If you didn’t know already, Dota 2’s The International 10 is delayed. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many esports events are being delayed or moved to combat the spread of the virus. TI10 is no different, and we’re still waiting to hear the official dates for the tournament.
As a result, though, it looks like The International 11 is also going to have to move all the way to 2022 rather than 2021. There is a screenshot of an email where a representative of The International asks about dates in 2022 that the event might be able to be hosted on.
The email reads as follows: “Hello, Thank you for your response to host The International 2021. As we are all well aware the Covid-19 pandemic has forced several adjustments for events worldwide and TI is no different. Valve has postponed The International 2020 in Stockholm. We will be following up with communications in the coming months with your team directly as to what the target dates of the event will be for 2022. Thank you for your participation, The Valve Team.”
This email doesn’t give a lot away, nor is it conclusive evidence to suggest that this is a genuine document. It should be noted that they never call the event “The International 10 or The International 11, rather the writer uses the year that the event will take place as its number.
Whether the email is fake or real, it’s actually very likely that TI11 will not happen until 2022 anyway. We know that TI10 is likely being pushed back to next year, and it seems appropriate to also move TI11 so they aren’t too close together.
Right now though, it’s more important that we focus on getting TI10 over and done with before thinking too hard about the competitions that come after.
Thanks, Esports Observer.