Where and how to watch Valve’s $20 million 2016 International Dota 2 Championships

At 10 AM PT today, the main event of the biggest esports competition of the year gets underway as 16 teams battle for a prize pool of more than $20 million in The 2016 International Dota 2 Championships at Seattle’s Key Arena. There are plenty of ways to watch some of the best competitive Dota 2 of the year, even if you aren’t here in Seattle to check it out in person.

As with just about any competitive video game now, the easiest way to watch The International is probably Twitch.tv, at twitch.tv/dota2ti.

However, there are arguably better ways to watch the most financially lucrative esports tournament ever. Valve is once again streaming every game of TI6 within Dota2.com, at http://www.dota2.com/international/live/. In addition to multiple versions and languages for each stream, you can also view each match with accompanying real-time information about the game in question, including hero levels, a real-time mini-map, XP and gold graphs and more.

Meanwhile, if you’ve purchased the International Battle Pass within the Dota 2 client, not only have you contributed money to TI6’s massive prize pool, you’ve also bought a ticket to watch the tournament in game. Watching in-game allows you complete control of your view of the action, while also providing the same professional spectator experience and casting you’d get on Twitch or Dota2.com. Viewers who watch within Dota 2 can also earn prizes for specific events in game, and can also make predictions on various aspects of each match and win battle points and more prizes.

But if you’ve got an HTC Vive and have Dota 2 installed, Valve has created a unique spectator experience just for you. I’ll let my colleague Ben Kuchera tell you about it:

"Watching battles take place around you is thrilling, even though it can be a bit hard to keep track of everything that’s going on. The interface makes it easy for you to switch views or jump back and forth from the in-person view to the lobby as well; it only took me a few minutes to get used to moving back and forth to get the best view of the action. It's like being able to watch a football game on TV with the ability to jump onto the field at any time to see what it looks like from the quarterback's point of view."

For a primer on how to watch competitive Dota 2, check out our video below: