Dota 2 developer Valve has finally broken its silence on the dates for its biggest tournament of the year.
The Main Stage playoff dates for The International 2019 (TI9) will commence on August 20 and run through until August 25. This is in line with an earlier leak from Chinese organization ViCi Gaming who hadn’t accidentally revealed details on its Weibo account.
However, don’t book your flights to Shanghai just yet, as tickets for the event are not yet for sale, pending final details from the organizer “in a couple of weeks.”
The International is the official Dota 2 tournament organized by Valve Corporation, and is one of the largest annual esports tournaments in the world. This year, The International will be held at Shanghai. Weng Tiehui, vice mayor of the city, has welcomed the Dota 2 community, saying that the city “will provide its full support for the event.”
The event will be held at the Mercedes-Benz Arena (formerly known as Shanghai World Expo Cultural Center), and can seat an 18,000 crowd. Shanghai has previously hosted Dota 2 events such as the Shanghai Major back in 2016, previous iterations of the G-League, as well as the China Dota 2 Supermajor last year.
Four teams have already secured direct invites for The International: Virtus.pro, Team Secret, Evil Geniuses, and ViCi Gaming. Meanwhile, the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) is about to end with four more events that will see other qualified teams join the ranks.
They are, the ongoing OGA Dota PIT Minor 2019 with a US$300,000 prize pool, the US$1 million Mars Dota 2 League Disneyland Paris Major beginning on May 4 to 12 in Paris, the US$300,000 StarLadder Ukraine Minor on June 10 to 16 and lastly, the US$1 million EPICENTER Major 2019 in Moscow from June 22 to 30.
