The International 12: The 20 participants

The International 12 will take place in October but the regional qualifiers finished yesterday. A total of eight teams have received invitations to the tournament based on their results. The other 12 teams were already waiting for them.

This edition of The International will be quite spectacular in terms of skill, but it will lack many of the great names that made this tournament as prestigious as it is today. The list is quite long, but just take a look at these players:

• Sumail
• Puppey
• KuroKy
• Ceb
• RodjER

None of them will compete in Seattle. But plenty of other great players will. Ultimately, watching the tournament shouldn’t be only about seeing some of the people who have brought us joy over the years. It should also be about the excitement of watching formidable displays of skill.

Dota 2 has changed a lot since 2022, and that has created a completely new meta. The best teams of 2023 are quite different from those of 2022. Everyone is predicting that either Gaimin Gladiators or Team Liquid will win, but there are lots of other strong teams that could be the winners.

now our journey begins #TI12 #GladiatorsDota2 pic.twitter.com/nSxKsk0mE4

— GG | Gaimin Gladiators ⚔️ (@GaiminGladiator) August 31, 2023

The 12 directly invited teams

Here are the 12 competitors who finished the Dota Pro Circuit in the top 12:

• Team Liquid
• Gaimin Gladiators
• Tundra Esports
• 9Pandas
• Evil Geniuses
• LGD
• Shopify Rebellion
• Talon Esports
• Beastcoast
• Team Spirit
• TSM
• BetBoom Team

Most of these teams are very strong and have a good chance of surviving the group stage. The competitive format used at TI12 is completely different from the traditional one, at least for the first stages. This means that these 12 teams will need to fight hard if they want to not get eliminated from the race.

Unlike in previous years, when a team’s average performance was enough to grant them in the playoffs, this time it will be much harder to qualify.

The eight winners of the regional qualifiers

These are the teams that earned their TI12 tickets by winning or placing 2^nd in their regional qualifiers:

• Nouns
• Keyd Stars
• Thunder Awaken
• Entity
• Quest Esports
• Virtus.pro
• Azure Ray
• Team SMG

Of these eight teams, at least four have the potential to cause serious upsets: Azure Ray, Quest, Entity, and SMG. All of them have strong rosters and enough experience to beat almost anyone. In particular, Azure Ray could finish as high as 3^rd.

Header: Valve Corporation