Today Valve shocked everyone by announcing four teams who will take part in The International. Unlike their previous announcements when just one or two teams were revealed, only two days after Counter Logic Gaming got confirmed, Valve have already filled the invitation list with twelve participants.

Surprising for some and expected by others, Darer Entertainment , Evil Geniuses , Team Zenith and LGD-Gaming cn were confirmed today as participants in the tournament which will be held from August 31st to September 2nd in Seattle. Only four more slots are to be taken, two of which will be given to invited teams while regional qualifiers will decide who will take the last two.

While it was known that Valve will be picking the teams by considering roster stability, they proved themselves wrong. The best example is Darer Entertainment who have made two major roster changes in the past month. Ivan 'ArtStyle' Antonov, who was captaining the winners Natus Vincere in the last year's International, will have the opportunity to defend his gold medal as the leader of his new team Darer.



Evil Geniuses is the second US team to get an invite. The all-star team lead by Jacob 'Maelk' Toft-Anderssen has recently announced its two new additions - Sam 'BuLba' Baird and Saahil 'UNiVeRsE' Arora. EG have been performing very well recently, losing only three times in their last twenty games.



Following their outstanding form in the last month, Team Zenith will also have the chance to fight for the million dollars. The side lead by Han Yong 'hyhy' Benedict Lim was recently joined by Jonathan 'Loda' Berg who became the first EU player in a Singaporean team. An interesting fact is that he possibly might play against his old team CLG which he created.



The last one of today's invites was sent to LGD-Gaming cn who became the fourth Chinese team going to The International. LGD who have just recently turned to Dota 2, are one of the best teams in DotA, always being in the Top 5. The big question is whether Ning 'xiao8' Zhang is going to lead his team successfully through the US/EU dominance in the Dota 2 scene, or not?





Source:
The International official website