How to watch The International 10: All qualified teams, format, venues, prize pool, and more

The eyes of the whole world will be on Romania in the next few weeks where after more than two years of waiting the best Dota 2 teams will meet to define a new world champion.

The International 10, the most important summit in the competitive calendar of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) is just around the corner, so here we bring you a complete guide with everything you need to know for this world championship.

The International 10: All qualified teams and seedings

Following a similar format to the 2019 edition, The International 10 will bring us the 12 teams with the most points in the DPC, after two splits where we witness the rise of Invictus Gaming in the Singapore Major, and the victory of PSG.LGD in the Animajor on Kyiv, Ukraine.

These will be joined by six qualified teams from the Regional Qualifiers, where the top 12 teams in each DPC region that weren't qualified to TI 10 competed in monumental brackets for a championship ticket.

Thus, these are the 18 teams classified to TI 10:

• China: Elephant, Invictus Gaming, PSG.LGD, Team Aster, and Vici Gaming
• North America: Evil Geniuses, Quincy Crew, and Undying
• South America: beastcoast, SG e-sports, and Thunder Predator
• Western Europe: Alliance, OG, and Team Secret
• Eastern Europe: Team Spirit, and Virtus.pro
• Southeast Asia: Fnatic, and T1

The International 10: Format explainer and venue

Although the format of the tournament hasn’t been revealed at the moment of writing, it’s expected to use the same one introduced during 2019, divided between two main stages of competition.

We must highlight that after a series of troubles between the Swedish government and the tournament’s organization, the event was ultimately moved to the Arena Naţională, in Bucharest, Romania.

Group Stage

For the group stage, all 18 qualified teams will be randomly drawn into two groups of nine squads each.

Here, all squads will battle against each other in a single round-robin format, with the top four teams from each of the groups moving on to the main event’s upper bracket.

The fifth- to eighth-placed teams will continue in the lower bracket, and the two remaining teams will be out of the tournament.

Main Event

As said earlier, the main event for TI 10 features a massive bracket with all 16 teams who advance, with a double-elimination format.

In the upper bracket, the top seeds from both groups must choose a team between the third- and fourth-placed teams from opposing groups. The second seed will face the remaining opposing team. All matches in this bracket will be best-of-three.

The lower bracket will have the same style as the upper one, but with the fifth-placed teams choosing between the seventh- and eighth-placed teams, and the sixth seed facing the remaining team. The first round will be played as a best-of-one, and all other rounds will be best-of-three.

Lastly, the grand finals will be played as a best-of-five, with no game advantage.

The International 10: Prize Pool and how to watch

As its tradition with The International, the prize pool for the tournament will break its record again, being the biggest in the history of esports with $40,018,195.

This prize pool is composed of $1.6 million funded by Valve, and $38,418,195 coming from all Battle Pass sales by players. At the moment, the distribution of the prizes for The International 10 hasn’t been announced yet.

You can follow all the action from The International 10 through its official Twitch channel.

We have embedded it right below, to make it easier for you to catch it live.

The International 10 is scheduled to run on 7-17th October 2021.

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Feature image courtesy of Valve.