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The Dota 2 International is about to start in two days' time and there is a good mix of hype and expectation among the passionate fans of the community. A total of 18 teams are playing in the tournament, six of which have earned their spots through tough qualifications. The other 12 have been invited to the tournament.
Teams like Newbee, Infamous, Chaos Esports Club, Natus Vincere, Royal Never Give Up and Mineski have fought their way and qualified. The invited teams include Team Secret, Virtus.pro, Vici Gaming, Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid, PSG.LGD, Fnatic, Ninjas in Pyjamas, TNC Predator, OG, Alliance, and Keen Gaming.
Although the competition will be tough and every team will try their best to stay in the chase for the Aegis, some teams will inevitably outdo others and be a colossal force. The favorites to win The International of 2019 are as follows:
#4 PSG.LGD
If it wasn’t for OG’s brilliance in the final moments of The International 2018 grand finale, PSG were destined to become champions. They are a well-disciplined side and play Dota focusing on objectives.
They have an incredibly skilled roster which is led by fy (Xu Linsen) who plays position four. The other four members include Ame (Wang Chunyu) as position one, Somnus丶M(Lu Yao) as position two, Chalice(Yang Shenyi) as position three and xNova(Yap Jian Wei) as position five.
PSG are known for their dominant drafts and great strategy to finish off games in the picking phases. They have the default Chinese style of strict Dota which is terrifying for most teams.
They carefully draft heroes according to oppositions strengths and weaknesses and exploit loopholes to win the match, not taking away from the fact how talented the players are. The runners-up of last TI are very much the favorites to win the tournament.
#3 Virtus.pro
Virtus.pro have been at the top of their game for the last few months and continue to assert their dominance as a Russian side in the Dota 2 professional scene. They are a very strong side who have managed to defeat Team Secret in The Kuala Lumpur Major and are a thriving side.
Their roster consists of leader RAMZES666 (Roman Kushnarev) as position one, No[o]ne (Vladimir Minenko) as position two, 9pasha (Pavel Khvastunov) as position three, RodjER (Vladimir Nikogosyan) as position four and Solo (Alexei Berezin) as position five.
Virtus.pro have been improving as a team year by year, and their performances have been sharp. However, the team has not managed to bring the Aegis home. This year it looks like VP will try to defeat all odds to win the tournament.
#2 Vici Gaming
Vici Gaming are probably the most in-form team in the entire list. They have won DreamLeague Season 11 after defeating VP 3-2 in the finals, and they have also managed to crush one of the best teams in Dota, Team.Liquid in the recent EPICENTER Major of 2019. Irrespective of their achievements, Vici Gaming are second on this list because of their previous records in big tournaments.
Their ability to handle intense pressure at key moments has let them down at times.
On the positive side, Vici are also the most disciplined team in this entire list. They play textbook Dota but at a very high level.
Their dedication and concentration is unparalleled and one cannot question their ability to close off games very early by taking all the objectives. Their roster consists of leader Fade (Pan Yi) as position four, Paparazi (Zhang Chengjun) as position one/two, Ori (Zeng Jiaoyang) as position one/two, Yang (Zhou Haiyang) as position three and Dy (Ding Cong) as position five.
#1 Team Secret
Only getting to the 5-6th position in the 2018 International, Team Secret completely turned their form to a winning side in the year 2019. The European side have proved that they will be formidable opposition in the upcoming International.
Winning The Chongqing Major against VP 3-1 and later crushing Team.Liquid to win MDL Disneyland Paris Major are some of the achievements of the recent Team Secret squad.
They have extremely skilled players lined up who are in tremendous form, especially Nisha ( Michał Jankowski) who has been playing the carry or mid role for the team is a brilliant addition to the squad. The joining of Zai (Ludwig Wåhlberg) as a position three has also turned out to be great.
Apart from having two new amazing signings, Secret already has legendary player and their leader Puppey (Clement Ivanov) who plays position five, one of the most technically gifted and skilled players MidOne (Yeik Nai Zheng) who is position one/two and YapzOr (Yazied Jaradat) who is a great position four player.
Secret probably has an all-star team and is most favored to win this tournament.
