Dota 2 News

The arenas might be different, the star players might change, and every year new teams will rise while others fall. But while many things change, one thing is constant: The International remains a chronicle of the same journey, following the best Dota team in the world as they conquer every obstacle, overcome every challenge, and carve their names into the Aegis.

The original TI was a five-day event, hosted on the show floor of GamesCom in Cologne. Valve has been hosting The International for more than a decade since, and every year we've learned new things — everything from booth design to sponsorships to specific details of tournament design. Every year we try to capture the best parts of prior decisions while looking for opportunities to try some variations that might work even better.

So, with tickets going on sale soon (details below), we wanted to walk you through this year's tournament format.



[h2]The Road to The International[/h2]

We set out this year to create a structure such that every single match had stakes, and that those stakes were clear to the teams and the viewers. We wanted to do this without losing the massive amount of foundational, tournament-meta-defining games that fans of the group stage enjoy every year. And at the same time, the new format needed to avoid issues we've seen in previous years, where individual round robin games didn't matter at all, or only mattered to teams that weren't in the match.

This year, The Road to The International starts with a five-round Swiss bracket: Over the first three days, sixteen teams will play best-of-three matches against other teams with the same series record (a 2:0 team will face another 2:0 team, a 1:3 team will face another 1:3 team, etc.). A fourth series win will cause that team to automatically advance to The International; a fourth loss will cause that team to be eliminated.

After five rounds of Swiss, the three teams with four wins will have secured their spot in The International and the three teams with four losses will have been eliminated. The ten remaining teams will face-off in a special elimination round (strongest against weakest) with the five winners advancing to the International and the five losers being eliminated.

Swiss formats come with unique challenges, and we've taken special care to make sure fans can know in advance when their favorite teams are playing, and that no team with a winning record ever has to play two series in a row (including a last-game-of-the-night followed by a first-game-of-the-morning).

The Road to The International runs from Thursday, September 4th through Sunday, September 7th, including both the Swiss rounds and the following elimination rounds. In total, the Road to The International will eliminate eight of the sixteen invited teams and the other eight will advance to the arena for The International.



[h2]The International[/h2]

The International starts Thursday, September 11th and runs in the arena for four days, culminating in the Grand Finals on Sunday, September 14th. The eight teams that advanced from The Road to The International will compete for the Aegis in Barclays Arena in front of thousands of fans.

All eight teams start in the upper bracket of a standard double-elimination bracket, seeded based on Road to the International performance (highest against lowest). All matches are best-of-three except for the Grand Finals, which are best-of-five.

[h2]Tickets[/h2]

Single-day and multi-day bundle tickets for The International will go on sale on AXS starting 10am CEST, Tuesday, April 15th. We can't wait to see you there.

Patch 7.38c is out now and you can check out the patch notes here.

In addition, over the last few days we've addressed the following issues:

• Added missing patch note line from 7.38 patch notes "Roshan no longer drops Aghanim's Blessing"
  
  
• Fixed Tormentor spawning on top of the Player's Hero at 15 minutes when demoing a terrain
  
• Fixed -createhero sometimes creating a hero with no facet
  
• Fixed the Combat Log displaying non-visible enemy's channelling of Twin Gates
  
  
• Fixed it being possible for a hero to get their position or hero model angle stuck if Roshan's grab animation is interrupted
  
• Fixed Haste rune duration not correctly upgrading with the rune cycle
  
  
• Fixed being able to generate infinite teleport scrolls by buying then selling boots of travel
  
• Fixed various scenarios where players could learn if their enemy activated a smoke of deceit while in fog of war
  
  
• Fixed Alchemist Scepter granting buff visually always displaying as having given 1 scepter to enemies
  
• Fixed Bristleback's Quill Spray damage from Aghanim's Scepter counting as reflected damage
  
• Fixed being able to get negative networth on Dazzle by stashing a teleport scroll, buying a teleport scroll on your courier, having no teleport scroll on your hero, buying and selling boots of travel multiple times, giving the teleport scroll on your courier to dazzle, casting Nothl Projection, then using your courier to deliver your stashed teleport scrolls to Dazzle while the ultimate is active
  
• Fixed Clinkz's Tar Bomb not procing Magic Wand when set to autocast
  
• Fixed Doom's Devil's Bargain buyback being calculated incorrectly
  
• Fixed Hoodwink's Level 20 Talent Sharpshooter Provides Truesight have a blindspot along the path
  
• Fixed Kez's Echo Slash first hit being unable to trigger Shadowhawk's bonus when used from invisibility
  
• Fixed Kunkka's Level 25 Spell AoE talent not applying correctly to Tidebringer
  
• Fixed Lycan's Howl and Feral Impulse not applying correctly to Aghanim's Shard Wolves
  
• Fixed Magnus' Skewer not destroying trees if Magnus doesn't have an Aghanim's Shard
  
• Fixed Marci's Rebound being cancelled incorrectly when affected by Slark's Pounce and debuff immune
  
• Fixed Marci's Rebound vector targeting being inaccurate if the target location is too close to the Rebound target
  
• Fixed Medusa's Venomous Volley working on illusions with Split Shot active
  
• Fixed Gleipnir active triggering Nyx Assassin's Spiked Carapace stun
  
• Fixed Muerta's Level 15 Calling Regeneration Talent not lasting for the full duration when used in conjunction with the Dance of the Dead Facet
  
