page_title: The International 2018
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: The International 2018 / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: The International 2018
context_page_description: The International 2018 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, 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.
context_section_description: At the time, The International 2018 set an crowdfunded esport prize pool record by eclipsing the previous years' record, finalizing at US$25,532,177. Other related events took place during the tournament, such as a cosplay and submitted short film contest with their own independent prize pools. In addition, two live demonstrations of a team of professional players playing against a team of five OpenAI-curated bots, known as the OpenAI Five, took place to showcase the capability of machine learning. Although the bots lost both games, the first against paiN Gaming and the second against an all-star team of former Chinese players, they were considered a success by OpenAI who stated that due to the bots playing against some of the best players in Dota 2, it allowed them to analyze and adjust their algorithms for future games.
  Attendees of the event at the Rogers Arena were given a free copy of Artifact, a then-upcoming Dota 2-themed digital collectible card game. New content for the game itself was also revealed during the event, including two new playable heroes and a Gabe Newell voice pack. The tournament was seen by over 15 million people online, with nearly 20,000 attending the matches at the Rogers Arena. The tournament, alongside OG's upset win over PSG.LGD, were respectively nominated for "best esports event" and "best esports moment" at The Game Awards 2018 ceremony. An episode of True Sight, Valve's documentary film series on the professional Dota 2 scene, was filmed during the event. It followed OG and PSG.LGD during the grand finals, documenting a number of behind the scenes moments for both teams before and after matches. It was released online for free on January 15, 2019, and also premiered to a live audience, with members of OG as special guests, at the Palads Teatret in Copenhagen.
caption: Valve founder and president Gabe Newell giving a speech at the opening ceremony
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