The International 12 Stats and Records: Examining the Data

The International 2023 (TI12) Dota 2 Championship has recently wrapped up, and now that the digital dust has settled, it’s time to dive into some juicy statistics. We take a look at the viewership numbers, player performance and some interesting tid-bits of data we deem interesting.

TI12 Viewership Numbers & Total Hours Watched

Data provided by Esports Charts (excluding metrics from Chinese streaming platforms) revealed that TI12 secured the fourth-best viewership in the history of Dota 2 tournaments, slightly surpassing the statistics of TI8 in terms of hours watched and peak viewership.

During the grand finals, TI12 captured the attention of 1.4 million viewers, accumulating 65.4 million watching hours in total. While it didn’t surpass the viewership numbers of previous year’s event held in Singapore, it performed better than the last North American venue.

A deeper look into the Dota 2 peak player base over the last seven years, courtesy of SteamDB, suggests a steady player base with a slight increase around 2015-2016. We hate to ruin the proud moment here, but the variance in viewership between these TIs is likely can be attributed to the time zone differences. Especially given that this was the first TI held in North America since 2018, which posed a time challenge for viewers in Europe and Asia.

Player Performance Highlights at TI12

With the conclusion of TI12 and Team Spirit clinching the trophy, several player performance statistics stand out. Yatoro led in average kills, scoring 11.2 kills on average, followed by Kiritych from VP with 9.6 kills per game, and LGD’s offlaner niu with 9.17.

Notable mentions include Nightfall and gpk~, both having the least deaths of 2.33 per map. In the realm of assists, Miposhka topped the charts with an average score of 21.3, closely followed by Sayuw with 18.7 and another Team Spirit player Mira with 17.9.

Gpk~ showcased an impressive KDA (Kills/Deaths/Assists) average of 8.65 per game, significantly leading in this metric. Additionally, Yatoro also had the highest Gold Per Minute (GPM), while Collapse secured the second position in Experience Per Minute (XPM). LGD’s WhyouSm1le demonstrated remarkable healing abilities with 154 HP healed per minute, and in the domain of disables, Entity’s Kataomi, followed by Collapse and Lelis, made significant contributions.

TI12 Hero Preferences and Performance

An examination of hero preferences reveals some intriguing trends based on data.

Only seven heroes were left uncontested at Ti 12, with Drow Ranger, Anti-Mage, Ursa, and Mars only being banned but never chosen by any team.

Storm Spirit emerged as the undefeated champion with a 100% winrate in games where he was picked six times. Following close were Night Stalker with an 86% winrate, Undying and Chen both with a 75% winrate, albeit in fewer than ten games.
Dazzle stood out in games with ten or more appearances, boasting a 72% winrate over 18 maps, and also being the most banned hero with 101 games. Treant Protector and Primal Beast followed in the banning list with 89 games each.
The most picked heroes were Muerta, Grimstroke, and Dark Willow.

An overview of picks and bans showed Treant Protector, Kunkka, and Dazzle topping the charts, with Muerta being the only hero in the top ten that was picked more often than banned.

Ding, ding, ding!

While there’s no doubt that Team Spirit is happy after earning themselves the title as two-time TI Champions, TI12 boasted an underwhelming prize pool winnings. An interesting financial comparison arises when looking at the earnings of Team Spirit players across the two TIs they won. Each player on Team Spirit saw a significantly higher financial windfall during TI10 as compared to TI12. The total prize money bagged by Team Spirit at TI10 amounted to a staggering $18.2 million, breaking down to about $3.6 million per player.

Fast forward to TI12, the total prize money secured was $1.4 million, with each player earning approximately $284,000. This stark contrast highlights that each player earned about 2.5 times more at TI10 compared to the entire team’s earnings at TI12. Yet, even with these hefty amounts, Team Spirit is still only the third top earning Dota 2 team, behind OG and Team Liquid.

This comparison underscores not only the evolution of prize pools in Dota 2 tournaments but also the inflated TI10 and previous TI prize pools, kudos to ludicrous Battle Pass sales.