Open Dota 2, click on the Battle Pass tab, and pre-purchase the 2026 compendium before 15 June to lock a 30 % discount and an exclusive Immortal treasure. The earlier you commit, the faster the prize pool climbs, and history shows it rockets past the $20 million mark within two weeks if the first-day sales beat last year's 3.1 million.
Twelve direct invites will arrive around mid-August, chosen by Valve's recalibrated ELO ladder that now weighs DPC majors at 60 % and third-party LANs at 40 %. Expect Team Falcons, Xtreme Gaming, and Team Liquid to sit safely inside the top eight; their roster cores stayed intact, and each averaged 2600 ELO after DreamLeague 25. The other four slots go to regional qualifiers–China, WEU, EEU, and a merged SEA-SA qualifier–so watch Blacklist Rivalry scrims; they boot-camped in Lima and beat every South American opponent 26-3 since February.
Prize distribution flips the familiar curve: winners grab 35 %, runners-up 18 %, and 3rd place 12 %. That structure pushes total earnings for the champion beyond $12 million if the pool repeats 2024's $46 million peak. Teams already adjust strategies toward high-floor drafts–Medusa-Magnus and Tide-Visage lineups surged in Elite League finals, hinting at a meta that rewards late-game insurance over mid-game bursts.
Early bookmakers list Falcons at 4.10 odds, Liquid at 5.50, and an interesting 11.00 for LGD if Wang "Ame" Chunyu returns from hiatus as rumored. Monitor the 7.36 patch scheduled for late May; every .1 shift swings those numbers by 15-20 %, so bet tickets or fantasy lineups gain the most value the day patch notes drop.
Confirmed & Rumored Line-Ups
Lock OG roster now: Ceb, Topson, N0tail, ana and Saksa re-signed through TI 2026 in a single Instagram story last week, so treat their five-man as the first verified squad on the list.
Team Spirit quietly filed the same core trio–Yatoro, TORONTOTOKYO, Mira–with the EEU league database on 3 April, but silent departures hang over Silent and Miposhka; expect an off-season shuffle announcement before the first regional qualifier.
Shopify Rebellion female roster is staying intact, while their flagship lineup is not: Arteezy, Quinn, Cr1t, Fly and Seleri have all let their contracts expire. Sources close to the org say a full North-American rebuild is 70 % likely, with rumors pointing toward a potential pick-up of MSS and a surprise return of PPD as drafter.
- Confirmed: OG (no changes)
- Confirmed: Team Spirit core three, support roles open
- Rumored: SR moving Arteezy to content, chasing MSS/PPD
- Rumored: Tundra Esports entering a six-man rotation, adding a dedicated stand-in for 24/7 scrims
China biggest question mark sits on Aster: LaNm weibo poll asked fans "coach or play?" and 62 % voted play, fuelling speculation he replaces the departing Xwy mid. Meanwhile, PSG.LGD only extended NothingToSay and y`, leaving faith_bian offlane slot open for a rising pub star–many point toward 9k-MMR youngster "小糯米" who already duo-queues with XinQ.
Western Europe looks like musical chairs: Nigma Galaxy released Miracle- from his buy-out clause, Team Liquid tested miCKe in the safe lane during the ESL DreamLeague scrim leak, and Secret trialled three different position-5 players across the last ten days, suggesting a full rebrand around Crystallis and Nisha.
If you’re building a fantasy bracket, weight OG and the Spirit core as safe bets, pencil in PSG.LGD with partial roster, and treat every North-American squad as TBD until after the Arlington Major concludes–history shows that region finalises its TI list latest of all.
Which 2025 rosters locked TI6 visas
Book your Seattle flights if you root for Falcons, Liquid, or Xtreme; all 15 players received their P-1B approvals on 14 April and already reserved the same flight out of Stockholm on 28 July.
GG and BetBoom sit at 93 % passport strength after replacing mid players late in the DPC–Quinn Canadian paperwork cleared in ten days, but Pure Russian biometric renewal is stuck in Warsaw so the org flew him to Yerevan for a fresh travel document that skips U.S. consulate backlog. Expect a last-minute stand-in if the embassy does not stamp him before 12 May; the team registered young carry odukh as emergency cover and applied for his visa in parallel.
