The International 2026 Preview: Teams, Format, Schedule

The biggest tournament in Dota 2 is finally here. The International 2026 begins on August 13, bringing 16 of the world's best teams to Shanghai for the 15th edition of Valve's world championship and the latest battle for the Aegis of Champions.

This year's tournament carries plenty of history with it. The International returns to China for the first time since 2019, when Shanghai hosted the event and OG became two-time champions after defeating Team Liquid in the grand final. Seven years later, the tournament returns to the same city with a very different competitive landscape and a field that includes several teams coming off major runs throughout the 2026 season.

There is also an unexpected roster storyline heading into the event. LGD Gaming will enter TI15 with two-time champion Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen after Santiago "TaiLung" Agüero Gustavo was removed from the roster and banned from The International following a competitive integrity investigation. PGL has also issued TaiLung a lifetime ban from its events.

With the tournament only days away, here is everything you need to know about TI15.

The International 2026 Dates, Venue, And Format

The International runs from August 13 through August 23, with the opening stage taking place before the tournament moves into its arena phase. Valve's event documentation confirms Shanghai as the host city, with the main event scheduled for the SPD Bank Oriental Sports Center from August 20 to 23.

The 16-team tournament begins with a Swiss-style group stage running from August 13 to 16. Every match in this stage is a best-of-three, with the results determining which teams survive into the next phase.

The top three teams from the Swiss stage advance directly to the Playoffs. Teams finishing fourth through 13th enter an elimination round, where the 10 teams are reduced to five. Those five winners join the three direct qualifiers to form the eight-team Main Event field.

The Main Event then moves to a double-elimination bracket from August 20 to 23. The matches are best-of-three apart from the Grand Final, which will be played as a best-of-five for the Aegis.

That compressed format makes every game in the opening stage important. There is little room for a slow start, particularly for teams that find themselves in the middle of the standings and have to fight through the elimination round just to reach the arena.

The tournament's guaranteed prize pool starts at $1.6 million, while community-supported content has pushed the current total to roughly $2.8 million, based on the figures provided ahead of the event. The final winner is set to receive at least $1.2 million.

That number is nowhere near the record-setting $40 million prize pool from TI10 in 2021, but the Aegis remains the most prestigious trophy in Dota 2. The International has always carried significance beyond its payout, and that remains true even as other events, particularly the Esports World Cup, offer substantially larger prize pools across the wider esports calendar.

The 16 Teams Fighting For The Aegis

The field brings together a mixture of established Dota 2 powers, regional contenders and teams that have taken very different paths to Shanghai.

• Aurora Gaming will field Oleh "kaori" Medvedok, Chung "Ws" Wei Shen, Rafli "Mikoto" Fathur Rahman, Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko and Myroslav "Mira" Kolpakov. The roster combines established international experience with players who have spent significant time competing at the highest level.
• BB Team arrive with Vitalie "Save-" Melnic, Ilya "Kiritych" Ulyanov, Danil "gpk" Skutin, Vladislav "Kataomi" Semenov and Matvey "MieRo" Vasyunin. The Eastern European lineup has already shown its quality this season and will be looking to turn strong tournament performances into an Aegis run.
• 1w Team, competing as Iron Wing, will feature Neta "33" Shapira, Matthew "Whitemon" Filemon, Matthew "Ari" Walker, Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko and Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov. The lineup brings together several players with extensive Tier 1 experience.
• Team Falcons remain one of the teams to watch after winning The International in 2025. Their lineup includes Wu "Sneyking" Jingjun, Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen, Oliver "skiter" Lepko, Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak and Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf. Falcons will attempt to defend the Aegis and become the latest team to win TI in consecutive years.
• Team Liquid enter with Marcus "Ace" Christensen, Erik "tOfu" Engel, Samuel "Boxi" Svahn, Michael "miCKe" Vu and Michał "Nisha" Jankowski. Liquid's experience makes them one of the tournament's most recognizable contenders.
• Team Yandex will rely on Martin "Saksa" Sazdov, Dmitry "DM" Dorokhin, Arman "Malady" Orazbayev, Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov and Ilya "CHIRA_JUNIOR" Chirtsov.
• China's Xtreme Gaming will have a particularly experienced roster, with Xu "fy" Linsen, Wang "Ame" Chunyu, Yap "xNova" Jian Wei, Lin "Xxs" Jing and Cheng "NothingToSay" Jin Xiang. Playing TI in Shanghai gives the Chinese lineup an additional storyline in front of a home audience.
• Team Spirit arrive with Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov, Denis "Larl" Sigitov, Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk, Aleksandr "rue" Filin and Alexey "not me" Kosmynin, while PARIVISION will field Volodymyr "No[o]ne" Minenko, Evgeniy "Noticed" Ignatenko, Andrey "Dukalis" Kuropatkin, Edgar "9Class" Naltakian and Alan "Satanic" Gallyamov.

The remaining field consists of Nigma Galaxy, HULIGANI, Team Resilience, Vici Gaming, OG, GamerLegion and LGD Gaming.

OG's all-Filipino roster of Timothy "TIMS" John Randrup, Marc "Raven" Fausto, Rolen "skem" Ong, John "Natsumi-" Vargas and Erin "Yopaj" Ferrer gives the tournament another major storyline, particularly for Southeast Asian Dota 2 fans.

LGD, meanwhile, will be the team everyone is watching for a very different reason.

LGD's Last-Minute Change Adds Another TI Storyline

LGD's original TI roster included TaiLung, who had emerged as one of the more promising young players in professional Dota 2. That changed just days before the tournament.

LGD announced that it had identified potential competitive integrity concerns involving the player and reported the matter to tournament organizers. Following the investigation and review, TaiLung was banned from The International 2026, while PGL issued a lifetime ban covering its events. TaiLung has not publicly admitted to wrongdoing and said he would address the allegations with his lawyer.

LGD was subsequently granted a special roster adjustment and turned to one of the most decorated players in Dota 2 history. Topson, who won The International with OG in 2018 and 2019, will take over the mid lane for LGD in Shanghai.

Can The International Recover Its Viewership Momentum?

The Aegis is still one of the biggest prizes in esports from a prestige standpoint, and The International enters 2026 with some encouraging signs after several years of declining audiences.

According to Esports Charts, TI 2025 reached more than 1.78 million peak viewers during its Grand Final between Team Falcons and Xtreme Gaming. That made the 2025 edition the third-most-watched International in the series' history, behind TI9 in 2019 and TI10 in 2021.

The number is significant because TI had spent several years moving away from the enormous audiences it generated during its peak. The 2021 edition remains the record holder with more than 2.7 million peak viewers, but TI 2025's Grand Final represented a second consecutive year of growth.

The return to Shanghai could provide another boost. China remains one of Dota 2's most important markets, and a major international tournament returning to the region gives local fans a chance to watch the world's best teams on home soil.

Official coverage will be available through Twitch and YouTube, with Spanish broadcasts also available on Facebook. Chinese viewers will have additional options through DouYu, Huya and Bilibili. As with previous editions, co-streamers and community broadcasters are expected to play an important role in how fans consume the tournament.

The International 2026 therefore arrives with plenty to prove. It has a returning champion trying to defend the Aegis, a Chinese home crowd waiting to see whether its teams can win on home soil, a two-time champion joining a new roster at the last possible moment, and a tournament that is slowly rebuilding its audience after years of decline.

On August 23, only one team will leave Shanghai with the Aegis. Until then, 16 teams have one of the most valuable opportunities in professional Dota 2: the chance to write their names into The International's history.

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