The International 2014’s format revealed

Valve have today released the format of their fourth annual International event, and quite a lot has changed from the previous iterations of the event.

The wildcard tournament:

All of the four runner-ups from the SEA/EU/NA/CN qualifiers will have a shot to qualify for the main event in a wildcard tournament where only one team will be lucky enough to continue onto the main tournament's group stage. All matches played in the wildcard will be Bo3.

Groupstage:

Instead of two separate groups featuring 8 teams like previous years, TI4 will feature one 16-team group, where the top two will advance straight to the winner's bracket, the next eight teams enter the third stage of playoffs to determine whether or not they reach the lower or upper bracket, and the bottom six teams are eliminated from the tournament all-together.

Playoffs:

Similar to the wildcard tournament, the eight middle teams from the group stage will be split into two separate brackets, depending on the overall performance in the initial group stage, each team will be seeded into different portions of the bracket.

The losers of the opening game of the brackets will find themselves eliminated, whilst the winner of the bracket finds themselves in the upper bracket portion of the main event. The two remaining teams in the bracket will be placed into the lower bracket.

Main event:

The eight remaining teams will then be competing in a Bo3 double-elimination tournament to decide who becomes the TI4 champions, and the winners of the lion's share of $10,000,000.

Image Credit: Valve