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Team Spirit won the International Dota 2 Championship tournament and took home $18.2 Million of the record prize pool exceeding $40 million.
The International Dota 2 Championship was held in Bucharest in Romania. Team Spirit took the top honors in the largest ever esports prize pool.
Both Valve and community purchases for special interactive events like Battlepass and Compendium provide the prize. Team Spirit, based in Moscow is the first Eastern European team to win the Dota 2 International since Ukraine's Natus Vincere (NaVi), won it in 2011.
The International was first launched at the 2011 Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The International featured 16 Dota 2 elite teams competing in a double-elimination playoff format. There was a total prize pool of more than $1 million. The prize pool has been increased to $1.6 million by Valves' contribution and Dota 2 community participation through a percentage from their microtransactions.
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Dota 2 online action strategy game is free to play. It was created by Valve (the maker of many game franchises such as Half-Life) and the operator of Steam.
Image credit: Valve
The tournament was broadcast live worldwide with commentary in multiple languages. Through interviews with Peter Anders, I was able to follow Team Undying through this year's tournament. They were unfortunately eliminated in Bucharest.
After years of studying and playing esports in high school, Anders took this year's Managing Team Undying.
Anders stated that it was great to see the prize pool grow each year and for tournament production values to improve,
Image credit: Valve
The final tournament will award $100,000 to the top two teams. They each get 0.25 percent of the prize pool. The prize pool is approximately 45% for the first-place team.
Anders stated that it was a ridiculous amount. The players love the game and care deeply about it.
