SVG on not feeling excited about the end of the season: “It feels like it’s just going to be another ordinary tournament in Shanghai.”

SVG: I think the arguments [from Reddit users] are ridiculous. There’s a very vocal minority, upset by the lack of Arcana, which probably makes up 0.1% of the Dota community. The rest don’t care. So I disagree with that part. But I do agree that TI was a Dota celebration. And I think it was more than just a tournament—it was something bigger. We could have even done without the event itself and still had a great summer Dota celebration.

Cap: During COVID, that happened when TI was canceled but the Battle Pass remained.

SVG: Yeah. There was a certain element of tradition to it, a sense of community unity, and people looked forward to it every year. It went beyond just a vocal minority. I’m a little sad that it’s gone. It existed independently of TI. Obviously, combining them would be better, but I don’t know why Valve decided against it. Was it really that hard? I don’t know. <...>

To me, this doesn’t feel like an Int’l season. It feels like it’s just going to be some ordinary tournament in Shanghai. And I think that when we get there, as usual, about halfway through it’ll start to feel like TI, because the pressure builds, the stakes are high—especially in the final days—and it’s always a lot of fun. But honestly, I don’t feel any anticipation. <…>

Under the old Major system, there were two or three big mini-tournaments. Even those were enough to build hype around TI, because they were like mini-TIs. And you got a sense of the pressure that’s on at The International. I think even that helped set the right mood. But now it’s different; well, here we are, having just wrapped up our 21st online gambling event, and suddenly TI is here. Wait, what, already?!

SVG: This revenue split from cosmetic items was invented in Dota before it made its way to CS:GO, and then they literally killed that feature in Dota, moved it to CS, and everyone was like: “Look how well the CS economy works!” What the hell just happened?! That was the biggest scam ever pulled.

Cap: That would really be one of the most ideal scenarios—if Valve gave tournament organizers in-game monetization. But I think they’re more likely to agree to provide a subsidy.

SVG: Yeah, that’s more likely, because it doesn’t require any work on their part. I’m just saying: imagine if they did the same thing with CS:GO that they did with Dota. Can you imagine the uproar that would cause? Imagine if they said: “Listen, these stickers are bringing in too much money for anyone other than us, so we’re just going to remove them.” Just like that, overnight. That’s literally what happened with Dota. Just imagine what would happen if they did that.

SVG: Everyone talks about how strong Europe is, but all their strong teams get direct invites. And the teams from the qualifiers just show up at TI and finish at the bottom. Historically, second-tier European teams have performed extremely poorly at TI. So I don’t think this region deserves additional slots as much as people think it does. They’re simply given those slots because the top teams perform much better than all the other teams from other regions, and that’s fair. So you have to assume that the competition is really high. But I’m not sure. It makes me a little sad.

I think there should have been two teams from South America at this TI. <...> They’re clearly capable of competing. It’s a little sad that we won’t have at least two such teams. Let’s just say North America doesn’t deserve that—I won’t argue with that here.