The venerable competitive Dota 2 series known as DreamLeague continues with its 25th season, starting on February 16th and running all the way until March 2nd, 2025. 12 of the 16 teams that will play for the $1 million prize pool had to go through closed regional qualifiers in order to participate—same as the several previous iterations of the tournament.
If you missed the qualifiers earlier this January, fret not—we’ve got all the DreamLeague Season 25 qualifier results here for you.
Western Europe: AVULUS, Tundra Esports, Gaimin Gladiators
Western Europe had three qualifier slots, to basically no one’s surprise. The teams that have come out of this region are AVULUS, Tundra Esports, and Gaimin Gladiators.
These three names are very familiar to everyone who’s been watching professional Dota 2 over the last six months. Tundra and Gaimin are mainstays of the WEU scene, and will likely find themselves finishing within the top eight spots at DreamLeague Season 25 at the very least. AVULUS, meanwhile, will be looking to take that next step as a squad that they’ve been looking for.
Eastern Europe: Team Spirit, 9Pandas
Team Spirit’s return to DreamLeague is not shocking in the slightest, and it will be great to see Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk back in the fold come February 16th. His skill and experience as a carry will be valuable to this team, whose quest to get back into the absolute upper echelons of the Dota scene continues.
On the other side, there’s 9Pandas, still led by legendary captain Alexey “Solo” Berezin. Frankly, I think it’s fantastic to see Solo at a major tournament again in 2025, although DreamLeague is an online event instead of a LAN. Still, this could be a nice stepping stone for him when it comes to his return to tier 1 Dota.
MESWA: Chimera Esports
Interestingly, the MESWA (Middle East and Southwest Asia) qualifiers produced Chimera Esports, a team based in Russia, as the winner. Not too sure what’s going on here, but anyway, Nigma Galaxy fans will definitely be licking their wounds seeing a different squad come out of this region to qualify for DreamLeague Season 25.
Whether or not Chimera Esports will make it far at DreamLeague is up in the air, though their roster is decent enough to take a surprise win here and there. Aybek “TA2000” Tokayev and Artem “lorenof” Melnick are perhaps the standouts in their roster, and that’s not just because they’re here on loan from Aurora Gaming.
China: Yakult Brothers, Xtreme Gaming
Here’s another region where the qualifier winners were completely expected from the start. Xtreme Gaming is pretty much the only Chinese organization still bothering with Dota 2, after all, and Yakult Brothers’ roster is composed of veterans of the Chinese scene as well.
The former is more likely to break into the top eight or even the top six spots at DreamLeague Season 25 than the latter, but I wouldn’t be so quick to count out a team with Wang “Ame” Chunyu as their carry just yet.
Southeast Asia: Aurora Gaming, BOOM Esports
The Southeast Asian regional qualifier for DreamLeague Season 25 sees Aurora Gaming and BOOM Esports earning slots at the event. Aurora Gaming with Azel “Abed” Yusop and Anucha “Jabz” Jirawong were definitely one of the favorites to come out of SEA, but BOOM Esports managing to beat Talon Esports in the lower bracket final was a bit unexpected.
This is great for them, of course, as they now have a chance to reassert themselves as one of the top SEA teams after the return of longtime member Saieful “Fbz” Ilham from his short stint with Nigma Galaxy last year.
North America: Shopify Rebellion
Honestly, there wasn’t really anyone else that could have come out of the North American qualifiers other than Shopify Rebellion. They’ve been the best NA team for a long time now, with Wildcard being a distant second in that regard.
QUALIFIED 💚
More good Dota to come this season 🥳 pic.twitter.com/owTPbxYbAp
— Shopify Rebellion (@ShopifyRebels) January 12, 2025
Shopify have shown us this season that they’re capable of taking games against some of the best teams in the world, but their consistency is a bit lacking still. This could be a good opportunity for them to show the world what they’re truly capable of at DreamLeague Season 25. They placed 10th in Season 23, so it’s possible they might crack the top eight this time around.
South America: HEROIC
Rounding out the list of teams is HEROIC, who are one of the two best South American teams right now. They most recently won PGL Wallachia Season 2, upsetting Team Falcons in the process, but have since gone back to their old below average results.
Missing out on ESL One Bangkok after losing to beastcoast (now known as M80) in that event’s qualifiers is sure to be fresh in their minds still, but they’ll have to put that behind them and look forward to DreamLeague Season 25 instead. That is, if they want to put South America back on the map like they did just a few months ago.
