Background Dota 2 is a
multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed by
Valve, which released in 2013. In it, two teams of five players compete by selecting pre-designed in-game hero characters, each with a variety of innate skills and deploy-able powers, and cooperating together to destroy the base of the other team before their own base is destroyed as to win the round. The game is played from a top-down perspective, and the player sees a segment of the game's map near their character as well as mini-map that shows their allies, with any enemies revealed outside the
fog of war. The game's map has three symmetric "lanes" between each base, with a number of automated defense towers protecting each side. Periodically, the team's base will spawn an army of weak non-playable "creeps" that will march down one lane towards the opponents' base, fighting any enemy hero, creep, or structure they encounter. If a hero character is killed, that character will respawn back at their base after a delay period, which gets progressively longer the farther into the match. As with previous years of the tournament, a corresponding
battle pass for
Dota 2 was released in May 2017, allowing the prize pool to be
crowdfunded by players of the game. Known as the "Compendium", 25% of revenue made by it was sent directly towards the tournament's prize pool. Following that, two separate best-of-two
round robin groups consisting of nine teams each were played from August 2–5, with lowest placed team from both being eliminated from the competition. The remaining 16 teams moved on to the
double elimination main event at the
KeyArena in
Seattle from August 7–12, with the top four finishing teams from both groups advancing to the upper bracket, and the bottom four advancing to the lower bracket. New to the event from previous years was the expansion from 16 to 18 total teams, as well as establishment of new qualifying regions; the Americas were split into separate North and South America regions, and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region was split off from Europe.
The International 2016 champion
Wings Gaming disbanded earlier in 2017 with its members taking a break from professional
Dota, marking the first time in the International's history that a defending champion or any player of its former roster did not defend their title. The rosters of two independent teams, Planet Dog and Team NP, were signed after the qualifier stage respectively by the esports organizations HellRaisers and
Cloud9. Valve tournament rules allow for players to freely play for another organization without restrictions, as long as the rosters remain the same. As with previous years of the event, Seattle
KCPQ reporter Kaci Aitchison reprised her role as co-host and interviewer. However,
Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner, the desk host of the last two Internationals, was not invited. Instead,
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament host Alex "Machine" Richardson and
StarCraft personality Sean Plott|Sean "Day[9]" Plott replaced him. ;Direct invitation •
Evil Geniuses •
Invictus Gaming •
Newbee •
OG •
Team Liquid •
Virtus.pro ;Regional qualifier winners • iG Vitality • LGD.Forever Young •
LGD Gaming • Team Empire •
Team Secret • HellRaisers •
Cloud9 •
Digital Chaos •
Infamous • TNC Pro Team •
Fnatic • Execration ==Results==