The International 2026 will mark the 15th Anniversary of Dota 2's annual world championship tournament.
Dota 2 developer Valve has revealed the venue and schedule for The International (TI) 2026, this year's iteration of Dota 2's annual world championship tournament. TI 2026's main event will be hosted in the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai, China, while the tournament's qualifiers will take place in June.
Valve first announced that Shanghai will host TI 2026 during last year's world championship tournament, where 
Team Falcons claimed the Aegis of Champions after defeating China's 
Xtreme Gaming in the five-game grand finals.
As with previous iterations of the tournament, TI 2026 will feature a total of 16 teams that earn their spots in the tournament by receiving direct invites or winning regional qualifiers. TI 2026's qualifier cycle will take place in June, starting with Open Qualifiers from 9 to 12 June followed by the Regional Qualifiers proper from 15 to 28 June.
Come August, TI 2026 will then be split into two phases: the ‘Road to The International’ and ‘The International’ main event. The Road to The International will be a Swiss-style Group Stage from 13 to 16 August, where the 16 teams will be cut down to the final eight that will play in the game's biggest stage from 20 to 23 August in Shanghai's Oriental Sports Center.
“Every year, dedicated Dota players around the globe join together and train relentlessly with a single goal in mind: to battle through the highest levels of opposition and emerge victorious as the last squad standing. These resolute competitors must find a way to intertwine the strands of talent, dreams, and sacrifice into one immortal design, knowing every challenge, every choice, every risk pulls the pattern tighter, and every mistake they make threatens to tear it all apart,” Valve said in a blog post.
TI 2026 will notably mark the second time that Shanghai will host TI after TI 2019, where Western Europe's 
OG became the first-ever two-time TI champions after defeating 
Team Liquid in four games to claim the grand prize of US$15.6 million out of the US$34.3 million prize pool.
It's fitting that TI will return to Shanghai this year given the reinvigoration of the Chinese Dota 2 scene in TI 2025. Xtreme Gaming notably topped TI 2025's Group Stage by winning all four of their matches and advancing directly to the Playoffs. The event's second Chinese team, 
Team Tidebound, also earned a direct berth to the main stage after finishing the Group Stage with a 4-1 record.
Xtreme Gaming ended up finishing second in the tournament, while Team Tidebound bowed out of the event in 7th-8th place. While the Chinese scene fell painfully short of claiming their fourth Aegis of Champions last year, it was still a commendable result for a region that has experienced a steep decline in the past few years.
The legendary 
Wings Gaming were the last Chinese team to win TI back in 2016, joining past Chinese champions 
Invictus Gaming (2012) and 
Newbee (2014).
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