The qualifiers for The International 2015 are over. We now know the 18 teams that will battle in Seattle. But some developements in these qualifiers surprised us…

1. Alliance drops out

God, [alliance], get your shit together. You were once a champion of The International. How can you drop out in the qualifiers now? And not just drop out. The Swedes didn’t even win a single match, just three ties and a loss against [power rangers]…

2. Natus Vincere qualifies rather easily

Okay, we were a little afraid when [natus vincere] lost to [london conspiracy] in their first qualifier match. But then they started a run: Six map wins in a row and coming back twice from a 0-1 in the playoffs. Chapeau, Na’Vi, we didn’t expect that from your recent performances.

3. Rave drops out

Some weeks ago [ninjaboogie] said on stream that [rave] hadn’t adjusted yet to the new patch – and it seems they couldn’t do it in time – or was it just that they can’t play [mvp phoenix]? They lost the deciding tiebreaker in the group phase and the deciding match in the losers round. Maybe next year…

4. MVP qualifies with two teams

Two teams of the same organization among the best 18 teams of The International? What [mvp phoenix] and [mvp hot6] achieved, has only happened once in history before: In 2013 [lgd gaming] and [lgd gaming – international] both finished as ninth.

5. Complexity is the best qualifier team – and Mousesports out

[complexity] lost just one of their 13 maps in this qualifiers. This is the best performance of all teams. The only map they lost was against [mousesports] in the qualifiers. Too bad the former [team tinker] then lost to [north american rejects]. Which leads to our next mark.

6. North American Rejects is the least expected team in Seattle

Okay, you probably all knew [north american rejects] were going to make it. And we are happy for them. But they are the least expected team in Seattle concerning they are only 90th in the current Dota 2 Team World Ranking. The team just formed a month ago, a year after their former squad disbanded.

7. Tongfu started with three teams – none made the playoffs

While MVP has two teams in Seattle, [tongfu] disappointed. The chinese organization sent three teams in the group phase, but neither [tongfu] nor [tongfu.ob] or [tongfu.wanzhou] made it. Sad.