The fear of many Dota 2 pro players came to life – The International will be postponed due to the coronavirus. Maybe Cloud9 were right to disband early after all?
- READ MORE: Cloud9 leave the Dota 2 scene
A "difficult choice"
The biggest Dota 2 event of the year might not be happening in 2020. The tournament will be postponed and the new date is still unknown. The news came directly from Valve, who made an official post on the Dota 2 blog about it.
After extensive consideration of the global health emergency stemming from COVID-19, we have made the difficult choice to delay The International. We have been exploring various date possibilities, but it is likely that the event will need to happen in 2021. Given the highly volatile landscape for local gathering restrictions, virus trajectory, and global travel policies, we don’t expect to have enough confidence to communicate firm dates in the near future. In the meantime, we are working on restructuring the DPC season for the fall, and will be providing more information as soon as we have it.
It’s certainly something a lot of fans expected to happen, considering the global coronavirus pandemic and all the travel restriction which came along with it. The 10th edition of The International (TI) was supposed to mark the event’s return to Europe where it all started back in 2010. This time, instead of Cologne in Germany, the host was going to be Stockholm, Sweden.
The International – an event of massive proportions
TI isn’t just famous in the Dota 2 as it often gets wide media coverage due to its prize pool. Each year, the record for the previous one is broken and last time, it was $34,330,068. The funds are gathered mainly through in-game purchases of the corresponding Battle Pass, 25% of which go directly into the pool.
The 10th International prize pool will be funded by 25% of sales of the next Battle Pass, which we are planning to release soon instead of closer to the event itself. However, with our team working from home and things taking longer to complete, the release date of the Battle Pass will be at least a couple of weeks later than usual.
The Pass usually comes out in early May but judging from Valve’s post, it will be delayed until the end of the month. With even the big event bending the knee to the pandemic, it seems like everyone will be waiting for the end of the coronavirus. Valve promised another update and we are all looking forward to it as there is still a slim possibility of The International happening maybe in late 2020. And if in the meantime you want to learn more about Dota 2's finest, check out our Life and Times series:
- READ MORE: The life and times of Topson – Part 1
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