Just five days after Valve announced The International 5 Compendium, a Dota 2 community item which grants rewards to players and helps to fund the massive tournament’s prize pool, Valve finally revealed which teams will be invited to this years dance. In addition, they announced those teams who will be duking it out in the qualifiers to earn the right to join everyone else in Seattle this August.
Valve decided to be dramatic this year with the unveiling of the list. Every fifteen minutes they released another name on the list, creating a massive amount of suspense once the list got to its final names.
The ten teams invited to the tournament are as follows:
- Vici
- Evil Geniuses
- Secret
- IG
- LGD
- Cloud 9
- Empire
- Virtus Pro
- Newbee
- Team Malaysia.
There will be a qualifier for the American, European, Chinese, and South East Asian regions. Finally the last two spots will be left for the wild card teams, or those who finish second in all four regional qualifiers to battle for the last two spots.
It is an exciting time in the world of Dota 2. With the international looming closer the prize pool is growing rapidly compared to last year. Over five million dollars has been raised by the community, which has unlocked sought after items like Immortal Treasures, Taunts, and HUD styles. You can see the full rewards list of stretch goals on the compendium page here.
All of this is has been taking place in the new balance patch, 6.84, which has proven to once again provide a unique perfect-imbalance to the game in the form of new items, and reworked hero mechanics.
