THE EMPIRE
If you’re new to gaming or a casual gamer then you might not know about or very little of the professional competitive side of gaming known as eSports. eSports is a massive industry where gamers can compete in tournaments for money, these tournaments may be streamed live to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people on the internet. In just a few days, one of, if not the biggest eSports tournament will begin, and if you’re interested, then this is your chance to learn and join an awesome community.
The International 2016 (TI6) is the sixth annual edition of The International, an international eSports tournament for the game DotA 2 (Defense of the Ancients) which is hosted by Valve Corporation, the company that made the game. The event will be taking place in the United States, in Seattle’s KeyArena from the 3rd of August and ending on the 13th of August. The tournament consists of sixteen teams, six teams were directly invited, eight more had to battle their way through qualifiers, with two other teams entering as wild cards.
Valve set a starting prize pool and let the community add to it, this can be done by buying a “Battle Pass” to acquire The International 2016 Compendium as well as levels to increase your Compendium gaining in-game rewards and items. Getting your Compendium to Level 1000, you will be invited to receive The International 2016 Collector’s Aegis, an exclusive 1/5th-scale alloy replica of the famed champion’s Aegis. Yes, I have made it to level 1000+ and I am not ashamed as I missed out on receiving last years Aegis. The prize pool for The International 2016 has now become the largest in eSports history, beating it’s own record it set last year of $18.4 million with The International 2015. It is currently at $18.7 million and at its current pace it looks like the prize pool will surpass $20 million.
Matches will be Best of 3’s, Best of 5’s and hopefully the Grand Final will be a Best of 7. Games can last from 15 minutes long to over an hour, most games average 30-40 minutes, so you will need some time to watch a match. This tournament will be live streamed on the internet, so if you are interested in eSports, DotA 2 or just out of curiosity, keep an eye on Empire Men or Empire Tech Cave‘s facebook page as streams will be posted there as well as updates on the tournament itself. I can not think of any better way to be introduced to eSports than watching The International.
GGWP
– Hayden
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