse Date Venue
2011 Ukraine Natus Vincere[1] $1,600,000 August 17–21 Koelnmesse (Cologne)[2]
2012 China Invictus Gaming[3] $1,600,000 August 31 – September 2 Benaroya Hall (Seattle)[4]
2013 Sweden Alliance[5] $2,874,380 August 7–11
2014 China Newbee[6] $10,923,977 July 18–21 KeyArena (Seattle)[7]
2015 United States Evil Geniuses[8] $18,429,613 August 3–6
2016 China Wings Gaming[9] $20,770,460 August 3–13
2017 Europe Team Liquid[10] $24,787,916 August 7–12
2018 Europe OG[11] $25,532,177 August 20–25 Rogers Arena (Vancouver)[12]
2019 Europe OG[13] $34,330,068 August 20–25 Mercedes-Benz Arena (Shanghai)[14]
2020
Cancelled[a]
August 18–23[a] Avicii Arena (Stockholm)
2021 Russia Team Spirit[15] $40,018,195 October 7–17 Arena Națională (Bucharest)[16]