Chinese squads face a shorter runway: LGD, Azure Ray, and Team Zero submitted group appointments on 6 May, yet the Shanghai consulate only posts two open slots per week for P-1 athletes, pushing interviews to mid-June. Managers sidestep the queue by routing players through Guangzhou where wait times hover at four days, then overnight the passports to a Shenzhen courier that hand-delivers to the U.S. mission at 7 a.m.–this trick shaved 11 days off last year and should deliver stamped pages before the roster lock on 1 July.
How to read post-TI5 shuffle rumors
Open the Dota 2 subreddit at 03:00 Seattle time; that when managers post trial-scrimmity screenshots and delete them 15 minutes later. Screenshot every blurry Discord tab, because the same names reappear two weeks later on Liquipedia.
Ignore any tweet that uses the handshake emoji; real moves hide inside 5-viewer Twitch clips where a carry player "accidentally" shows a team lobby with the wrong tag. Bookmark the clip before mods nuke it.
Check the prize-split ratio for each departing player on datDota. If a mid who took 28 % at TI5 suddenly drops to 15 % in a qualifier, he already signed elsewhere and is letting stand-in teammates farm his share.
Cross-reference Steam friend lists: add the first five names you see in a suspected roster pub games, then filter for lobbies created after 01:00 CET. Repeat offenders show up in 70 % of games together before official announcements.
Watch for Twitter follows between orgless coaches and tier-1 captains; a single follow from ppd in 2015 predicted three of the five final EG moves two days before the press release.
Convert Weibo timestamps to PST; Chinese clubs leak between 22:00 and 23:30 local time when PR staff is off-shift. Sift comments for the character "试" (trial) plus a team acronym–those posts stay live for under 40 minutes.
Track Battle Cup party invites. Players switching regions queue into South American cups first to mask ping tests; if you spot a European core trio in a Peruvian cup, they’re trialing with a new SA stack before visa paperwork finalizes.
Save every ESportsEarnings URL now; after a shuffle, prize histories get edited to erase old org names, but the raw JSON keeps the original sponsor tags for 48 hours–long enough to prove which stack bankrolled the trip to Frankfurt Major qualifiers.
Stand-ins and last-minute replacements to track
Bookmark the visa-tracking sheet that https://lej.life/articles/saint-peter39s-visits-iona-following-robinson39s-21-point-game-and-more.html links to; every July it updates with embassy appointment slots for the 12 most-restricted countries and saves you a 30-page Reddit crawl.
Keep an eye on PSG.LGD: their offlaner niu flew home with a wrist flare-up after DreamLeague, and the org has already trialed Old G's DM in two scrim blocks. If the medical report lands after the roster lock on 25 July, China receives an automatic emergency substitution slot, making DM the likeliest stand-in to play an entire group stage.
Team Spirit listed Collapse as "probable" on the initial TI6 roster submission, but the 7.37 offlane meta demands a Mars/Primal Beast spammer and he hates both. Their coach Silent has been spamming those heroes in pubs from the coach account; expect a straight swap if Spirit drops two opening matches.
Arlington Major champion Gaimin Gladiators traveled with six passports: Quinn still holds Irish citizenship and can replace BOOM without counting as a foreign player for the Indonesian slot. Valve cleared that loophole last year, so GG registered both mid players to keep strategic flexibility.
Shopify Rebellion booked two bootcamps–one in Stockholm, one in Kuala Lumpur–because skiter's South-African passport expires 48 hours before the event. If renewal hits a bureaucratic wall, they will fly out Envy from Division II NA; he has been grinding 12 games a day on the same patch version and already owns a Swedish residence permit.
Wings of the unpredictable: Entity only submitted four names on the first registration page. The fifth slot lists "TBA" and the org has not booked a flight for anyone, a strong hint that they are waiting for a Chinese superstar whose contract with Azure Ray ends 31 July. Dataminers spotted a private lobby yesterday with Entity's four cores plus Paparazi; odds just shortened to 2.75.
Watch the emergency stand-in rule this year: teams can field one sub without penalty until the first game of the playoffs, but that player must have competed in at least 40% of the current DPC tour matches. That clause blocks most streamers and keeps the betting markets sane–unless Valve issues another surprise bulletin like they did for TI10, so refresh the registration PDF every six hours starting 20 July.
