Every year during the months of April and May, Dota 2 fans across the world eagerly look forward to the release of the Battle Pass for The International. For the unaware, The International is the biggest yearly tournament of Dota 2 and the biggest esports tournament of the world. It boasts a prize pool greater than any other esports tournament and keeps on increasing every year, without exceptions. It’s also one of the most viewed esports tournaments, with the TI9 grand finale recording almost 2 million peak viewer count across western streaming platforms like Twitch.
The release dates of The International battle passes are generally not disclosed any earlier than its actual release. So, fans are mostly caught off guard by surprise when the battle pass finally releases. The Battle Pass consists of a plethora of exclusive features like chat wheel sounds, hero personas and sprays while also providing owners with a wide array of hero cosmetics, treasures and couriers. These sorts of exclusive limited time items make the Battle Pass a must-have for hardcore and casual Dota 2 players alike.
The International is also a crowdfunded tournament. With 25% of all the battle pass sales going to the prize pool of the tournament, fans can directly contribute to the prize pool by making purchases related to the Battle Pass.
Recently, a post has surfaced on Reddit where the poster seems to predict the battle pass 2020 release date by noticing a paradigm among the previous Battle Pass releases.
According to u/Gmoney228, this year’s battle pass will be released on April 21. He also provides several points of logic behind his deduction, the first one being, “Battlepass mostly releases on Tuesdays”. Looking back at history, Battle pass 2019 was released on May 7th, a Tuesday. Battle Pass 2018 was released on May 8th, also a Tuesday. This year, April 21st is a Tuesday as well. He further claims another point that “workshop sets are due 27th of April and every battlepass was released 5-6 days earlier than the workshop deadline.” He also mentioned the workshop deadlines for different years and their corresponding Battle Pass release dates:
- “International 2019 workshop deadline May 12, Battlepass released on 7th May on Tuesday”
- “International 2018 workshop deadline May 13, Battlepass released on 8th May on Tuesday”
Both of these were 5 days before the deadline, and judging from this logic he predicted the 2020 Battle Pass release date to be on April 21, a Tuesday which is 6 days before the workshop deadline.
The logic behind the conclusion that The International 2020 Battle Pass will release on April 21 is pretty solid. Unless Valve decides to change their yearly pattern due to the unfortunate pandemic that is currently going on, there’s a high probability that we’ll get to enjoy the Battle Pass soon enough. Among all these uncertainties the only thing certain is perhaps the fact that none of us can wait any longer for the final release of the Battle Pass 2020.
