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The Internationals, the ultimate Dota 2 annual tournament, starts from 5th August.
The selection system in The Internationals includes 12 direct invites. These are the teams that take the top 12 spots on the DPC points leaderboards after two seasons. As the AniMajor moves to a toss-up between Evil Geniuses, T1, and PSG.LGD, direct invites for this year's TI are locked in.
The following Dota 2 teams have confirmed seats at TI 2021
- Evil Geniuses
- PSG.LGD
- Virtus.Pro
- Quincy Crew
- Invictus Gaming
- T1
- Vici Gaming
- Team Secret
- Team Aster
- Alliance
- beastcoast
- Thunder Predator
What is the points system?
The DPC points, of course, are an index of a team’s year-long performance. This is the system through which 96 pro teams in the tier-1 pro scene are filtered into 18 teams that participate in TI each year.
The Dota 2 annual sports calendar is divided into two seasons. Six concurrent Valve-sponsored regional tournaments take place throughout the seasons.
These six-week leagues are held between the top 18 teams of the region, divided into an upper and lower division. The two bottom teams in the lower division are eliminated from the league at the end of the season. To allow new squads to surface on the tier-1 radar, these slots open up for two teams from the Open Qualifiers.
The top teams in the league tables then go toe-to-toe with a Dota 2 Major to conclude the season. This year, for example, ONE Esports Singapore Major back in March concluded the first season of DPC.
Why are the direct TI invites locked in now?
Nearing the end of the second season this year, much speculation arose as to which teams will find seats at TI. This uncertain situation was created due to a tension of points from the 9th to 13th spot on the DPC leaderboards.
South American team Beastcoast failed to qualify for the playoffs in the AniMajor. Two playoffs seeds, Alliance and Team Aster, were eliminated from the tournament, losing both their upper division and lower division match-ups.
By the end of the lower bracket round 1 playoffs, four Dota 2 pro teams (Alliance, Team Aster, beastcoasts, Thunder Predators) in the 9th to 12th spot of DPC leaderboards all held 800 points each. They were all out of the AniMajor with no additional points. This meant that any one of several results in the Dota 2 AniMajor playoffs could shift the leaderboard's balance.
Team Nigma could've potentially secured a direct invite to TI had they made it to the AniMajor grand finals.
However, with Nigma’s dismissal after a two-nil whitewash at the hands of Evil Geniuses, the top 12 DPC seats are stable.
Which teams fill up the remaining six slots is up to the Dota 2 TI qualifiers this July.
