While Team Spirit winning a third edition of The International understandably grabbed headlines in the tournament’s wake, a more troubling consideration for fans of pro Dota 2 is that TI 15 continued a trend of the game’s esports scene becoming older and more regionally isolated with each passing year.
There was no shortage of excitement at TI 15. The event’s climax featured one of the best grand finals sets in the tournament’s long history, with Team Spirit narrowly besting Team Vision 3-2. It was a final that deserved its place at the climax of Dota 2’s tournament calendar.
But it also highlighted worrying trends around the game. The event’s top four finishers were each Eastern European teams, with 14 of their 20 players being Russian. That these specific players were able to find such success is no issue; what gives fans pause is the potential inability of players from other regions to achieve such results.
That concern is more than anecdotal. Going over the data available from 15 years of The International, it becomes clear that the event’s 2026 edition was both the most regionally isolated and the oldest yet, and that these trends were already spiking upwards in the years leading up to TI 15.
Dota 2 teams at TI are older and more isolated than ever
As its name indicates, The International has typically been a very regionally diverse event. First devised as a means of bringing together pro Dota 2 teams and players from all around the world, the tournament immediately accomplished that goal with its 2011 debut. This played a significant role in the event’s early prestige and popularity.
Regional representation has always been an important part of keeping any game’s competitive scene healthy worldwide. And the winners of the first five editions of TI were from four distinct regions (Eastern Europe, Western Europe, China, North America) spread across the globe, speaking to the game’s health and reach.
This regional spread generally held strong between 2011 and 2021. But things began to shift beginning in 2022, subtly at first, and then much more dramatically.
Between 2021-2026, the (rounded) percentage of Russian players representing teams at TI increased from 8% all the way to 24%, multiplying three times over. At the same time, players from the Eastern European region (for our purposes, defined as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan), also spiked upwards, multiplying by more than three times.
Naturally, this trend had seen an equitable decrease in players from other regions. The percentage number of pro players from outside Eastern Europe held in the high 80s and low 90s for nearly every year of TI prior to 2022, when it dipped down to match its historical low of 81%.
In the four years since, it has fallen a full 20 points further, with players beyond Eastern Europe only making up 61% of the field at TI 15.
| TI | Russia | EEU | Other |
| 2011 | 8% | 12% | 88% |
| 2012 | 10% | 18% | 83% |
| 2013 | 6% | 11% | 89% |
| 2014 | 3% | 10% | 90% |
| 2015 | 6% | 19% | 81% |
| 2016 | 3% | 8% | 93% |
| 2017 | 6% | 12% | 88% |
| 2018 | 8% | 12% | 88% |
| 2019 | 6% | 11% | 89% |
| 2021 | 8% | 12% | 88% |
| 2022 | 13% | 19% | 81% |
| 2023 | 19% | 29% | 71% |
| 2024 | 21% | 31% | 69% |
| 2025 | 20% | 34% | 66% |
| 2026 | 25% | 39% | 61% |
It should be clarified that there’s nothing inherently wrong with Russian or Eastern European players and teams excelling in pro Dota 2. The issue is more with what this dearth of international competition says for the game’s long-term prospects in other regions.
One need look no further than the main stage of TI in 2026. Held in Shanghai, China, the main event did not play host to even one Chinese player, team, or sponsor. Vici Gaming and Team Resilience were knocked out in the elimination round, while Xtreme Gaming was among the first three teams cut from the event. Even LGD Gaming, represented by a South American roster with Finnish star Topson substituting in, couldn’t work its way in front of the arena crowd.
Chinese fans still managed to fill the arena and expressed much excitement around the tournament’s biggest moments that played out live on stage. But it’s hard not to feel like something was missing without those fans having any domestic competitors to cheer for. And it’s a trend that stands to continue far beyond China.
As Dota 2 pros get older, the fewer young stars are also isolated
While each edition of The Interntional has become less international, it has also become an older tournament. Data around player ages isn’t as reliable as nationalities when looking at the game’s earliest years, but from around 2017 these numbers come into better focus. And they paint another sobering picture of the game’s current trends.
Over the last 10 years, the average age of pro Dota 2 players at The International has increased by nearly four years. What’s more, that development has been most pronounced over the last few editions of the event, right as the TI’s pro player representation has firmly coalesced around Russia and Eastern Europe.
And yet this still doesn’t paint the full picture, because Eastern European players also represent an outsized portion of the game’s young talent. So while young players can still be found at TI, they are increasingly isolated to just one of the game’s regions. When Eastern European players aren’t counted, the average age of TI competitors jumps up even more sharply.
This means that most regions around the world are struggling to produce fresh young talent, while their overall representation at TI is shrinking. That’s a stark consideration for fans of pro Dota 2.
This information does not necessarily mean that Dota 2 should suddenly be considered a dead game across most of the world’s regions. Even if the numbers show a stark drop-off from where they were just a few years ago, a majority of the game’s pro players at TI do still represent the broader world beyond Eastern Europe.
It’s also worth noting that, prior to Team Spirit winning TI 15, the prior two winners of The International had only one Eastern European player between them. The other nine players represented a variety of nations including Sweden, Jordan, the United States, Slovakia, and more.
But the data does paint a clear picture of an esport that is increasingly isolated in Eastern Europe, that is rapidly aging, and that is struggling to produce new high-level talent outside of one area. And if future editions of The International are meant to continue feeling truly international, these are problems that will need to be addressed.