• Fixed Naga Siren's Deluge setting the maximum and minimum speed of an enemy to 240
  
• Fixed Pangolier's Fortune Favors the Bold debuff being visible on enemies when the enemy doesn't have vision of Pangolier
  
• Fixed Puck's Phase Shift stopping the invulnerability but not the channeling when using certain items
  
• Fixed Puck's Puckish incorrectly considering all projectiles disjointed using invisibility as spell projectiles, restoring more mana and health than intended
  
• Fixed Razor's Static Link incorrectly showing an alt-cast state when gaining shard
  
• Fixed Riki's Tricks of the Trade stopping the attacks and invulnerability but not the channeling when using certain items
  
• Fixed Slardar unintentionally getting additional assists from puddles he created
  
• Fixed Templar Assassin's Meld not applying to both attacks if Meld was used twice in quick succession
  
• Fixed Windranger's Focus Fire stopping if she loses and regains sight of her target while under the effect of her Windrun with Aghanim's Scepter
  
• Fixed Winter Wyvern's Winter Blast creating splinter projectiles for invisible units around the target hit by the initial projectile
  
• Fixed Winter Wyvern's Winter Blast splinter projectiles not correctly disjointing from invisible units if the target hit by the initial projectile has vision over the invisible unit
  
• Fixed Witch Doctor's Death Ward Scepter not correctly applying the 50% bonus accuracy to the bounced projectile
  
• Fixed Vengeful Spirit's Scepter illusion instantly being killed by Tormentor when casting Wave of Terror from afar
  
• Fixed Zeus's Heavenly Jump's tooltip not correctly reflecting AoE increases to the vision radius Zeus gains after jumping
  
  
  
• Ability Draft: Fixed Pangolier getting Roll Up shard upgrade without drafting Rolling Thunder
  
• Ability Draft: Fixed Kez getting Shodo Sai abilities without drafting them
  

Immortal Draft Changes:

• Immortal Draft rules will now be used if any player is above 8500 MMR (roughly the top 0.5% of players). (Previously, the cutoff was 6500 MMR, roughly the top 1.5% of players.)
  
• Immortal Draft games do not show up in public match history. Replay access is restricted to game participants, and these games are not listed in Web APIs.
  
• Players who are above 8500 MMR (the top 0.5% of players) are now required to register an official name to queue for ranked. This name cannot be changed and will be displayed during the pre-game player draft phase of Immortal Draft games. Approximately half of players at this rank already have an official name registered.
  
• Players above 8500 MMR who are guaranteed to play an Immortal Draft game may not queue for ranked as a party. Unranked is unchanged.
  
• Changed the way MMR gain/loss works in Immortal Draft games to better take into consideration the possible outcomes based on player draft choices.
  

In summary:

• If your MMR is 8500+, all of your ranked games will be Immortal Draft. All matches will be private. You're required have an official name registered. You cannot queue for ranked matches as a member of a party. Unranked is unchanged.
  
• If your MMR is 6500+, your ranked games will only be Immortal Draft if matched with a player above 8500 MMR. Otherwise you'll play using standard ranked match rules. Unranked is unchanged.
  

Patch 7.38b is out now, along with a new Dota Plus season. You can check out the 7.38b patchnotes here.

In addition, over the last few days we've addressed the following issues:

• Fixed Clinkz Burning Army skeletons being able to auto-cast Tar Bomb
  
• Fixed Templar Assassin Hidden Reach effects being visible to enemies
  
• Fixed Sven Level 10 Talent +10% Vanquisher Bonus Damage not working properly
  
• Fixed Ability Draft loading screen being stuck during draft phase when there are fewer than 10 players in the lobby.
  
• Drow Ranger Precision Aura from illusions no longer overrides her own bonus agility
  
• Fixed Ancient Apparition Ice Blast Shatter Threshold flickering when clicking on an enemy affected by ice blast
  
• Ability Draft: Doom: Devour: fixed player losing ability in first slot for the rest of the game after casting Devour
  
• Ability Draft: Doom: Devour: fixed permanently gaining passive aura from neutral creep
  
• Fixed Roshan Timer being broken when Templar Assassin Third Eye innate is active.
  
• Fixed Mark for Sell items not being collected by the courier if the courier did not start in the fountain when ordering it to deliver
  
• Fixed Mark for Sell items being returned to the hero if they were in the courier's inventory when delivering other items.
  
• Refined the alt-click chat messages on the Roshan Timer to match other alt-click messages.
  
• Refined alt-click chat messages on the Madstone indicator to better match other alt-click chat messages.
  
• Fixed Drow Ranger with the Sidestep Facet not triggering Silencer Last Word when Multishot finishes
  
• Fixed Viper Nosedive, which caused the caster model orientation to enter a bad state, allowing Rubick or any hero in Ability Draft to exploit this with certain abilities, causing them to remain permanently in the world.
  
• Fixed Jakiro Liquid Fire not working in Ability Draft
  
• Fixed Spell Lifesteal Amplification from Kaya (and it's combined items) not working
  

There was a time when a slight tweak to a forest path would send my Dota 2 clan’s heads into a collective spin. Valve’s venerable MOBA used to be much more conservative with map changes, and big ones are still rare—but they happen, now. In 2023 the map got 40% bigger, and Roshan relocated to the edges of the map. As of last week’s Wandering Waters update, Dota 2 has more rivers, frogs and crafting than ever before, plus Roshan has returned from the suburbs...
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