Following the TI qualifiers 2026, region by region

The TI qualifiers 2026 send nine teams to Shanghai through five regional routes, alongside seven direct invites. Europe carries four slots, China two, and Southeast Asia, North America and South America one each. Several regions have already closed; others are still being decided as we write.

For Philippine readers there is one route that matters above the rest, and we will come to it. But the whole map is worth understanding, because the strength of the field depends on every region, not just the one closest to home. The seven invited sides form the spine; the qualifier survivors give the bracket its unpredictability. That mix is what the road to sixteen is really about.

How the TI qualifiers 2026 distribute the nine open slots

The slot split is fixed even while the names are not. The TI qualifiers split four seats to Europe, two to China, and a single seat each to Southeast Asia, North America and South America. Open qualifiers ran in early June and fed into the regional brackets, which have played out on staggered windows through the month. The table below tracks where each route stood at the time of writing.

The TI SEA qualifiers and why they matter most here

The TI SEA qualifiers carry a single, fiercely contested slot, and that scarcity is exactly what makes the route compelling for local fans. Around ten sides have been fighting through the Southeast Asian bracket, and at the time of writing no winner had been confirmed. We will not name a qualifier before the bracket finishes — a few Philippine-linked rosters have featured in contention, but featuring is not the same as advancing, and we keep that line clear.

Treat the SEA TI qualifiers 2026 as live until the final series is played. The single slot means one series can end a team's entire campaign, which is brutal but also produces some of the most charged Dota of the qualifying calendar. When the route closes, the result will be recorded here and reflected on the teams page.

Closed routes, open routes and the honest TI qualifiers picture

South America is settled: LGD Gaming took the lone slot. China has filled its pair, with Vici Gaming confirmed and a second qualifier reported but not yet uniformly verified, so we flag that name as provisional rather than final. Europe's four-slot double-elimination bracket and North America's single seat were both unresolved as we wrote, which is why any "full sixteen" list circulating elsewhere is premature.

• Confirmed: LGD Gaming (South America) and Vici Gaming (China).
• Reported, treat as provisional: China's second seat.
• Still open: the TI closed qualifiers 2026 in Southeast Asia, North America and Europe.

The distinction between the open and closed phases is worth a sentence. The TI open qualifiers 2026 were the wide-entry brackets that thinned the field in early June; the closed brackets that followed are where the actual Shanghai seats are won. Our overview keeps the running count, the teams page lists the names as they lock in, and the the Esports Integrity Commission is a useful reference on competitive conduct across all of these brackets.

Taken together, The International 2026 qualifiers tell a story of a field assembling in stages rather than all at once. Two regions are settled, one is mid-bracket, and two have barely begun, which is exactly why a patient reader is rewarded here. Follow the standings tracker alongside this page and the road to sixteen comes into focus a region at a time.