The International 2021, also known asThe International 10 (TI10), was the tenth iteration ofThe International, an annualDota 2world championshipesports tournament. Hosted byValve, the game's developer, the tournament followed a year-long series of tournaments awarding qualifying points, known as theDota Pro Circuit (DPC), with the top 12 ranking teams being directly invited to the tournament. In addition, six more teams earned invites through regional qualifiers held earlier in 2021. The tournament took place inBucharest, Romania, with the main event heldbehind closed doors at theArena Națională due to restrictions on gatherings in the city.

As with every International from2013 onwards, the prize pool wascrowdfunded by theDota 2 community via itsbattle pass feature with the total reachingUS$40 million, making it the largest esports prize pool in history. The event was also the first International held since2019, as the 2020 iteration was cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. The Grand Finals were held betweenPSG.LGD andTeam Spirit, with the latter winning 3–2 in a best-of-five series.

Dota 2 is a 2013multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed byValve. In it, two teams of five players compete by selecting characters known as "heroes", each with a variety of innateskills and abilities, and cooperate together to be the first to destroy the base of the other team, which ends the match. The game is played from a top-down perspective, and the player sees a segment of the game's map near their character as well as a mini-map that shows their allies, with any enemies revealed outside thefog of war. The game's map has three roughly symmetric "lanes" between each base, with a number of defensive towers protecting each side. Periodically, the team's base spawns a group of weak CPU-controlled creatures, called "creeps", that march down each of the three lanes towards the opponents' base, fighting any enemy hero, creep, or structure they encounter. If a hero character is killed, that characterrespawns back at their base after a delay period, which gets progressively longer the farther into the match.^[1][2]

As with previous years of the tournament, a correspondingbattle pass forDota 2 was released in June 2021, allowing the prize pool to becrowdfunded by players of the game,^[3][4] who purchase the pass both to support the tournament and to access the rewards within it.^[5] A quarter of all revenue made by it was added directly towards the prize pool, which finalized atUS$40,018,195.^[6] At the time of event,Dota 2 featured 121 playable characters, called "heroes". Prior to each game in the tournament, a draft is held between the opposing team captains to select which heroes their teams use, going back and forth until each side has banned seven and selected five heroes. Once a hero is picked it can no longer be selected by any other player that match, so teams used the draft to strategically plan ahead and deny the opponents' heroes that may be good counters or would be able to take advantage of weaknesses to their current lineup.^[1]

The event follows the postponement of The International 2020, which was originally set to be held at theAvicii Arena inStockholm, Sweden, that year before being pushed back indefinitely due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. Valve attempted to restart the event there in 2021 before theSwedish Sports Confederation voted to not recognize esports under its body, a move that would denyvisas for most attempting to enter the country due totheir COVID-19 restrictions at the time.^[7] Valve made repeated requests for the Swedish government to intervene before deciding to move the event to Romania.^[7] The event was originally scheduled to include a live audience who were required to wearface masks and show proof ofCOVID-19 vaccination to attend.^[7] However, Valve announced a week prior to the event that only teams, production staff, and other essential personnel would be allowed to attend due to rising COVID cases in the region and newly implemented restrictions set by the Bucharest government, with them refunding all ticket sales.^[8]

The International 2021 featured a series of pre-qualifying tournaments running throughout the first half of 2021, known as theDota Pro Circuit (DPC), with the top 12 ranking teams receiving direct invitations.^[9] Six more teams received invites following the conclusion ofdouble-elimination tournaments held in June and July 2021 for the China, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America, South America, and Southeast Asia regions, bringing the total number of participating teams up to 18.^[9] Toseed the elimination bracket for the main event,round robin group stages featuring two groups of nine teams were played from October 7–10, 2021.^[10] In it, each of the teams played each other within their group in a two-game series. The top four placing teams of each group advanced to the upper bracket of the main event, while fifth through eighth advanced to the lower bracket. The lowest placed team from both groups were eliminated from the competition. The main event is being held at theArena Națională inBucharest from October 12–17.^[10]

Note: Prizes are in USD^[12]

• Official website

• The International (esports)
• 2021 in Romanian sport
• 2021 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments
• October 2021 sports events in Romania
• Sports events postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from October 2021