The Dota 2 International Heads to Copenhagen for 2024
Valve has announced that the 2024 edition of The International, the pinnacle of Dota 2 esports, will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark. In an announcement on the evening of March 8, made across their socials, the Dota 2 Steam Page, and on the official Dota 2 website, TI13’s official destination was confirmed.
In the post, Valve outlined the start of The International to take place in September, at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen. With no Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), spots for The International will be determined by “a mix of open qualifiers, regional qualifiers, and direct invitations, similar to how invitations worked for the first few years of The International.” 16 teams in total will take part in the event.
For qualification, all Dota 2 events, including non-Valve sanctioned tournaments, will be taken into account. This means every tournament that’s taken place thus far in 2024, such as BetBoom Dacha Dubai and DreamLeague Season 22, will affect standings. Upcoming events including Riyadh Masters 2024, DreamLeague Season 23, ESL One Birmingham, and Elite League will also be considered.
“…there’s a lot of performance to consider. This year’s calendar is packed, with half a dozen major tournaments already announced and more on the way, including studio and arena tournaments in Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East. We even hear rumors Midas Mode might be making a grand return. (The more teams that are eligible to participate in a tournament, the higher our consideration: Cross-regional tournaments generate more useful data than intra-regional tournaments, tournaments with qualifiers generate more useful information than invitation-only tournaments, etc.)” – Valve on The International 2024
With the announcement, The International will return to European shores for the first time since 2021, when TI11 in Bucharest, Romania, was held without live fans in attendance due to the then on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, TI has been held in Singapore in 2022, and in Seattle, Washington, USA in 2023.
As mentioned, The International is the peak of Dota 2 esports and top event for Dota 2 betting. Traditionally the most important and financially lucrative event of the Dota 2 competitive calendar, the winners lift the Aegis of Champions, etch their name into the history of the game, and earn record amounts of prize money. Typically, the prize pool for The International has been crowdfunded, with purchases of Battle Passes and Compendiums contributing to the total prize pool. In 2021, TI set a prize pool record of $40,018,400, breaking its own 2019 record of over $34 million in 2019.
TI13 will be the first time an edition of The International has been held in Denmark. It will be a welcome homecoming for many of the game’s best players. Famous Danish players include Johan “N0tail” Sundstein, a two-time TI-winner and perhaps one of the most successful Dota 2 players of all time, Marcus “Ace” Christensen, who won three consecutive Majors in 2023, and Andreas “Cr1t-” Nielsen, who is enjoying a welcome resurgence in 2024 with Team Falcons.
At the time of writing no confirmed dates have been made for The International. However, keen-eyed fans and observers have pointed out that the Royal Arena in Copenhagen does not have availability at the end of October – A time frame recent editions of TI had slipped into. Instead, it’s probably this International will begin in September and finish in mid-October, compacting the Dota 2 competitive season slightly.
As ever with Valve, the company is slight on details, and only time will tell what we can expect from Denmark’s first International.
