The countdowns are done, and the teams invited to The International 2015 for Dota 2 have been revealed.
And yes, I’m still trying to work out whether to call it The International 2015 or The International 5. Let’s go with 2015 because that’s Valve’s chosen nomenclature for it (and because it’s going to get less confusing as the years go on), but TI5 for short.
So, following on from the countdowns earlier this morning, here are the 10 teams directly invited to compete in The International 5:
- Vici Gaming
- Evil Geniuses
- Team Secret
- Invictus Gaming
- LGD Gaming
- Cloud9
- Team Empire
- Virtus Pro
- Newbee
- Team Malaysia
If you haven’t been following the Dota 2 pro scene much in the past year, you might be wondering about the absence of Na’Vi (winners of the inaugural The International 2011) and Alliance (winners of The International 2013). Both are still relatively solid teams, but right now, neither quite are up to the standard of their past years, so they’ll have to fight it out in the qualifiers instead. It’s also worth noting that a number of players have swapped teams; Team Secret’s currently rost, for instance, is composed of former Alliance, Na’Vi, and Evil Geniuses members, so a fair few of the members will be appearing regardless.
Then we’ve got the qualifier teams. The Americas and China qualifiers will take place between 25 May and 28 May, and the Europe and Southeast Asia qualifiers will take place between 29 May and 1 Jun, with the winner of each getting a spot in TI5’s main event.
Americas Qualifiers
- ROOT Gaming
- Summer’s Rift
- Not Today
- Team Leviathan
- Team Tinker
- Void Boys
- compLexity Gaming
- North American Rejects
- Wheel Wreck While Whistling
- [Americas Open Winner, TBD]
China Qualifier
- TongFu
- CDEC Gaming
- Newbee Youth
- HyperGloryTeam
- Old Boys
- Energy Pacemaker
- Vici Gaming Potential
- EHOME
- Tongfu WanZhou
- [China Open Winner, TBD]
Europe Qualifier
- Vega Squadron
- Burden United
- Natus Vincere
- Power Rangers
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- Alliance
- London Conspiracy
- Hellraisers
- 4 Anchors + Sea Captain
- [Europe Open Winner, TBD]
Southeast Asia Qualifier
- 5eva
- Mineski
- Can’t Say Wips
- Rave
- TnC Gaming
- MVP.Phoenix
- Signature.Trust
- G-Guard
- MVP.Hot6
- [Southeast Asia Open Winner, TBD]
If you can’t wait until August to see the main The International 5 event, a few of the qualifiers should easily be worth watching. Europe, in particular, has a number of really strong teams that didn’t quite make the cut.
If you placed your invite predictions in your Compendium, you’ll now know if you got it right or not. I got one wrong, sadly, so no bonus points for me.
The International 2015 will take place between 3 August and 8 August at the Seattle KeyArena, and the whole thing will be streamed online. The prize pool for the tournament is currently sat on $6,358,914 and will continue to grow over the next few months as more players buy the Compendium and its associated points, boosting the prize pool. Last year’s topped out at nearly $11.1 million, and I’d be kinda surprised if this year’s doesn’t eventually eclipse it.
