The International 2025 is set to showcase the best Dota 2 teams as they compete for glory. Valve has meticulously crafted a new format for this year’s event, ensuring every match counts. With tickets going on sale soon, here’s what you need to know about the schedule and structure of this prestigious tournament.
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.
The Road to The International
The Road to The InternationalWe 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. 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 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 five winners advancing to The International and 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 so no team with a winning record ever has to play two series in a row (including last-game-of-the-night followed by first-game-of-the-morning).
The Road to The International runs from Thursday, September 4th through Sunday, September 7th., including both Swiss rounds and elimination rounds. In total, eight out of sixteen invited teams will be eliminated while eight others advance towards competing at The International.
The International
The InternationalThe International starts Thursday, September 11th, and runs in the arena for four days, culminating in the Grand Finals on Sunday, September 14th. Eight teams advanced from The Road To The International who’ll compete for glory within Barclays Arena before thousands of fans.
All eight teams start in an upper bracket within a standard double-elimination bracket seeded based on performance during their road leading up—highest against lowest starting positions. All matches are best-of-three except Grand Finals which is set as best-of-five bouts.
Single-day and multi-day bundle tickets for The International go on sale on AXS on Tuesday, April 15th, at 10 a.m. CEST. We can’t wait to see you there!
