For this year's TI, 30% of all Supporter Bundle sales will be added to the tournament's prize pool.
Dota 2 developer Valve finally revealed on Wednesday (20 August) how the prize pool for The International (TI) 2025, this year's edition of the game's annual world championship tournament, will receive additional funding. Instead of a Compendium or a Battle Pass like most fans and players have been clamoring for, TI 2025's prize pool will be boosted through sales of Supporter Bundles.
First introduced in 2021 for the now-defunct Dota Pro Circuit, Supporter Bundles allows fans of certain teams, players, or talent to showcase their support through bundles of cosmetic items. According to Valve's latest blog post, each Supporter Bundle contains content created by the team or talent it features, including loading screens, stickers, and voice lines, among others.
TI 2025's Supporter Bundles will notably provide the biggest amount of direct support to Dota 2's esports scene from the fans themselves, as 50% of every sale will go directly to the team or talent. In addition, 30% of each Supporter Bundle sale will be added to TI 2025's base prize pool of US$1.6 million, up from the 25% contribution from all previous editions of the tournament since 2013.
Supporter Bundles for some of the scene's largest community broadcasts around the world, including Brazilian Portuguese, Filipino, and Ukrainian, have also been added. As with the Supporter Bundles for the teams and official talents for TI 2025, 50% of each purchase of these bundles will go to the group in question, while 30% goes to the prize pool.
And while there is no TI Compendium this year, Valve took some of its most popular features–namely TI Fantasy and Predictions–and made them available to every Dota 2 player for free. Leaderboards for those two features have also been added. In addition, Valve has also introduced the new ‘Tyrian Regalia’ treasure, a collection of Immortal-rarity cosmetic items furnished in the colors of TI 2025. The Immortals from the Tyrian Regalia are account-locked, and are exclusive to top-ranked predictors and fantasy players.
As the cherry on top, Valve also revealed that they have banned over 75,000 win traders, smurfs, and “other bad actors” to improve Dota 2's game quality just in time for its most popular period annually.
“The International is just a couple weeks away. Whether you're here to cheer on your favorite teams, or here to match your skills against the millions of other fans in the audience, or whether you're just here to watch the games unfold, we're glad to have you. We'll see you when the games start,” said Valve.
TI 2025 is this year's iteration of Dota 2's annual world championship tournament. From 4 to 11 September in Hamburg, Germany, 16 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world will battle it out across three stages of competition to earn the right to raise the 2025 Aegis of Champions.
For more information on the biggest Dota 2 tournament of the year, check out GosuGamers' guide to this year's Dota 2 world championship tournament and TI 2025 tournament tracker.
We're also publishing a series of profiles on all of the teams competing in TI 2025, with profiles for Southeast Asia's Team Nemesis and Eastern Europe's PARIVISON already up. Keep an eye out for our team profiles on the rest of TI 2025's participating teams every day leading up to the event.
For Dota 2 match results and updates on the go, don't forget to check out our Telegram channel.
