Dota 2 TI12 Regional Qualifier Results

The qualified teams are as follows, divided by their respective home regions:

North America: nouns

As expected, the highly experienced members of nouns blitzed through the North American qualifiers without breaking a sweat. In fact, they only dropped two maps in the upper bracket, on their way to a clean sweep of the grand finals against B8.

International veterans Héctor “K1” Rodríguez, Rodrigo “Lelis” Santos, and David “Moo” Hull will no doubt be excited to get back in the fray in the most prestigious Dota 2 tournament of the year. Meanwhile, first timers Nicolas “Gunnar” Lopez and Luke “Yamsun” Wang will look to prove themselves on the big stage.

South America: Thunder Awaken & Keyd Stars

Thunder Awaken, the same organization that placed a very impressive 5th-6th place at The International 11 last year, will participate in the world championship event once more. This time, however, the entire roster will be different, so expectations for them in Seattle will be vastly different as well.

Keyd Stars qualified alongside them, composed of names familiar to South American Dota fans. Guilherme “Costabile” Costábile and Danylo “Kingrd” Nascimento stand out here, as well as Matheus “KJ” Diniz. João “4nalog” Giannini meanwhile was part of the Hokori roster that qualified for TI11.

Western Europe: Entity & Quest Esports

The absolute slugfest that was the Western European qualifier tournament produced two qualifying teams, just like South America. This time, it was Entity and Quest Esports that triumphed over the immensely stiff competition.

Entity is especially notable here, considering they had just taken in Khim “Gabbi” Villafuerte prior to the qualifiers after he had taken a five-month break. The Filipino player immediately made his presence felt amongst his new teammates, helping them secure the first qualifier slot from the offlane position.

Quest Esports then qualified after Entity, after taking out big names like OG and Team Secret along the way. The multinational squad had been working very hard throughout the DPC season, as evidenced by their 545 DPC points. For them to finally qualify is proof of their great work ethic, but it’ll be up to them to show out in Seattle still.

This therefore marks the end of an era: that of the “International all-timer”. Clement “Puppey” Ivanov was the last remaining player to have attended every single International to date, but this is no longer the case with Team Secret’s failure to qualify.

Eastern Europe: Virtus.pro

When it comes to teams from Eastern Europe, it seems that Virtus.pro truly is inevitable. As one of the most successful organizations in Dota 2 history, it was only a matter of time until we saw them back at The International representing their region.

This VP roster, led by the one and only Artsiom “Fng” Barshak, rampaged through the upper bracket, losing only one game throughout their entire run. It’ll be quite fascinating to see how he as the sole International veteran on the roster will lead his team this October. He’ll have to dig deep from his well of experience on this one for sure.

China: Azure Ray

As if to say they’re not quite done yet, both Lu “Somnus” Yao and Xu “fy” Linsen are now back in the fold at The International as part of Azure Ray. These two hardened veterans of the Chinese Dota 2 scene know the ins and outs of competing on the game’s biggest stage

Considering that they’ve been languishing in mediocrity for the past few years, they will no doubt be chomping at the bit as soon as they arrive in Seattle.

Unfortunately for fans of Syed “SumaiL” Hassan, Azure Ray’s victory in this tournament means that SumaiL himself will not be playing at TI12. He and the rest of Team Aster may have to go back to the drawing board over the coming months, or retool their roster entirely from here.

Southeast Asia: Team SMG

Speaking of TI vets, Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng and Volodymyr “No[o]ne” Minenko will likewise make their respective International comebacks this year.

Thanks to their efforts as part of Team SMG, they and the rest of their squad, which includes familiar players Tue “ah fu” Soon Chuan, Natthaphon “Masaros” Ouanphakdee, and Jaunuel “Jaunuel” Arcilla, will add to the number of Southeast Asian representatives at TI12.

To get here, they had to go through some extremely tough competition, as is tradition in the bloody battlefields of Southeast Asia. But their clean sweep of Blacklist Rivalry in the grand finals could very well be an indication of their momentum going into TI12, particularly for MidOne as he hopes that this Gyrocopter-focused metagame sticks around until October.