The International 2022 preview

After a Dota Pro Circuit full of tough tournaments and qualifiers, The International 2022 is about to begin. For two weeks, the best 20 teams on the planet will compete for a total of around $15.5 million. It’s not nearly as much as in previous years. But it’s still a huge amount of money and each participant will want a piece of the pie.

TI11 is scheduled to take place between October 15-30 in Singapore. For those who are living in Europe, this means that they will most likely miss the first few matches of each day, because they start at 4 AM CEST. However, early risers will be able to watch all the action.

TI11 format

The competitive format of The International 11 is the usual one but with slight modifications. Because the number of participants is 20 instead of 18, the two groups will consist of 10 teams each and the bottom two teams will get eliminated.

The top four advance to the upper bracket. The next four advance to the lower bracket. Every match during the group stage is best-of-two. For the playoffs, the matches are best-of-three. The only exceptions are the first round of the lower bracket (best-of-one) and the Grand Final (best-of-five).

Despite the large number of matches, the group stage will only last four days (October 15-18). The main event starts on October 20 but unlike the previous years, it will not take place all at once. Instead, it will be played in two segments: October 20-23 and October 29-30.

This decision was probably made to maximize the number of sold tickets. A lot of high-level people from the gaming industry will probably want to see just the last two days of the tournament, so Valve made it easier for them to come to the event.

Participants

Here are the teams that will take part in The International 2022:

Group A:

• BetBoom Team
• BOOM Esports
• Evil Geniuses
• Gaimin Gladiators
• Hokori
• OG
• LGD
• Royal Never Give Up
• Soniqs
• Team Liquid

Group B:

• Beastcoast
• Entity
• Fnatic
• Talon Esports
• Team Aster
• Team Secret
• Team Spirit
• Thunder Awaken
• TSM
• Tundra Esports

Group A is obviously much stronger than group B. Teams like Hokori, Gaimin Gladiators, and even BOOM Esports seem destined to fail, simply because the competitors they will face are much stronger.

It will be interesting to see if Evil Geniuses can finish in the top four but the odds of that happening are quite low. PSG.LGD, OG, RNG, and Team Liquid seem to be the favorites for the top four positions.

In group B, Entity, Team Spirit, Team Secret, and Team Aster are the big favorites.

Header: Valve Corporation