The International Package Is Live: Predictions, Fantasy and a Global Effigy

Valve shipped this year's International package overnight on July 31: predictions, a rewritten fantasy mode, supporter bundles for all sixteen teams, and a patch on top of it. The International is two weeks out in Shanghai, and one of these already has a hard deadline attached.

What actually shipped

• Supporter bundles for all sixteen qualified teams and more than a hundred event talent
• Community bundles for WXC Co. (Filipino), NS_ART (Brazilian Portuguese) and Maincast (Ukrainian)
• Predictions for the Swiss stage and the bracket
• A rebuilt fantasy mode where you draft in pairs and coach the team yourself
• Tyrian Regalia and the new Terrain Token as performance rewards
• Gameplay patch 7.41e plus the Summer Scrub, a large content and bug fix pass

One note before the details: Valve never uses the word Compendium in the announcement. Officially this is 'Predictions, Fantasy, and Supporter Bundles'. Everyone will keep calling it the compendium anyway, and the reward tiers live in the Rewards section of the main Dota 2 menu.

Where the bundle money goes

The split is published this year, and it is worth knowing before you buy: half of every supporter bundle goes to the team or the talent, and just under a third goes into the tournament prize pool.

50% of sales from supporter bundles (teams, talent, and community broadcasts) goes directly to the team or talent and 30% goes to the tournament prize pool.

— Valve, The International: Predictions, Fantasy, and Supporter Bundles

That applies to team bundles, talent bundles and the community broadcast bundles alike, so supporting a Filipino or Ukrainian broadcast feeds the same prize pool as backing a team.

Gold tier gets a global effigy

Team bundles still hand out custom sprays, a badge on your health bar, team emoticons and chat wheel lines. New this year at the Gold tier is a global effigy, a building that replaces your regular effigy in your base through the end of September. Extra supporter levels upgrade how it looks, including custom effects.

It is the most visible team flex Dota has shipped in a while, because it sits in every game you play rather than in a menu nobody opens.

Predictions close when the first match starts

Predictions are back for both the Swiss stage and the bracket, and there is no grace period: guesses lock at 10am CST on Thursday, August 13, when the first match begins.

Fun fact: Exactly zero have ever gotten the full Swiss stage results correct.

— Valve, The International: Predictions, Fantasy, and Supporter Bundles

Fantasy: now you are the coach

Fantasy got the biggest rework of the three. Valve added a new customization point that is not a player at all, it is you: assign custom modifiers to yourself as the coach and they influence your entire team. Prefixes and suffixes were updated too.

Drafting rules changed with it. You now build your roster mostly in pairs:

• Both supports from one team
• The safelaner and the offlaner from one team
• Then your favourite midlaner on top

Pairing lanes forces you to think about synergy instead of stacking five individually strong names. It is the same problem you have in your own ranked games, except there the queue hands you the roster and you find out about the synergy afterwards.

Rewards: Tyrian Regalia and the Terrain Token

Awards go to participating players based on performance relative to everyone else. The Tyrian Regalia treasure returns with five refashioned Immortal items, reserved for the top performers. The Terrain Token is new, and it lets winners pick one of six returning custom terrains, Reef's Edge and Immortal Gardens among them.

The Terrain Token replaces the Arcana Token from previous years, which makes this the cheapest route to an old terrain in a long time. Reward tiers and the finer details sit in the Rewards section of the main menu.

And a patch, because of course

Valve pushed gameplay patch 7.41e the same night, alongside the Summer Scrub 2026: a long list of new features and fixes that runs from Abaddon's taunt to Zeus's Dota Plus challenge. It was too long for the announcement post, so it got its own page.

Nearly a year has passed since Team Falcons lifted the Aegis in Hamburg, and sixteen teams have now earned their invitations to Shanghai. If you would rather watch it with a stack than alone, Teamplay is where you can find people playing your game at your rank and put a group together before the Swiss stage starts.