The International 2026: Europe Regional Qualifier Schedule

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Western and Eastern Europe are huge regions with a lot of competitive teams on their own, but for The International 2026, Valve decided to merge them into one big qualifier that will definitely be as entertaining as most tournaments.

The TI 2026 Regional Qualifiers for Europe will start on June 21 to decide which teams will represent the region, and there are four available slots to be claimed by four out of sixteen possible candidates.

Invited Teams

As we have already mentioned, there will be 16 invited teams fighting for four slots at the main event. Among them, Team Spirit, Natus Vincere, and MOUZ stand out as the teams we have seen the most throughout the year.

This means that we will most likely see these three securing a slot each, leaving the remaining teams to fight for the last spot if nothing unusual happens.

Here is the list of invites for the European Regional Qualifiers:

Team Spirit
Natus Vincere
MOUZ
Virtus.pro
Nigma Galaxy
TEAM VISION
Enjoy (mostly former 1w Team)
Power Rangers
L1GA TEAM (might be competing as HULIGANI)
Rune Eaters
Yellow Submarine
VP.Prodigy
Team Bald
IC x Insanity
MODUS
4ikibamboni

TI 2026 Regional EU Qualifiers: Format

In contrast to the Regional SEA Qualifiers, Europe will feature a single double-elimination bracket with best-of-three matches all the way through, including the finals, because the region has four slots available.

Sixteen teams will fight for four slots on The International 2026.

Considering that the bracket is double-elimination, two teams will go all the way to the top and secure the first two spots, while teams that lose in the Upper Bracket will have a second chance to fight for the two remaining spots.

Teams need three victories to secure an Upper Bracket slot and five victories to secure a Lower Bracket slot. Teams that lose two matches are eliminated from the Europe Regional Closed Qualifiers.

TI 2026 Regional EU Qualifiers: Schedule

Once again, the timezone of the EU Qualifiers is catered to European fans and should be reasonable for most European Dota 2 viewers. If you're watching from the Americas, it's a bit early, but you'll still get most matchups at a reasonable time of the day.

Let's take a look at the schedule for the matchups already set for the TI 2026 EU Regionals:

Date	Time	Team 1	vs.	Team 2
June 21	08:00 GMT	Team Spirit	vs.	VP.Prodigy
June 21	11:00 GMT	Enjoy	vs.	Team Bald
June 21	14:00 GMT	Nigma Galaxy	vs.	Rune Eaters
June 21	17:00 GMT	Natus Vincere	vs.	MODUS
June 22	08:00 GMT	MOUZ	vs.	Yellow Submarine
June 22	11:00 GMT	Virtus.pro	vs.	IC x Insanity
June 22	14:00 GMT	Power Rangers	vs.	HULIGANI
June 22	17:00 GMT	TEAM VISION	vs.	4ikibamboni

Interesting Matchups

Valve did the best they could to spread out so many interesting teams, so we will not see Tier 1 classics right away, but the first round of the Upper Bracket still has some interesting matchups.

Team Spirit vs. VP.Prodigy

The day starts with Team Spirit showing whether they are ready to get past the Regional Qualifiers straight through the Upper Bracket, and their first obstacle is VP.Prodigy.

VP.Prodigy took the short straw and will have to face Team Spirit right from the start.

VP.Prodigy is apparently mostly comprised of home-grown talent and got fourth place in Open Qualifier #1. The expectation is that Team Spirit wins, but everything can happen in a best-of-three.

Enjoy vs. Team Bald

When we see Enjoy, nothing comes to mind, but this is the former 1w Team that was dismissed in favor of the acquisition of what used to be Tundra Esports' Dota 2 roster.

It would be fun to see former 1w Team facing current 1w Team on The International.

On the other side of the map, Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski managed to build a dream stack to bring Team Bald back from the dead, and maybe they will be lucky number four and bag the last remaining slot.

MOUZ vs. Yellow Submarine

Finally, to stay away from the obvious, we have MOUZ facing Yellow Submarine at the beginning of the second day. MOUZ had good performances since the season started but struggled to stay consistent, especially after Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp announced his retirement.

Yellow Submarine has the upper hand if we look into their history.

Yellow Submarine is kind of a "Youth Academy" that brought up names that composed most of the two-time TI-winning Team Spirit's roster and, more recently, PARIVISION's Alan "Satanic" Gallyamov.

This is the perfect opportunity for Korb3n to show that his eye for talent is still sharp and maybe bring forward new talent coming from Eastern Europe.

Closing Thoughts

The European Qualifier for The International could be a tournament on its own, and Dota 2 fans all across the globe are eager to see which teams will fill the four available spots.

In the second round of the Upper Bracket, we might already have Team Spirit facing Team Bald, Nigma Galaxy facing Natus Vincere, and MOUZ facing Virtus.pro to decide who moves forward to the third round.

If you want to stay informed about Dota 2 tournaments, qualifier results, and meta changes, take a look at the news section on the Strafe website!

Featured Image Source: Flickr (dota2ti)