Valve Invites Seven Teams to The International 2026 in Shanghai

Valve announced the seven teams that received direct invitations to The International 2026 in Shanghai, confirming spots for Team Falcons, Xtreme Gaming, Team Liquid, Aurora Gaming, BoomBoys, Tundra Esports and Team Yandex at the 15th edition of the Dota 2 tournament.

Nine tournament berths will be decided through regional qualifiers. Four slots are allocated to Europe, two to China, and one each to Southeast Asia, North America and South America. Valve combined Eastern and Western Europe into a single European qualifier for this cycle.

Regional qualifying begins in mid-June. China’s qualifier runs June 15-18 and South America’s runs June 15-19. Southeast Asia will hold its qualifier June 19-23. Europe’s expanded qualifier will take place June 21-28, and North America closes qualifying June 24-26.

The International 2026 is scheduled for August 13-23 in Shanghai. The tournament will start with a Swiss-format group stage on August 13-16, proceed to elimination matches, and move the final eight teams into the arena stage. The decisive playoff matches will be held at the SPD Bank Oriental Sports Center.

The event’s prize pool will begin with a $1.6 million base and is expected to grow through in-game supporter content. Last year Valve used Team and Talent Bundles that routed 30% of bundle sales to the prize pool and 50% of sales to the featured teams or talent.

Some teams with betting affiliations have adjusted their branding for the tournament. BetBoom Team is listed as BoomBoys and is expected to use a new logo for the event.

Viewership figures for The International show notable milestones. The series’ modern peak remains TI10 in 2021, with TI2019 another benchmark. TI2025 reached a peak of 1.78 million viewers during the grand final between Team Falcons and Xtreme Gaming, and community co-streaming accounted for nearly 49% of the tournament’s total watch time.