Three new Dota 2 teams have been given slots at The International 2019. The teams are TNC Predator, OG, and Keen Gaming. With this, they join eight other teams that no longer need to go through the regional qualifiers.
OG
The news gives reigning champs OG a breath of fresh air as they get a chance to defend their title at the upcoming Dota 2 tournament. The new DPC season did not start out well for OG with player Anathan "ana" Pham making the decision to take a break. Since then, OG had difficulty establishing a place in the new season. The group initially failed to join the first two majors and placed 5th and 6th in two minors. By March of this year, ana made the return just in time for the MDL Disneyland Paris Major. The team finally manged to qualify, and despite ending the tournament at 5th-6th place again, it gave them enough points to continue being in the chase. By the time EPICENTER rolled in, OG had started to get back to its original form.
TNC
TNC had a good start to the season, earning a slot in the Kuala Lumpur Major and ending the tournament at 5th-6th place with 900 DPC Points. However the team faced a problem going into the Chongqing Major as Carlo "Kuku" Palad got banned from being part of the tournament. Kuku was replaced temporarily by Ryo "ryOyr" Hasegawa. The good news is that TNC did not incur any penalties.
Kuku returned to the team by January of this year, but Michael "ninjaboogie" Ross Jr. made the decision to leave the team. This resulted in TNC getting Nico "eyyou" Barcelon. TNC then failed to qualify for both the DreamLeague Season 11 and Disneyland Major. However the team's performance in the current EPICENTER Major may have given them the needed points to get a slot at TI9.
Keen Gaming
A surprising entry to TI9 is Chinese team Keen Gaming. The team was unable to join the Kuala Lumpur Major and the Chongqing Major. However Keen Gaming surprised the Dota 2 community after it defeated Evil Geniuses in the first round of the Playoffs. KG later lost to Fnatic and was eliminated by Team Secret. The team did manage to qualify for the Disneyland Major, but did not perform as well.
The International 2019 is scheduled for this coming August and will be held in Shanghai.
