The International 2026: Champion, Prize Pool and TI15 Format

26 August 2026 · 6 min read

GameMapa editorial · how we check facts
Checked: Claude (AI) — fact-checked against the Ukrainian original; not proofread by a native speaker

Team Spirit are the champions of The International 2026 — the tournament wrapped up on 23 August in Shanghai. This was the fifteenth The International, and the third TI title for the organisation itself.

Below is everything we actually know about the tournament: the format, the money, the champion roster and the patch it was all played on. And separately — what we don’t claim, because for some of it we simply don’t have the data.

Tournament basics

One line here deserves its own callout — the venue. TI returned to a major Chinese arena, with PGL running the event alongside Valve.

Format: Swiss stage, then double elimination

The structure had two stages:

1. Group stage — run as a modified Swiss system. This isn’t a classic round-robin group; teams are paired by current record, so sides with matching win-loss balances face each other.
2. Main Event — from 20 to 23 August, a double-elimination bracket. One loss doesn’t eliminate a team; a second one does.

Series length followed a simple rule too: the grand final was played to three wins (Bo5), every other match to two (Bo3).

The champion, and what it means for the roster

Team Spirit won TI 2026 with the following line-up: Collapse, Larl, rue, not me, Yatoro.

The most interesting part here is the title count. Going into this tournament:

For the organisation, this is a third The International title — following 2021 and 2023.

The facts we have don’t state how many previous titles rue and not me held, so we’re not going to guess. This is exactly the kind of gap that’s better left open than filled with a plausible-sounding number.

The money: base pool, actual pool and our own calculation

Three separate figures matter here, and they shouldn’t be mixed up.

Base prize pool: $1,600,000. That’s what Valve committed.

Total pool: $3,618,568, as of 26 August 2026. The gap between those two numbers is the community’s contribution.

The funding mechanism changed this year: there was no Battle Pass and no Compendium at all. Instead of the usual “buy a pass, a share goes to the pool” model, players earned a set of rewards through the event itself. On top of that, 30% of sales from the Supporters Club Season 13 bundle went into the prize pool.

If you’re new to Dota 2’s in-game purchases and want to understand how paid bundles actually work and what they include, we’ve got a separate breakdown of DLC and purchases in Dota 2.

How much the champion actually took home

Here’s how the first-place figure is worked out:

1. Start with the total pool — $3,618,568.
2. Under the published split, first place takes 42.5% of the pool.
3. That comes out to roughly $1,537,900.

⚠️ Important: this is our own calculation, not a figure Valve announced. The company published the percentage share but never named a dollar amount for first place. So the accurate way to put it is “roughly this much, based on the published share” — not “Valve paid out this much.”

Patch 7.41e — what was actually being played

The whole tournament ran on patch 7.41e. Valve released it on 30 July 2026 in a post titled “Gameplay Patch 7.41e and Summer Scrub” — ahead of the tournament start, and nobody touched the rules mid-TI.

That’s standard practice: a major tournament locks in on a specific game version, and that version decides which heroes and items are viable on stage. We’ve covered exactly what 7.41e changed in a separate piece: Dota 2 update 7.41e.

If you don’t follow patch numbers at all and want to understand how Valve rolls out updates and how they’re numbered, start with our guide to Dota 2 updates and patches.

What we don’t claim

This section is short, but it’s the most important one here.

• The grand final score. We’re not naming it. We don’t have data on the final series, and guessing at “3-1” or “3-2” for a Bo5 is exactly the mistake we’re not going to make.
• Who finished second. Same story — no data. The champion is confirmed independently, through the results bracket and roster photos. The runner-up isn’t.
• The rest of the placements. Who finished third, fourth, how the remaining payouts broke down — not stated.
• The champion’s exact payout. We have the 42.5% share and we have the total pool. Our product of the two is an estimate, not an official number.
• Whether the pool total is final. $3,618,568 is the figure as of 26 August 2026. We’re not claiming it’s the permanent, final number.
• Why the monetisation format changed. We’re not repeating explanations for why there was no Battle Pass this year, because none appear in our source facts.

What’s actually useful for a regular player

There’s one practical takeaway: the patch TI was won on is the same patch you queue into from matchmaking. The pro meta and the pub meta diverge, but the underlying rules are shared.

If watching the finals left you wanting to try something you saw, it’s smarter to start not by copying pro drafts but by understanding roles first — we cover that in our guide to the five positions in Dota 2.

In short

The International 2026 ran from 13 to 23 August in Shanghai on patch 7.41e, and Team Spirit won it — a third TI title for the organisation. The total pool reached $3,618,568, and the first-place payout (roughly $1,537,900) is our own calculation based on the published 42.5% share, not a figure Valve officially announced.