Invited Teams and Qualified Teams
With around two months before before the official launching of the tournament The International 2018 Dota 2 where invited teams : Virtus.pro (Dota Pro Circuit #1), Team Liquid (Dota Pro Circuit #2), PSG.LGD (Dota Pro Circuit #3), Team Secret (Dota Pro Circuit #4), Mineski (Dota Pro Circuit #5), Vici Gaming (Dota Pro Circuit #6), Newbee (Dota Pro Circuit #7) and VGJ.Thunder (Dota Pro Circuit #8) with their counterpart qualified teams : OG (Europe Qualifier), Winstrike Team (CIS Qualifier), Team Serenity (China Qualifier), Invictus Gaming (China Qualifier), Fnatic (Southeast Asia Qualifier), TNC Predator (Southeast Asia Qualifier), VGJ.Storm (North America Qualifier), Evil Geniuses (North America Qualifier), OpTic Gaming (North America Qualifier) and paiN Gaming (South America Qualifier) are all preparing for the upcoming biggest tournament for the year which current sponsored and organized by the game developer Valve which will happen on August 15 to August 25 in Rogers Arena, Vancouver, Canada.
The prize pool of the tournament has increased to $16,033,536 USD with the initial prize pool $1,600,000. It has increase greatly when Valve opened Battle Pass access where players who purchase will get power ups, avatars and many others in their in-game Dota 2 accounts. A portion of 25% of Battle Pass purchases will directly go to the prize pool, which makes the tournament even hotter and challenging for all competitive teams that are also invited and qualifier in the tournament.
Banned Programmable Mouse
Recently, during the qualifiers for the International 2018 tournament, Valve has detected some cheating on team Thunder Predator by checking their logs that they are using a programmable keyboard on their way to Group Stage and Playoffs.
Thunder Predator didn't make it to the semi-finals when they are beaten by the team paiN Gaming and Torus Gaming which results them to be eliminated early in the tournament process.
That is why Valve decided to banned possible use of programmable mouse that could take advantage on other teams and it has been confirmed that it is a way of cheating.
Elon Musk Open AI Bot will be on the International 2018
After the success of creating a Open AI Bot for 1v1 Dota 2 and confirmed that it can beat professional player in Dota 2, the company decided to take part on the International 2018 tournament.
What do you think about this newly created AI that would take on 5v5 in Dota 2 and can possibly defeat professional players as they already mentioned circulating all over the internet.
There is only one way to find out and that is to spectate when Open AI Bots will clash with selected Dota 2 Professional Team. I am hoping that it will happen soon, which i cannot wait to happen.
Tournament Format
There would be a Group Stage first dividing 9 teams each Group where 8 of each group will advance to playoffs determining both upper and lower brackets. Group Stage will be a form of round robin matching every team in their Group.
In Main Event, 16 teams will battle, 8 teams in upper bracket and 8 teams in lover bracket. This will be a form of double elimination format, with matches best of 3 for winners bracket and best of 1 for losing bracket. Finals will be best of 5.
Winners will get a chunk on the prize pool once winners are officially announced.
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