The International 2019 is rapidly approaching, with only five more weeks left to go. And in order to decide the final six participants for this event, qualifiers will be taking place in each of the six main regions of the Dota Pro Circuit. In Europe, the qualification tournament is scheduled to take place between July 11th – 14th. Today, I’ll offer you a small preview of the TI 9 EU Qualifiers and provide a brief analysis of the teams.

TI 9 EU Qualifiers Participants

The participants for the TI 9 EU Qualifiers are the following:

• Chaos Esports Club
• The Final Tribe
• Epic Name
• Anti-MagE-
• Hippomaniacs
• Bald
• six eight two
• Team Singularity

The first two teams on this list received direct invitations for this tournament while the remaining six had to go through Open Qualifiers. These Open Qualifiers took place twice and each time there were over 600 participants. So you can be pretty sure that the very best in Europe have been selected, with the exception of the five teams that are already qualified for The International 2019.

TI 9 EU Qualifiers Team Analysis

Here’s a brief analysis of the teams and their players.

Chaos Esports Club

In terms of its roster, this team is probably the strongest competitor in the European Qualifiers. Their weakness of course is that, aside from the captain, the entire roster is fairly new. So the players have very limited experience in working together as a unit.

However, this shouldn’t be that big of a problem, given that the squad is led by MISERY, one of the most experienced captains in the game. He’s a former TI finalist, Major finalist and Major winner. He’s also the former captain of world-class teams such as Evil Geniuses.

When a team’s captain is highly skilled and the rest of the team is capable of handling their individual responsibilities, strategies and tactics are often assimilated very quickly. In such cases, the captain can simply decide upon a set of playstyles that suit the team’s capabilities and with a little bit of practice, enough fluency can be achieved so that success is a high probability in every match.

The remaining four members of Chaos Esports Club are the following: MATUMBAMAN, vtFaded, KheZu and MiLAN.

This was an exciting roster reveal for many fans

MATUMBAMAN is Liquid’s former carry and winner of The International in 2017. The vast experience he’s accumulated and the level he’s played at for several years turn him into the best player at this tournament. With everything he knows, he will definitely be able to assist MISERY in putting together an excellent game plan.

vtFaded is the team’s most inexperienced player but he still has a few years worth of competitions under his belt. He will be playing the carry role for Chaos, and that might be their biggest weakness.

KheZu is known for his 2016-2017 season with Team Secret. During this time the team’s results were modest, but the fact that he played at that level still makes him a very strong competitor in a tournament like this.

And finally, we have MiLAN, a player with five years of experience at the professional level and former member of a dozen different teams. This season, his most important result was a 9th – 12th place at The Kuala Lumpur Major, with J.Storm.

Overall, Chaos Esports Club has excellent chances of winning this tournament. Along with The Final Tribe, they should be regarded as the biggest contenders for the title.

The Final Tribe

The Final Tribe is the most experienced team at this tournament, with three of its members having played together for one year and a half. The most recent transfer was Xibbe, who has replaced jonassomfan.

In 2018-2019, the team’s results have been modest, but that had a lot to do with the level of competition in Europe. Keep in mind that five European teams are already qualified for The International 2019, so you can imagine how little were TFT’s chances in the qualifiers for the Minors and Majors of DPC.

It’s difficult to say at this point how will The Final Tribe fare against a set of much weaker opponents. In principle, their chances are good, unless some of them turn out to be much stronger than we can anticipate based on statistics.

Epic Name

Epic Name is definitely an underdog at this event, having formed just prior to the Open Qualifiers. I don’t even think they expected to reach the Regionals, which may explain their totally careless name.

The team does have some recognizable names in it, including Pablo, Peksu and jonassomfan. Even Rajjix may sound familiar to those who play pubs at a high enough level. But without a great captain, it’s hard to imagine these guys in the Grand Final, let alone qualifying for The International 2019.

Anti-MagE-

You may not be able to tell by their name, but this team is actually one of the strongest at this tournament, with two world-class names in its roster: syndereN and GeneRaL. You might recognize the first as one of the best analysts in Dota 2 and the second one as a former Natus Vincere player. With their help, Anti-MagE- may prove to be a formidable opponent for anyone.

Hippomaniacs

Very little is known about this team and its players. The only one that has a recognizable name in this esport is Sehny, the roster’s captain. He’s been playing professionally for several years but his results were modest and not worthy of mentioning.

In the first round of Open Qualifiers, Hippomaniacs finished 3rd. All things considered, this team has no chance whatsoever and will likely finish 7th – 8th.

Bald

This is another favorite for the title, having four excellent players in its roster: gorgc, Stormstormer, SexyBamboe and EGM.

You may recognize gorgc as the famous high MMR streamer. His experience as a Dota 2 professional isn’t very wide or successful, but he definitely knows how to play the game and his carry performances are quite decent.

Stormstormer is a well-known midlaner several years of experience at the pro level. He is best known for his Invoker performances, a hero on which he played more than 2500 games. In terms of notable results, there isn’t much to be said about this competitor, but his skills are more than viable in a tournament like this one.

SexyBamboe is a highly experienced professional with more than seven years of competitions behind him. The biggest teams he played for are Evil Geniuses and mousesports.

And finally, we have EGM, a former Alliance player and TI winner. There’s not much else that needs to be said about him. He certainly knows how to play the game and is an excellent support/roamer.

six eight two

This team is a complete underdog, even at this level of competition. There’s not a single recognizable name within its roster, perhaps with the exception of W1sh-. But even he is a no-name at this point. So it’s hard to give six eight two a real chance at winning the tournament. To their credit, they did beat Team Singularity in the second Open Qualifier, but Singularity is not an important name either.

Team Singularity

Team Singularity does have some important names in it, including Xcalibur, Pingvincek, Shachlo and Miposhka. But they haven’t looked that great in the Open Qualifiers and could hardly be regarded as one of the favorites at this tournament. Overall, I expect them to finish somewhere between 4th – 8th.

That takes care of our preview and team analysis for the TI 9 EU Qualifiers! Stay tuned for more International 2019 coverage including the Chinese and North American Qualifiers!