 | |
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Sport | Dota 2 |
| Location | Vancouver, Canada |
| Dates | August 20–25, 2018 |
| Administrator | Valve |
Tournament format(s) |
|
| 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 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.
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.