Mortalles on The International 2026 invitations: “Spirit didn’t play well enough, and PV got into the mix too late.”

Valve issued direct invitations to the teams.

There are absolutely no questions about them.
Xtreme received their “Chinese quota” + the
Falcons, the current runners-up.

The rest are the most consistent teams of the season.

Spirit didn’t play enough, and PV got into the mix too late—only after the patch. They were AFK for almost half a year. But giving them the eighth slot wouldn’t have been a mistake.

But I don’t see any reason to panic. Both teams will easily take 2 out of 4 slots in Europe. The fact that the ECC and WCC have merged changes almost nothing, given the number of additional slots. The only thing is, it’s still unclear what the format will be there, otherwise a team like Na’Vi might end up in either the upper or lower bracket in the tough groups and get eliminated, even though they would almost certainly have secured a spot on their own in WEU.

What was more disappointing is that SA and NA are back to having one slot each. Those are the ones that definitely should have been merged. We have two good teams in SA and one below-average team in NA that will take the slot even if only three guys with hangovers show up for the matches.

Ex Heroic, who will be competing under the LGD banner, would have easily secured a slot in China, but alas. It’s either without Scofield or without Whisper at TI.