Valve to make format changes for The International 12

In the last few hours, Valve published a post on their official blog announcing all the information regarding the next international event of the 2023 season, The International 12.

As we know, the TI is the most awaited tournament by the community, players, and teams, as it is undoubtedly the most important esports tournament worldwide. Not only because the best players and teams participate but also because the tournament distributes more cash prizes to the winners.

Valve has decided to make important changes in the format of The International 12, aiming to ” improve” the experience of all fans, either in person at the Arena or through the different broadcasting platforms.

Valve announces changes to The International 12 format

Through an official announcement on the Dota 2 blog, Valve announced a series of changes to its format for The International 12.

The International 2023 Schedule & Format

Tickets for The Road To The International’s Playoff Stage at The Seattle Convention Center’s Summit and The International at Climate Pledge Arena, will go on sale in the second half of August.https://t.co/xVVBVUk3fq#Dota2 #esports pic.twitter. com/Wpc3IGTHpr

— Dota 2 (@dota2updates) August 5, 2023

The first thing we should highlight about the change of formats is that the TI12 is divided into three stages, which will be played only on weekends. As we know, in previous editions of TI, the Group Stage and some playoff matches were played day after day a week before the Grand Final; that is, we had 15 days of uninterrupted matches.

Valve completely changes this since they are implementing a format similar to the Worlds in LoL since they will only be played on weekends.

Specifically, we will have the following distribution of TI12:

• Group Stage: October 12-15, 2023
• Playoffs: October 20-22, 2023
• Final Phase: October 27-29, 2023

As we can see, between each stage or phase of the IT, we will have five days of rest, which is something unprecedented in the history of this tournament. In addition, it is also worth noting that the first two weekends, the Group Stage and the Playoffs, Valve calls “The Road to The International,” where the best eight teams will play the Final Stage of the tournament in the last weekend.

Changes in the Group Stage

However, these are not all the format changes since we will substantially change the Group Stage. Instead of having 2 groups of 10 teams, Valve decides to separate the teams into four groups of five teams each.

Then, the first four teams qualify for the “next phase” of this Group Stage, which will face each other in a head-to-head match, where the winners start the playoffs from the Upper Bracket.

Playoffs

In the Playoffs Phase, the 16 qualified teams will play in a double-match format until the best eight teams are selected to be present at the Climate Pledge Arena to dispute the Final Phase of The International 12 and fight for the Aegis.

So far, the first two weekends will be played without the public, so fans must follow the actions through the official broadcasts. On the other hand, the playoffs will be played at the Seattle Convention Center’s Summit, while, for the Final Phase, we will have the teams playing at the Climate Pledge Arena, formerly known as KeyArena in Seattle, USA.

Tickets for TI12 will go on sale at the end of August. So keep an eye on Valve’s social networks to purchase your tickets.

Header: Valve