The International 2026 predictions: which teams will make it to the playoffs?

Dota 2’s The International is always difficult to predict, but this year may have one of the most volatile fields yet.

No single team feels untouchable. The defending champions remain strong but inconsistent, while last year’s runner-up has fallen off the map, and a newly formed team of rejects enters as the tournament favorite. Meanwhile, Chinese legacy stars are planning a deep run on home soil.

After a year defined by parity, it all comes down to Shanghai. With the field more unpredictable than ever, these are the eight Dota 2 teams I’m backing at The International 2026 (TI15) – and hopefully they’ll earn players a terrain in the process!

With eight spots up for grabs, I’ve ranked the teams I believe are best positioned to reach the TI15 main event based on recent form, consistency, roster strength, and the current meta. Here’s a quick snapshot:

Team Yandex is one of the newest teams at The International 2026, yet they are poised to lift the Aegis.

Yandex entered Dota 2 by acquiring Cyber Goose in June 2025 before rebuilding the roster around Ilya ‘CHIRA_JUNIOR’ Chirtsov. The other four members were cast-offs who had either been benched or dropped by their respective teams, yet Yandex quickly emerged as the most consistent roster of the season.

Yandex won PGL Wallachia Season 7 and BLAST Slam VII, finished 2nd at ESL One Birmingham, and recently placed 3rd at the Esports World Cup (EWC 2026), on top of multiple top-four finishes. Few teams have been as reliable this season, making Yandex one of the safest picks at TI15.

However, the one matchup Yandex still needs to solve is Iron Wing (1Win). The former Tundra roster has repeatedly eliminated Yandex, sweeping them at BLAST Slam V and beating them 3–1 in the ESL One Birmingham final. For Martin ‘Saksa’ Sazdov, TI15 is the perfect stage to settle the score with his former TI11-winning teammate.

TEAM VISION enters TI15 with arguably the strongest form of any team heading into Shanghai. 

After the PARIVISION roster finished third at TI14, they underwent another rebuild this year, bringing Clement ‘Puppey’ Ivanov on as coach. Not long after Dmitry ‘DM’ Dorokhin was benched and replaced by Valery ‘SSS’ Lazarev, Evgeniy ‘Noticed’ Ignatenko also joined their squad.

After the roster shuffle, the team captured titles at 1win Essence I and DreamLeague Season 29, proving the changes were exactly what they needed. Their dominant run at EWC 2026 only reinforced that strength, with all three cores peaking simultaneously and the newest offlaner earning tournament MVP.

The meta is also favorable for them going into TI15. Specifically, Alan ‘Satanic’ Gallyamov’s signature heroes, Kez, Shadow Fiend, and Drow Ranger, are among the most contested picks, while Volodymyr ‘No[o]ne-’ Minenko’s Ember Spirit and Earth Spirit will enable him to start taking control of the map early.

Edgar ‘9Class’ Naltakyan is also in a league of his own. Team Vision’s position four support has the uncanny ability to surprise with unorthodox picks, while also being the most disruptive player on the map. Even so, Yandex still holds the edge due to their greater consistency throughout the season.

BoomBoys came out of TI14 with a fourth-place finish and benched their star carry, Ivan ‘Pure’ Moskalenko, for Ilya ‘Kiritych’ Ulyanov from Virtus.pro.

This was a questionable roster move at the time and affected their season results. While the CIS squad found strong finishes at major esports tournaments, including 2nd at FISSURE PLAYGROUND 2, they also bombed out of others, placing 7th–8th at DreamLeague Season 28 and 11th–12th at ESL One Birmingham.

However, the squad finally started hitting their stride mid-2026, with their win in PGL Wallachia Season 8, as both their newcomer carry and midlaner, Danil ‘gpk’ Skutin, went above and beyond. BoomBoys went 15–3 in maps and swept Aurora 3–0 when they met for a rematch in the finals.

BoomBoys carried that momentum with them into EWC 2026, reaching the grand final against Team Vision, but only managed to take off one map them. While the team is certainly capable of overcoming the tournament favorites, BoomBoys are infamous for their weak mental game, and their crucial series tend to unravel after a bad tilt.

After posting a disappointing 9th–13th finish at TI14, Aurora Gaming was considered fortunate just to make the playoffs during the rest of the year.

The team made multiple roster changes before stabilizing, acquiring Rafli ‘Mikoto’ Fathur Rahman, Chung ‘Ws’ Wei Shen, and Oleh ‘kaori’ Medvedok, leaving Egor ‘Nightfall’ Grigorenko and two-time TI winner Myroslav ‘Mira’ Kolpakov as the core members.

These aggressive changes proved worth it, as the squad went on to win two tournaments back-to-back, with the FISSURE Universe: Episode 8 final against Team Spirit going the full distance. Since then, Aurora has consistently made the playoffs at major events and even finished runner-up in three of them.

While Aurora Gaming didn’t do too hot at EWC 2026, finishing 9th–12th after an early elimination by Rune Eaters, I still believe they have what it takes to make a deep run at TI15.

Team Falcons return to TI15 with the same five-person roster that claimed the Aegis last year, albeit with decent, if underwhelming, results.

The defending TI14 champions still had momentum in the tournaments after their nail-biting victory in Hamburg, triumphing at FISSURE PLAYGROUND 2 and finishing as the runner-up at BLAST Slam IV only a week later.

