Is the new TI12 schedule a bad idea? Pros & Cons to Latest Proposal

As we head into the final major of the season, talks about the International 12 (TI12) are gaining traction. Although unofficial, Valve themselves released the TI12 schedule in their “Request for proposal” document meant for the broadcast teams in Russian, Mandarin, Chinese and Spanish.

Proposed TI12 Schedule

According to the shared schedule, TI12 group stage spans from October 12-15. However, what’s peculiar is that the initial TI12 date announcement is October 14, which means the new schedule will kick off TI12 early.

Whether it’s a typo error or an intended change in start date, we will have to wait until Valve officially announces the schedule since this is an unofficial reveal.

This document is to request for broadcast production offers, which also shares the specific terms and conditions of the work, alongside the full stage schedule of TI12.

Breaks in-between The International 2023 Stages

The other concern is that after the Group Stage, there’s a four-day break with the Playoffs resuming on October 20-22. Such a long break in-between group stage and playoffs is a new trend in recent International Championships, and a controversial topic.

And yet, there’s also another concern, whereby the schedule deliberately hinted that only the Finals Weekend is considered the International 12. The other stages of the event, such as group stage and playoffs are under the banner called “Road to the International” instead. This could plausibly mean that there’s reduced days at the physical venue, Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, USA. It is only on the last three days of TI12, when The Finals Weekend will be hosted at the venue from October 27-29.

Pros and Cons of TI 2023 Schedule

With TI12 spread across three weeks, some may argue that the viewing experience won’t be as intense. Many even say that they might lose interest to follow the TI12 for the playoffs, and only resume to watch the decisive Finals Weekend.

Sure, fans can argue that the players would really enjoy the break and have time to strategize their upcoming game plans. The outcome of the group stage, the playoffs match-ups and watching group stage replays are crucial tasks that the remaining teams want to be doing.

Dota 2 pro players’ take on long breaks between games

Clement “Puppey” Ivanov, the captain of Team Secret, once argued that a Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) league doesn’t need to last three weeks. Specifically, the Division 1 bracket last year had 3-4 day breaks in-between. To which, Puppey stated a better system would be where players work and take a break in-between each game. Instead, players only play Dota every 3-4 days per week, which is not a consistent routine of playing Dota.

After all, pro players play Dota 2 games as their work routine, much like the rest of us. Hence, eight hours of consecutive games with short breaks is viable.

We can understand how that would disrupt a team’s pace and momentum during the whole event, but perhaps a DPC League isn’t the same as TI12 either. The DPC League has only eight teams compete in single round-robin, while TI12 group stage has twenty. There will be matches in four groups running simultaneously, so it might actually be more sustainable for both viewers and teams to have a break after the group stage.

What about in-person viewers and travel plans to TI12?

For Dota 2 viewers who are planning to watch TI12 in person, they raised the concern of planning a trip that’s almost three-weeks long, plus the accommodation and budget to do so. Well, since there’s only three days of venue-based games, there’s no reason to visit Seattle on the early days of TI12.

Planning for a three-day trip to Seattle is far more economical than staying there for the entire week anyways, and it’s not like there’s midweek tickets for purchase.

In hindsight, not much has changed besides the in-between break, but surely Valve has everyone’s best interest to put it in the schedule. However, we do miss the good old days when TI12 main stage starts with the playoffs, and not just the finals. It does make TI12 look lacklustre in terms of production value and available budget for the biggest Esports championship to-date.