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What’s the story?
The International 2018, TI8 is going to take place this fall in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Video game making company Valve has already released the battle pass for the grand tournament.
In case you didn’t know…
The International is an annual DotA world championship and the eighth "The International' is scheduled to take place in the month of August this year. Valve organizes the event which consists of 16 teams from around the world.
The heart of the matter
The Battle pass had been added to the tournament since "The International 2014", with its sole objective being acting as the fundraiser for the Tournament, as well as offering gamer's numerous in-game cosmetics and effects.
Valve sets ''The international'' initial prize pool to be around 1.6 million USD, and the rest of the pool is added from the 25% of people purchased battle pass offers.
The importance of the battle pass can be measured in a way that the TI7 had the initial prize pool of 1.6 million USD and by the time of TI7, the prize pool was 24.7 million USD making it the highest prize pool tournament in the e-sports history.
As of now, the TI8 battle pass has already gathered 7.5 million USD, which is 15% ahead of last years tournament prize pool, at the same time and, is expected to cross the huge 30 million USD mark, thus breaking its own record.
The International 2018 will see 16 teams compete for the grand prize. Eight Teams are invited from the DotA pro circuit points, while other eight qualify by competing in the open or closed qualifier.
What’s next?
As of now, the defending champions "Team Liquid", CIS favorites "Virtus Pro" as well as "Team Secret" have already qualified for the tournament. With 3 majors and an ongoing minor remaining, the battle for top 8 is still undergoing.
Author’s take
With only 3 teams invited out of 8 shows how fierce the battle for top 8 is still going on in DotA pro circuit. As of now three majors, "MDL Changsha", "ESL ONE Birmingham" and "China Super Major" are remaining, thus the competition is expected to be exciting in the coming months.
