The International 2018 Dota 2 Championships: Everything you need to know.

The International 2018 - Favorites and Format.

With the International just around the corner. Here is everything you need to know about the event. The International will be the concluding event of the Dota pro circuit season 2017-18. It will be held in Vancouver, Canada with the main event taking place in Rogers Arena.

The group stages will begin on August 15th and conclude on August 18th. A team will face every other team in it's group in a Best of 2 series. The top 4 teams of each group will go on to the upper brackets and the next 4 will comprise of the lower bracket. The last placed team on each group will get eliminated. A pictorial representation is given below:

Group Stage rules of The International 8.

The Main Event will take place over 6 days from 20th August to 25th August in front of a live crowd at Roger's Arena. All matches will be contested in a Best of 3 series except for the first round of the lower brackets which will have a Best of 1 format and the Grand Final which will be Best of 5.

Every match in the lower bracket is an elimination match which if a team loses, they go home. Whereas every match in the Upper Bracket is a qualification match towards the Grand Finals. If a team loses in the Upper Brackets, they slip down to the corresponding lower bracket fixture. The format is much better represented in the picture down below where the losers of an Upper Bracket match gets demoted to the lower bracket match vertically below them.

Main Event brackets of The International 2018.

Going into the tournament Russian team Virtus.Pro is the favorites on paper. Out of the 9 Major tournaments this year, Virtus Pro has won 4 of them while managing top 4 finishes in 3 more. Out of the only 2 Majors they didn't finish top 4 in, they withdrew from one and finished 6th in another. The line-up of Solo, NoOne, 9Pasha, Rodjer and Ramzes has been the most impressive and are the bookmaker's favorites going into TI8.

Defending champions Team Liquid are still the force they were last year. They proved it with their victory at the season's last major, The China Supermajor. Garnering top 4 finishes in 6 of the 9 majors and winning the Supermajor, Liquid kept their name atop the Dota community as Kuroky, Miracle, Matumbaman, Mind_Control and GH they headed into TI8 placed second on the Dota Pro Circuit charts.

2018 is supposed to be the year of the Chinese. With a non chinese team winning last year, past results indicate a Chinese victory this year. Their best hope: PSG.LGD Gaming. Ever since Football Giants Paris Saint Germain took over LGD Gaming they went on a tear. Finishing in the top 4 every major they participated in winning them twice, PSG looked as strong as any team going into TI. Ame, Somnus, fy, Chalice and xNova looks to bring the Aegis back to China.

You can watch The International live on here. The site will come online once The International starts and the official Streams are online.