The International 2024, the largest Dota 2 tournament of the year, will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, this September.
Europe has not had the chance to attend The International since its first iteration back in 2011, when it was a part of the Gamescom trade show in Cologne, Germany. TI was supposed to be held in Stockholm in 2020 and then again in 2021, but the pandemic put an end to any hopes of a Swedish TI. Instead, the 2021 event was relocated to Romania, but just days before it was due to start it was announced that no fans would be able to attend the event due to a surge in coronavirus cases.
Exact dates for the tournament have not been revealed, but the event will kick off in September, which is slightly earlier than it has been in recent years. This could be the start of a change to move TI back to late summer, with the event traditionally being held in August.
The main event will take place at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen, a location that has hosted a lot of esports events over the years, including the BLAST Fall Finals last year and the upcoming CS2 Major.
There will be 16 teams competing at the event, and direct invites to the tournament will return along with open qualifiers. After the end of the Dota Pro Circuit, which previously dictated qualified teams, the invites for TI will return to the old format, with Valve inviting the top teams from across the year and then hosting open and closed qualifiers for the remaining spots.
In deciding which teams will get a direct invite, Valve will consider their success at events across the year with different events holding more weight than others. International events that feature qualifiers to get there will be ranked higher than invite-only single-region tournaments for example.
