Xtreme Gaming Deserves a Slot — Let’s Examine Whether Direct Invites to The International 2026 Are Fair

Valve recently announced direct invites for both The International 2026 and the closed qualifiers for the year’s main tournament. The list of invitees was controversial and sparked a heated reaction in the community—let’s try to figure out the logic behind the publisher’s invitations and whether the distribution was “fair.”

Let’s start with the teams that definitely earned their invitations—Team Falcons and Aurora Gaming. In the case of Team Falcons, the invite is as transparent as it gets, since the team won the last The International, and the champion is almost always invited to defend their title.

But even if we look solely at the results, the Falcons had a solid season: 6 Tier 1 tournaments in 2026 (out of the 6 that were held); an average 6th-place finish at events—a consistently top-6 roster.

As for Aurora Gaming, they are simply the best team of the year (as surprising as that may sound without a deep analysis) based on results: 6 Tier 1 tournaments, where the team placed 3rd–4th on average. Full statistics will be presented below.

Some might consider a direct invite for a team from China controversial, but the country was bound to get a slot at its home tournament—there was no other way. And if we’re choosing the most deserving representative of China, Xtreme Gaming is the best option. For comparison, let’s look at the stats for XG and the region’s second-best team, Vici Gaming:

The gap is significant, and in terms of performance, Xtreme Gaming isn’t that far ahead of Tundra (at least in terms of average placement).

To understand how fair the distribution of all other invites was, we need to calculate the performance metrics of all teams. We’ll include both those who received an invite to TI itself and Tier 1 (Tier 1.5) teams that made it to the closed qualifiers. Team results for the year:

For clarity, let’s sort the teams by region and final results, from best to worst:

The first thing that immediately stands out is that North America is rightfully left without a direct invite. There’s nothing to debate here—it’s a dead region, and the only stable team from it has one of the worst records among the 19 teams analyzed. The only surprising thing is that North America even received a separate closed qualifier—it seems to me that the region should have been merged with South America and given two slots there.

Staying close to the Americas, I’ll note that the southern part of the continent also quite rightly didn’t receive an invitation. Despite the region’s representatives’ lamentable public statements, South America’s best team lags behind the “worst” TI participant from Europe by an entire place on average. Does anyone really think that LGD Gaming (HEROIC) deserved an invite more than the so-called “Tundra,” which won two Tier 1 tournaments this year?

As for the unified European region, everything makes sense here as well. Teams from the closed qualifiers performed statistically significantly worse this season than those selected directly by Valve: Team Spirit, Natus Vincere, and MOUZ are too inconsistent (and at least two teams made numerous roster changes). I would have liked to see Nigma Galaxy get the slot, but the MENA region no longer exists, and it’s tough for the guys to compete in Europe.

Southeast Asia performed even worse than China in 2026—only two “top” teams and 9th–13th place finishes on average. So we’re expecting TORONTOTOKYO in Shanghai after the closed qualifiers.

But what definitely raises questions is PARIVISION’s lack of an invite. If Valve needed a team from Eastern Europe, then Puppey’s squad performed better than BetBoom Team or Team Yandex—someone had to be pushed aside. If Valve needed a team from “Europe,” then PARIVISION is better than, say, Tundra Esports. There is no logic in the fact that “Pari” will have to play in the qualifiers, and this is very strange.

The community has discussed time and again that Valve prefers to have teams from different regions play at TI rather than 16 representatives from Europe. Therefore, based on the statistics above, let’s consider how the invites could be distributed to account for “internationality.”

Let’s start with the fact that there should be 8 direct invites—a nice, round number. North America still doesn’t get a slot because its results are too low. Instead, we invite teams from Southeast Asia and South Asia—vibrant regions with several major organizations and a high level of competition.

Final list:

Yes, Tundra and Yandex aren’t here, but according to the European and CIS rankings, they are the worst teams on the list, and their spots went to the newcomers.

Despite the community’s reaction, the invitations have already been sent out, and now all we can do is wait for the start of the year’s main tournament. We’ll find out in August just how fair the invitations were from a competitive standpoint!