Noxville's Nuggets: Possible Invites to The International 2026

Ben "Noxville" Steenhuisen has made a name for himself as one of the best data analysts in professional Dota 2, and recently, he shared his opinion on the possible list of invited teams to The International 2026.

Noxville's Nuggets is a corner of the internet where Ben shares his opinions and how he views data that he is constantly analyzing. Let's dive into his pool of speculations to understand how he made his list of favorites for direct invites.

Starting With the List

Noxville gives us his list of favorites at the end of his Substack article, but I think it's best if we get the list first and talk about his line of thought as to how he got to them. He mentions that the first five invites have no particular order. Now here is Noxville's list from the first to the possible 10th invite for TI 2026:

1st to 5th

• Tundra Esports (1st on Glicko Rating)
• Team Yandex (8th on Glicko Rating)
• Team Liquid (2nd on Glicko Rating)
• BetBoom Team (7th on Glicko Rating)
• Aurora Gaming (4th on Glicko Rating)

6th — Team Falcons

According to Noxville, Team Falcons had a very quiet second half of the season. The standing champions indeed went through a long-lasting dry spell and did not win a single tournament since FISSURE PLAYGROUND 2 in November 2025.

When evaluating the champions' Glicko rating, they place 5th behind Tundra, Liquid, PARIVISION and Aurora. Results are not everything, but this does not paint an image of a second championship coming Falcons' way.

7th — PARIVISION

PARIVISION is in a very similar situation to Falcons in Ben's opinion. Apparently, his decision was between PARI and Team Spirit, but PARI was more consistent while Spirit had a more significant variation in results in recent Tier 1 events.

This analysis does not take DreamLeague Season 29 into account since it's still ongoing and both teams are still in the running for the top. If you want to use this as a reference for future compendium predictions, take future tournament results into consideration.

8th — Xtreme Gaming

This time, the main justification is how Xtreme Gaming is low on the Glicko rating. Also, when considering a head-to-head cross-section of 10 selected teams, XG was on the lower half of the cut along with Team Spirit and BetBoom Team.

The only team below Xtreme Gaming on the cross-section was MOUZ. This puts a lot of pressure on them to improve fast or miss their one opportunity to win The International at home and lift the Aegis in 2026.

9th — Team Spirit

Team Spirit is bundled together with PARIVISION and, according to Steenhuisen, their Glicko score is overvalued based on a massive amount of excellent results last season, a combination of decent results against worse teams and sub-par results against good teams this season.

This means that both teams lost rating over time, but Glicko does not change fast enough to reflect their current performance accurately. Their standing could change depending on their performance at DreamLeague Season 29 and the EWC, but so far, the chances of Spirit becoming a three-timer are slim.

10th — MOUZ

Finally, if it comes to 10 direct invites, MOUZ might have a shot at a ticket straight to The International 2026. They are below South America Rejects (PlayTime) on the Glicko ranking, partially because the South American roster has just five months of data.

On the other hand, as we already mentioned, despite their surprising evolution since the beginning of the season, MOUZ was the worst performer when comparing the 10 most likely candidates and only has a positive win ratio against Team Spirit (2-1).

Data Says Tundra, But It's Never That Simple

If we were to follow the data blindly, Tundra Esports will become the newest two-time TI winner in 2026. They have the best win ratio in the cross-section, the best rating in the Glicko Ranking and the most first-place finishes in Tier 1 tournaments.

Everything points to Tundra winning this year, but things are never that simple. We still have DreamLeague Season 29 and the Esports World Cup to take into consideration, and Tundra did not perform well so far in DreamLeague's Playoffs.

Their closest rivals considering Glicko would be Liquid and PARIVISION, but neither of them were consistent enough to establish themselves as Tundra's rightful rival heading into the upcoming International.

Possible Slot Distribution For TI 2026

Finally, Ben concludes his line of thought by saying that if it were up to him, he would invite seven teams (Tundra, Yandex, Liquid, BetBoom, Aurora, Falcons and PARIVISION), spread one allocated slot per region across all six regions (SA, NA, SEA, WEU, EEU and CN) and add the remaining slots to WEU, EEU and some other region.

If we consider that this is the return of TI to China, this extra slot could go to a Chinese team, but fans would most likely protest that. If we take ESL One Birmingham as a reference, WEU will most likely get the extra slot.

Closing Thoughts

Dota 2 is always unpredictable and despite having the same data, different analysts might come to different conclusions as to who they believe could get invites or win The International.

Noxville has made a name for himself over the years, but maybe the EWC will be the tournament that changes everything. Either way, we will keep our eyes peeled for any information about professional Dota 2, The International and the Esports World Cup.

If you also want to stay informed on the latest news about professional Dota 2, check out the news section on the Strafe website!

READ MORE: Ranking Every Tier Two Neutral Items In Dota 2 Patch 7.41c

Featured Image Source: offstage and substack (noxville)