Dota 2's Community Casting International Qualifiers
For 8 days straight
Valve's Dota 2 [official site] championship The International isn't until August (though it already has a community-funded prize pool of almost $9 million), but is about to settle the four positions earned through regional qualifiers. Eight days of non-stop professional Dota 2 matches are kicking off on Monday, meaning very little sleep. A large number of prominent Dota 2 players, casters, fans and analysts are taking this opportunity to have join together in Bucharest to cast the whole event.
With 35 of them descending on PGL's studio, they've split into three casting teams for non-stop coverage of the event. The full list of personalities and links to the streams can be found over on the Dota 2 subreddit. If you follow the scene, there's bound to be at least one analyst or pro players you like in attendance.
The next week or so is going to be pretty hectic, so make sure you know when to rest so you don’t miss your favourite teams. May 25th to 28th are the Americas and China qualifiers, while May 29th to June 1st belong to Europe and Southeast Asia. You can find the full list of all teams taking part at the International website. Each regional winner will join all the already-invited teams through to the full championship series. Guess that’s why they call it the Invitational.
Pro tip: Pro plus and cat naps. You’ve taken the next week off work, right?