However, the team failed to reach another grand final in 2026 until the recently concluded 1win Essence II, where they finished runner-up. As always, though, Team Falcons rarely let the meta dictate how they play and instead stick to what their players do best, for better or worse.

The squad has loosely defined roles: midlaner Stanislav ‘Malr1ne’ Potorak usually picks traditional offlane heroes, captain Ammar ‘ATF’ Al-Assaf goes for offlaners with carry potential like Timbersaw, Slardar, Doom, and Huskar, leaving Oliver ‘skiter’ Lepko to pick tempo carry heroes like Sven or Slark.

This leaves superstar support Andreas ‘Cr1t-’ Nielsen in a great position this TI15, as his longtime comfort heroes, Hoodwink and Earth Spirit, have been top choices in recent tournaments.

One of the most surprising upsets at TI14 was Team Spirit missing the playoffs, especially given that the squad comprises three two-time winners.

Despite the reshuffle, Team Spirit has maintained a regular presence in the playoffs of most major Dota 2 tournaments, although their results have been inconsistent.

At their best, they have reached the grand finals and finished as runners-up, as in PGL Wallachia Season 6 and DreamLeague 27. However, at their worst, they were eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs, as was the case at EWC 2026 in Paris.

Even so, their track record makes them a strong candidate to at least survive the TI15 group stage.

Nigma Galaxy is arguably the biggest gamble in the top eight, but this is a very different roster from the one that struggled in events since finishing 5th–6th at TI14.

The team has been the busiest heading into Shanghai, constantly grinding events and qualifiers, despite rarely converting that into strong placements. The lineup finally settled in June, when powerhouses Sumail ‘SumaiL’ Hassan and Artem ‘lorenof’ Melnyk replaced Denys ‘rincyq’ Bohushev and Tony “No!ob” Assaf.

This new roster offered a glimmer of hope at EWC 2026, as they topped a stacked group containing Aurora, Liquid, and PTime with a 9–1 map record before falling to BoomBoys in the playoffs. However, the roster can also crash out, as evidenced by the more recent 1win Essence II, where they finished 9th–10th. 

Nigma has always been a volatile team during tournaments, but the additions of SumaiL and lorenof could be the secret ingredient they need to reach the TI15 playoffs.

Vici Gaming is my final pick for the playoffs – and their recent form, plus the home advantage, is doing most of the heavy lifting.

The current squad is absolutely stacked with Chinese veterans: two winners from arguably the most dominant TI-winning team ever, Zhang ‘Bach’ Ruida and Zhang ‘y`’ Yiping, and all-star support Zhao ‘XinQ’ Zixing.

Vici broke through internationally by qualifying for the playoffs at PGL Wallachia Season 7 and made a strong showing at EWC 2026.

After PTime were disqualified from the survival round, Vici went on to eliminate Iron Wing 2–1 to reach the playoffs, where they swept Falcons 2–0 in the quarterfinals before losing 0–2 to BoomBoys in the semifinals and 0–2 to Yandex in the third-place match. Since then, the team has made the playoffs in Games of the Future and 1win Essence.

Team Resilience and TI14’s runner-up, Xtreme Gaming, also have a strong chance of making the playoffs. However, I have more confidence in Vici Gaming, as they have increasingly shown they can hold their own against international opposition.

Team Liquid is the hardest team to leave out of the top eight because the two-time TI-winning organization has posted decent results, including wins at BLAST Slam VI and 1win Essence II.

The main issue is that the team tends to swing hard, missing playoffs at EWC 2026 and DreamLeague Season 29. I still consider Michał ‘Nisha’ Jankowski the most mechanically talented player at TI15, while Samuel ‘Boxi’ Svahn consistently delivers the best highlight plays. 

Even so, Liquid’s inconsistency simply makes them difficult to trust with my predictions.

Leaving out Iron Wing (1win) was perhaps the hardest thing to do as a Tundra fan, especially considering that the squad is championship-caliber. The team has even had success in big tournaments, triumphing at both DreamLeague Season 28 and ESL One Birmingham.

Still, the team has been rather rusty, grinding qualifiers and lower-tier tournaments rather than battling it out in the bigger leagues. Regardless, if there’s anything worth exploiting or a cheesy interaction to gain an advantage, Neta ‘33’ Shapira will be the first to find it.

Finally, LGD was originally one of my picks to make it to the final eight. However, after star midlaner Santiago ‘TaiLung’ Agüero Gustavo was banned for integrity issues, it felt like a death blow.

The former Heroic squad is elite on its own, but has spent months building its drafts and playstyle around TaiLung. While the team has found a replacement with the legendary Topias ‘Topson’ Taavitsainen, no less, his unorthodox pool may not fit with the scrappy, chaotic style the team would’ve brought to the tournament.

As mentioned, this is one of the most volatile TI line-ups in the tournament’s already storied history.

Last year, the most common predictions were upended, with Xtreme Gaming going undefeated in the group stages as the biggest surprise before reaching the grand final. This unpredictability is exactly why these rankings are predictions based on their performances and the current meta, not guaranteed results.

Naturally, teams might be saving strats for the event, a pocket pick might come in clutch, or history between two teams might affect the results. It’s the exact unpredictability that makes Dota 2’s biggest event so special, and it wouldn’t be fun if the teams in Shanghai didn’t try to throw all our bets out the window.