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Valve has revealed the six invited teams for August’s The International 7 tournament, in addition to where Valve will be pulling the addition 12 teams that’ll be joining them from the regional qualifiers.
The invites are safe choices. Epicenter winners Team Liquid are joined by four time Major champs OG to prop up the European end, while Invictus Gaming and former winners Newbee are the two chinese outfits. Virtus.Pro are representing Russia, and NA legends Evil Geniuses round out the six invites.
There are few surprises here, with the teams being former winners or currently successful with tournament wins over the last season. All teams will be familiar to fans of the esport, and personally I’m hoping to see more interesting competition making an appearance through the qualifiers.
Slots are allocated through qualification, with this many slots from each region being allocated:
3 from China qualifers
3 from South East Asia qualifiers
2 from Europe Qualifiers
2 from North American qualifiers
1 from CIS qualifier
1 from South American qualifiers
Ten teams will be throwing down in each qualifier, so the competition is tough, and we could see several popular NA or European teams missing the cut, surprising considering NA, China and Europe are generally viewed as hosting the most qualifying events and having the most active scenes. However, China has three slots and NA and Europe have just two.
Still, the competition and heartache will be worth it. The prize pool is at $16,000,000 right now, and the prize pool is currently trending to be even more than last year’s modest $21,000,000 offering. Winning the International is a shortcut to immediate riches for many Dota 2 players, with a win probably being enough to deposit any individual player high onto the list of top esports earners.
