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The International 2018 (TI8) was the eighth iteration of The International, an annual Dota 2 world
championship esports tournament. Hosted by Valve, the game's developer, TI8 followed a year-long
series of tournaments awarding qualifying points, known as the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), with the top
eight ranking teams being directly invited to the tournament. In addition, ten more teams earned invites
through qualifiers that were held in June 2018, with the group stage and main event played at the Rogers
Arena in Vancouver in August. The best-of-five grand finals took place between OG and PSG.LGD, with
OG winning the series 3–2. Their victory was considered a Cinderella and underdog success story, as they
had come from the open qualifiers and were not favored to win throughout the competition.

The International 2018

The International logo.png

Tournament information

Sport

Dota 2

Location

Vancouver, Canada

Dates

August 20–25, 2018

Administrator(s)

Valve

Tournament

format(s)

Group stage

Round robin

Main event

Double elimination

Host(s)
Valve

Venue(s)

Rogers Arena

Participants

18 teams

Purse

US$25,532,177

Final positions

Champions

OG

1st runner-up

PSG.LGD

2nd runner-up

Evil Geniuses

← The International 2017The International 2019 →

As with every International from 2013 onwards, the prize pool was crowdfunded by the Dota 2
community via its battle pass feature, with the total being over US$25 million, making it one of the
largest for any esports tournament. Other events took place during the tournament, including a cosplay
competition and submitted short film contest with their own independent prize pools, as well as two live
demonstration games of a team of professional players playing against a team of five OpenAI-curated
bots, known as the OpenAI Five, to showcase the capability of machine learning. In addition to nearly
20,000 spectators at the Rogers Arena, the tournament was livestreamed and seen by over 15 million
people online. A documentary film following OG and PSG.LGD through the grand finals was released in
January 2019. OG would later win The International 2019 the following year, becoming the first repeat
champion of the International.