DOTA 2: The International 2015 (TI5) is the grandest DOTA 2 tournament that features 16 of the best professional teams battling each other to be named the best of the best and consequently take home the $6.5 million grand prize.
Ten professional DOTA 2 teams are invited to automatically join the tournament, while four spots are given to the winners of the regional qualifiers in America, China, Europe, and South East Asia. The remaining two spots are wildcard slots that will be decided among the runner-ups of the qualifiers in a round-robin style tournament.
The invited teams are Vici Gaming (VG), Evil Geniuses (EG), Team Secret, Invictus Gaming (IG), LGD Gaming, Cloud9 (C9), Team Empire, Virtus Pro (VP), Newbee, and Fnatic.
The winners of the qualifiers are Complexity Gaming (America), Ehome (China), Natus Vincere (Europe), and MVP.Hot6ix (South East Asia).
The wildcard slots were decided amongst North American Rejects, CDEC Gaming, Vega Squadron, and MVP.Phoenix.
After the round-robin tournament between the four teams, MVP.Phoenix and CDEC Gaming emerged as the teams that will complete the 16 for the tournament.
Team Secret still leads the world ranking with a rating of 1,501 and a win rate of 81%. Fnatic has the lowest ranking in ratings with 1,062, while Ehome has the lowest ranking in the win rate with only 48%. Rankings are based on their win-lose ratio and their popularity when it comes to the ratio of the bet.
After failing to gain the invitation for the TI5, the crowd favorite underdog Natus Vincere (Na'Vi) fought their way in to the tournament by winning the European Qualifiers.
The most predicted teams to win the tournament are Secret, IG, EG, and LGD. The pressure is also high for reigning champion Newbee, last year's TI4 winners.
The International 2015 is scheduled from August 3rd to 8th at the Key Arena Seattle Stadium. Viewers can also catch the action in Youtube Live and twitch.
