The International 2026: Valve has revealed the venue for the final stage of the tournament

The main stage of The International 2026 will take place at the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai. Valve has published an announcement about the tournament on the official website of Dota 2.

The dates of the championship, published earlier in the document with requirements for event casters, remain unchanged: the competition will take place from 13.08.2026 to 23.08.2026. The group stage using the Swiss system is scheduled for 13.08.2026 – 16.08.2026, and the playoffs from 20.08.2026 to 23.08.2026.

Sixteen teams will compete at the TI15, some of which will receive direct invitations, while the rest will earn slots in the qualifiers. The open qualifiers will take place from 09.06.2026 to 12.06.2026, and closed qualifiers will take place from 15.06.2026 to 28.06.2026.

It should be noted that Shanghai already hosted The International in 2019 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. That year's tournament was memorable not only for its scale but also for its organizational difficulties: the start of the group stage was delayed by almost an hour due to server problems. This was reported by English-speaking commentator Tobi TobiWan Dawson, and Vitaly v1lat Volochei clarified that the weather conditions had contributed to the malfunctions.

The previous tournament in the series took place from 04.09.2025 to 14.09.2025 in Hamburg, Germany. The victory went to Team Falcons, who defeated Xtreme Gaming in the grand final with a score of 3:2.

As CyberScore reported earlier, details of the Dota 2 championship at the Esports Nations Cup 2026 have been revealed.