TI qualifiers 2026: the road to Shanghai through five regions

The TI qualifiers 2026 decide nine of the sixteen Shanghai slots through five regional routes — Europe (4), China (2), Southeast Asia (1), North America (1) and South America (1) — on top of seven direct invites. For Filipino fans the single SEA slot is the headline race, and several regions are still being decided.

Qualifying for a TI is brutal by design. Nine teams earn their place the hard way through the TI qualifiers, and the rest arrive on direct invitations handed out by Valve. The numbers are tight: one slot per region for SEA, North America and South America means a single bad series can end a campaign, while Europe and China get a little more breathing room with four and two slots. For a PH audience the maths is simple and a bit cruel — there is exactly one Southeast Asian ticket.

How the TI qualifiers 2026 are structured

The path splits into two layers. The TI open qualifiers 2026 are the public gauntlet anyone can enter, and they ran in early-to-mid June; survivors advance into the regional closed bracket. Those TI open qualifiers 2026 feed the TI closed qualifiers 2026, which then pit open-stage survivors against directly seeded regional teams for the actual slots. That two-step shape is why a Cinderella run is rare but unforgettable — a team has to win twice over, and the Dota 2 TI qualifiers are unforgiving at both layers.

The SEA route is where Filipino interest concentrates, and the TI SEA qualifiers carry real weight because the region produces only one Shanghai entrant. Those TI SEA qualifiers gathered a deep pool of regional sides, and the bracket whittled them down across several days of best-of-three play. We are deliberately not naming a winner here while that race is still live.

The decisive round is The International 2026 SEA closed qualifier, the last hurdle before the single slot is awarded. A Philippine side that wants Shanghai has to survive every step from open play into The International 2026 SEA closed qualifier itself. There are no second chances once that closed stage starts, which is why this region is so unforgiving.

Regional results so far

Some regions have finished and some have not, and we treat those two states very differently. The The International 2026 qualifiers that have concluded are reported with their confirmed teams; the ones still in progress are reported as undecided, full stop. Listing a team as qualified before it has actually won is exactly the kind of mistake this hub exists to avoid, so the Dota 2 TI qualifiers tracker below hedges every region that is still being played.

The TI 2026 direct invites and qualified teams

Seven sides skipped the grind entirely. The TI 2026 direct invites, announced in late May, are Aurora Gaming, BoomBoys, Team Falcons, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, Xtreme Gaming and Team Yandex — six European names and Xtreme Gaming representing China. One note worth flagging: the invited Tundra roster is listed by some trackers under a rebranded name, so if you see a different tag attached to that lineup, treat it as the same group of players.

From the qualifier side, the The International 2026 teams that have locked their places so far are LGD Gaming out of South America and Vici Gaming from China. That makes the current confirmed pool the seven invites plus those concluded-region winners; the rest of the The International 2026 teams will be set once SEA, North America and Europe finish. We will add each name to the field only after the relevant bracket is officially done.

• Direct invites (7): Aurora Gaming, BoomBoys, Team Falcons, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, Xtreme Gaming, Team Yandex.
• Qualified so far: LGD Gaming (South America), Vici Gaming (China).
• Still being decided: the SEA slot, both remaining open NA/EU routes.

What a TI 2026 roster actually looks like

Every entrant brings a five-player TI 2026 roster, and rosters can still shift before lock-in, so a lineup you saw in a regional qualifier is not always the one that takes the Shanghai stage. The road to The International 2026 has already produced roster tweaks across several regions, which is normal in the weeks before a major. We will not speculate on un-confirmed swaps; when a team locks its final five, that is what we list.

The TI 2026 qualified teams will keep growing as each region finishes, and the full list belongs on this page rather than anywhere it can be guessed early. If you want to see how those qualified sides slot into the elimination structure, our bracket and standings tracker explains the seeding, and the schedule page shows exactly when the group stage that tests them begins. For the betting-minded, the predictions guide looks at how the early field shapes the contender picture without pretending the bracket is set.

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