Identify Dota 2 and the edition
The International is Valve’s major Dota 2 esports tournament, contested for the Aegis of Champions. Valve identifies 2026 as its 15th anniversary edition in Shanghai. The name is short enough to be ambiguous outside esports, so Dota 2, the year and the team names belong in a useful match or replay search.
Invitations and qualifiers feed the tournament
Valve’sFebruary 2026 announcement describes 16 contending teams drawn from direct invitations and qualifying routes. Open and regional qualifiers took place before the event itself. A team appearing in a regional qualifier is therefore not proof that it reached the 16-team field. Likewise, receiving an invitation is different from advancing through the later group stage.
The group stage reduces the main-event field
The announced Swiss-style groups ran 13–16 August, with eight places available in the main event. Valve’s 19 Augustupdate then confirmed eight remaining contenders. These counts describe successive stages rather than a disagreement about tournament size. The arena programme begins after qualification from that larger opening field.
The main event has its own bracket
Valve’s main-event announcement describes a double-elimination bracket at Shanghai’s Oriental Sports Center from 20–23 August, culminating in a best-of-five Grand Final. The bracket’s upper and lower routes matter when interpreting a series loss. A lower-bracket elimination and an upper-bracket defeat do not have identical immediate consequences. A best-of-five final requires three game wins and can finish 3–0, 3–1 or 3–2. Later numbered games are conditional, rather than missing replay files when the series has already ended.
Read completed records as history
Valve’s 27 Augustnews entry records Team Spirit as 2026 Grand Champions. Earlier preview language about an upcoming Shanghai event is now historical. For an archive, save stage, teams, series and game number together; a full series can contain several individual games. The official watch interface provides game-specific entries, so a replay titled Game 2 should not be treated as the whole series or the tournament final by itself.