Throughout the year, Dota teams around the world battle to prove themselves worthy of direct invitation to The International — and a chance to compete for the Aegis of Champions on the world's biggest stage. Teams that secure invites can begin to focus on their final preparations, while the remaining contenders face one last chance to fight their way in.
Direct Invites
With less than three months until we raise the curtains on the big show, we’re excited to extend these seven teams invitations to Shanghai, China to compete in The International 2026:
- Aurora Gaming Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko
Rafli "Mikoto" Fathur Rahman
Wei Shen "Ws`" Chung
Myroslav "Mira" Kolpakov
Oleh "kaori" Medvedok - BoomBoys Ilia "Kiritych~" Ulianov
Danil "gpk~" Skutin
Matvei "MieRo`" Vasiunin
Vitalie "Save-" Melnic
Vladislav "Kataomi`" Semenov - Team Falcons Oliver "Skiter" Lepko
Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak
Ammar "ATF" Alassaf
Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen
Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu - Team Liquid Michael "m1CKe" Vu
Michał "Nisha" Jankowski
Marcus "Ace" Christensen
Samuel "Boxi" Svahn
Erik "tOfu" Engel - Tundra Esports Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko
Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov
Neta "33" Shapira
Matthew "Ari" Walker
Matthew "Whitemon" Filemon - Xtreme Gaming Chunyu "Ame" Wang
Jin Xiang "NothingToSay" Cheng
Jing "Xxs" Lin
Linsen "fy" Xu
Jian Wei "xNova" Yap - Team Yandex Alimzhan "医者watson" Islambekov
Ilya "CHIRA_JUNIOR" Chirtsov
Dmitrii "DM" Dorokhin
Martin "Saksa" Sazdov
Arman "Malady" Orazbayev
Regional Qualifiers
The seven teams above have already earned invitations, which means there are still nine slots available at TI, just waiting for the squads that can survive the crucible of Regional Qualifiers. This year, we've merged the Eastern and Western Europe qualifiers into one single European qualifier with four advancement slots. Check out the full schedule below.
- China, June 15-18 (2 slots) Vici Gaming
Roar Gaming
Yakutou Brothers
Team Resilience
(+4 teams from Open Qualifiers) - South America, June 15-19 (1 slot) LGD Gaming
PlayTime
Estar Backs
Red Hot Chili Pibble
Amaru Gaming
Hokori
(+4 teams from Open Qualifiers) - Southeast Asia, June 19-23 (1 slot) REKONIX
OG
Execration
Team Nemesis
GLYPH
(+5 teams from Open Qualifiers) - Europe, June 21-28 (4 slots) TEAM VISION
Team Spirit
MOUZ
Natus Vincere
Nigma Galaxy
Virtus.pro
enjoy
Power Rangers
(+8 teams from Open Qualifiers) - North America, June 24-26 (1 slot) GamerLegion
(+3 teams from Open Qualifiers)
Once qualifiers wrap up on June 28, we'll have the full tournament field decided, and the next stop is Shanghai. Group Stage kicks off August 13 - 16 with a three-day, five-round Swiss bracket, followed by five elimination matches played on Sunday. The eight remaining teams bring the competition into the arena August 20 - 23, where the Aegis of Champions awaits.