Who makes up the TI 2026 teams travelling to Shanghai

The TI 2026 teams blend seven direct invites with nine regional qualifiers, for a field of sixteen. The invited squads were named in late May, several regional seats are now filled, and others are still being contested — so the line-up below separates the confirmed from the pending.

A roster page is only as good as its honesty, so this one draws a hard line between what is settled and what is still moving. The invites are locked. The qualified sides from finished regions are locked. Anything from a region still in play is left blank rather than guessed. That discipline matters more than usual this year, because the field was genuinely half-decided as we wrote.

The seven invited TI 2026 teams

The direct invitations form the early backbone of the The International 2026 teams, and they read like a who's-who of the current top tier. Six of the seven come from Europe and one from China, a balance that reflects the regions' recent results rather than any quota. Here is the invited group, the sides that did not have to grind a qualifier to reach Shanghai.

• Aurora Gaming
• BoomBoys
• Team Falcons
• Team Liquid
• Tundra Esports
• Xtreme Gaming
• Team Yandex

One small note for the detail-minded: the invited Tundra roster has been listed under a rebranded name in some places, but it is the same lineup that earned the seat. Where naming is unsettled we describe the roster rather than risk the wrong tag. The overview carries the same caution across the whole field.

It is a genuinely strong invited group on paper, with former champions and deep-running contenders among the seven. Yet paper means little once the games begin, and several of these organisations have rebuilt heavily since their last deep run. The interesting question is less who looks best in June and more who has gelled by the time Shanghai arrives in August.

Qualified sides joining the Dota 2 TI teams in Shanghai

Beyond the invites, the Dota 2 TI teams are filling out through the regional routes. Two are confirmed so far: LGD Gaming came through South America, and Vici Gaming took one of China's pair. The remaining seats — Southeast Asia, North America, Europe's four and China's second — were unresolved at the time of writing, which the qualifier tracker follows in detail.

Roster churn and the post-TI shuffle effect

Every Dota year turns on the post-TI shuffle, the off-season reshuffle of players between organisations that follows the previous International. Much of what you see in the field today is a product of that churn, and understanding it explains why some famous names sit on unfamiliar tags. The post-TI 2026 shuffle, in turn, will be shaped by how these sides perform in Shanghai, so this event is both a destination and a starting gun for next year.

• The TI 2026 invites rewarded season-long consistency, not a single hot result.
• Several TI 2026 direct invites carry rosters reshaped during the last off-season.
• How these TI 2026 teams finish will feed straight into the next shuffle.

For neutral viewers, the churn is a feature rather than a flaw: it keeps the competitive picture fresh and gives qualifier survivors a real chance against bigger names. A famous logo guarantees nothing once the Swiss rounds begin, and that uncertainty is much of what makes a fresh edition worth following from the first day. If you want to weigh the field as a contest rather than a coronation, the standings tracker is where form will show, and the the Esports Integrity Commission is worth a look on roster eligibility and conduct.