Fng on the TI qualifiers: “These qualifiers have a good vibe because there are a lot of mid-tier teams, and there are plenty of slots for them, too.”
Former professional players Artem “Fng” Barshak and Yaroslav “NS” Kuznetsov discussed the European qualifiers for The International 2026 during the latter’s stream.
On the European TI qualifiers
Fng: [I’ve missed] the qualifiers overseas. In recent years, the qualifiers for The International have been—to be honest—lacking in any real excitement or surprises. We just went through them...
NS: This year’s will be the same.
Fng: I don’t know. These ones have a certain vibe because there are a lot of mid-tier teams, and there are enough slots for them, too. You’ve got MOUZ, NAVI, Nigma, VP, PR—the same teams, the same “League.”
NS: You forgot VISION [too].
Fng: Yeah.
NS: You’ve got Spirit, VISION, and NAVI—in theory, the three main contenders for the slots. That’s the idea, anyway. But then there’s also Nigma, MOUZ, VP… and there are others too.
Fng: There are plenty of teams. I was sitting around watching—since I had nothing else to do—as they played in other tournaments, and they’re all actually playing pretty well. It’s just not clear yet what Nigma is capable of; as for NAVI—we saw that things clearly didn’t go their way in the EWC qualifiers.
On the reason for keeping the Americas split into two regions
NS: Apparently, South America and North America can’t play together because of ping. Europe can, though. Well, why didn’t they just merge the Americas into one region then? They could have merged the Americas into a single region and allocated two slots to it.
On character potential in the current version of Dota
NS: For a character in Dota right now to have nowhere to grow... Well, that’s a bummer. Aghanim’s Scepter, Shard, extra items in the backpack, Moon Shard—you need 50,000 net worth. ...> Right now, if you look at the pro scene, it’s really true— in my opinion, they’ve even started building drafts around the idea that, if it comes down to it, at the 60-minute mark, Snapfire—roughly speaking—who’s built up some physical damage slots, will just jump in and kill everyone with a single click. Dota has really become the kind of game where you start thinking not about how you’re going to *** [kill] someone at the 20-minute mark, but about how you’re going to *** [kill] at the 50-minute mark.
The closed European qualifiers for The International 2026 are taking place online from June 21 to 28. Of the sixteen teams participating in this region’s qualifiers, four will advance to the tournament of the year.
Photo by Helena Kristiansson, Turtle Entertainment.
