Beyond The Summit has revealed Bot TI is returning for its third run soon, to help smooth over the gap until TI10. The main tournament has been delayed until next year because of the pandemic and has already reached a record breaking $34 million prize pool.
The Bot TI plays out much like the regular TI tournament, which is the biggest event not only in the Dota 2 esports calendar, but one of the biggest esports tournaments full stop. The only difference is that the bot version of the tournament is played entirely by AI, and instead of the usual crowd funded, multi-million prize pool, there is no prize money. Bots don’t need cash, after all.
“Bots can’t get COVID so they are totally unaffected by the pandemic right now,” BTS says in its announcement post on Reddit. “However, the Bots are wearing masks and social distancing as a sign of solidarity to their human Dota player brethren.” The tournament will run September 23-27.
In the tournament, five copies of each hero will run at each other and teamfight. The matches will last for just 30 seconds and are best-of-three. In Game 1, the bots are level 5, in Game 2 level 15, and in Game 3 level 30.
There are also some upgrades from the previous tournaments, which can be found below:
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Live Matches – BTS has worked with FireToad to create an updated Bot TI map which allows all matches to run live. No more accusations of match fixing!
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Totally new and revamped Bot AI – Basically, the bots will behave differently than last time, so there’s more variety.
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Updated Levels and Items – Level cap has been updated to 30. New items and heroes have also been added in.
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Round 3 – The Round 3 match will run in every series, even if it’s a 0-2. Round 3 wins will help determine Top 16 seeding.
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Condensed 5-day Schedule – More matches will happen during the broadcast with much faster pacing and less time in between.
BOT TI is BACK… with upgrades 👀
BOT TI3 will be coming at you with ALL LIVE MATCHES, September 23 – 27 🤖
📋 More info: https://t.co/43MXM3J2GI pic.twitter.com/oGyTUtFR9A
— Beyond the Summit (@BeyondTheSummit) September 1, 2020
In the release statement, BTS also confirmed you can watch “this stupid event” at twitch.tv/beyondthesummit when it kicks off in three weeks.
If you’re curious why a Bot TI even exists, BTS is well ahead of you there too. “We asked ourselves: ‘What is the easiest way to fill the time before the DPC starts up without involving any pro players and having a $0 prize pool?’ This meme event is the result. Then we decided to do it again because people liked it the first time. Then we decided to do it again because people liked it and we don’t know when TI is going to happen.”
It’s not T10, but it’s as close as we’re going to get this year.
