In addition, ten more teams earned invites through qualifiers that were held in June 2018, with the group stage and main event played at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver in August.

As with every International from 2013 onwards, the prize pool was crowdfunded by the Dota 2 community via its battle pass feature, with the total being over US$25 million, making it one of the largest for any esports tournament.

[1][2] As with previous years of the tournament, a corresponding battle pass for Dota 2 was released in May 2018, allowing the prize pool to be crowdfunded by players of the game.

[4][13] As with most major Dota 2 tournaments, the event had English, Chinese, and Russian-language broadcasting crews, with all of them having a large group of dedicated analysts and game casters.

[15] In addition, twelve open qualifier single-elimination playoff brackets, two from each region, were held from June 14–18, 2018, with any eligible team able to participate in them, including non-professional ones.

[17][18][19] To seed the elimination bracket for the main event, two separate round robin group stages featuring all 18 teams were played from August 15–18.

While PSG.LGD earned a direct invite to the tournament by finishing third in the 2017–2018 Dota Pro Circuit standings, OG earned theirs by playing through and winning the European open qualifiers, which they were required to do per tournament rules following a roster shuffle after three members, Tal "Fly" Aizik, Gustav "s4" Magnusson, and Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok left the team in May 2018.

[24][25] Needing three new members just two weeks before the qualifiers began, OG quickly signed Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, a newcomer to the scene who had never performed at a major LAN event prior to the event, Anathan "ana" Pham, a former member of the team who had taken a year-long break following their previous elimination at The International 2017, and Sébastien "Ceb" Debs, who had previously served as the team's coach.

[24][28][29] Their victory was considered a Cinderella and underdog success story, as they had come from the open qualifiers and had beaten some of the more favored and accomplished teams along the way.

[26][6] Other related events took place during the tournament, such as a cosplay and submitted short film contest with their own independent prize pools.

[35][36][37] Attendees of the event at the Rogers Arena were given a free copy of Artifact, a then-upcoming Dota 2-themed digital collectible card game.

It was released online for free on January 15, 2019, and also premiered to a live audience, with members of OG as special guests, at the Palads Teatret in Copenhagen.