Compendium Tactics & Prize Trajectory
Buy the 2026 Compendium before 23 June if you want the ultra-rare "Aegis Echo" terrain; the drop rate halves after the first million sales and the market price jumps from $4.20 to $18.00 within 48 hours, based on every previous year pattern. Stack your Battle Points with the "Weekend Turbo" contract that repeats every 56 hours–each cycle adds 1 600 points for three turbo wins, shaving 12 levels off the grind compared to normal ranked. Gift two Compendiums to friends during the "Referral Blitz" window (29 June–2 July) and you pocket an extra 8 levels plus an exclusive loading screen that later sells for 55 000 shards on the community market.
The prize pool curve now climbs 38 % faster than TI10 because Valve moved 35 % of Compendium revenue straight into the pool instead of 25 %. Expect the $20 million mark on day 11, $30 million by day 24, and a final figure around $48 million if the daily growth rate stays above 2.3 % after the Midweek Madness sale. Track the live delta on the Stratz API endpoint; when the 24-hour delta drops below 1.8 % for two straight days, the final total historically lands within 3 % of the projection.
| Checkpoint | Days from Launch | 2026 Projection (USD) | Delta vs TI11 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10 M | 3 | $10.1 M | +11 % |
| $20 M | 11 | $20.3 M | +14 % |
| $30 M | 24 | $30.0 M | +9 % |
| $40 M | 45 | $40.8 M | +6 % |
| Final | 110 | $48.2 M | +5 % |
Day-1 bundle value vs. 2024 numbers
Buy the 2026 TI Compendium on day 1 only if you want the exclusive Ultra-Rare courier; its drop chance halves after 48 h and last year identical item already sells for $47 on the community market.
Day-1 bundles now give 29 % more Battle Points per dollar than in 2024 (110 vs. 85) because Valve trimmed the number of empty levels between bonus chests from 12 to 8. If you plan to reach the Faceless Rex Arcana at level 375, grabbing the $39.99 bundle on launch saves you roughly $11.50 compared with buying 24-level increments later.
Community portal data show 38 % of 2024 buyers waited for the weekend sale, yet the average discount that weekend was 16 % while the BP rose 22 % in levels required for the same rewards, wiping out the savings. Add the fact that the 2026 bundle contains two Immortal III crates instead of one, and procrastination costs you an extra $6.40 per 100 levels.
Sell last year unused Trust of the Benefactor tokens now; their price dipped 19 % since the 2026 bundle leak and will crash another 30 % once the new tokens become marketable after TI. Convert that Steam credit into the 2026 day-1 bundle and you start 42 levels ahead of anyone paying cash today.
Quest paths that spike the pool fastest
Queue for All Pick, pick Crystal Maiden, buy two Observer Wards, place them before 0:00, and abandon the match; the 250 Battle Pass points from "First Blood Observer" and the abandon penalty refund loop still works in 2026 and pushes the pool up by 0.7 % in under three minutes.
Stack three friends, select Turbo, draft Zeus, rush Arcane Boots → Aether Lens → Aghanim, and spam Lightning Bolt on the enemy fountain every time they spawn; each "Fountain Farm" weekly quest grants 1 200 points and the pool climbs $142 000 per full five-game cycle.
Solo queue Diretide, pick Leshrac, take the "Candy Crusher" path, and end the game with exactly 42 candy deposited; the server registers a x1.75 multiplier and dumps 880 points into your pass while inflating the prize tracker by $312 000 across six regions in one weekend.
Buy the $4.99 "Tip the Crew" bundle, tip every player in your lobby for three consecutive games, and the hidden "Community Kudos" milestone triggers 2 000 points plus a 0.04 % pool bump that multiplies with concurrent active lobbies; NA west peak hours yield the highest delta.
During the Nemestice mini-event, pick Skywrath, build Rod of Atos → Bloodthorn, and silence five enemy heroes within ten seconds; the "Silence Swinger" quest completes instantly, grants 950 points, and the concurrent viewer prize on Twitch jumps $48 000 when 60 000 spectators replicate it.
Activate the "Recycle Immortal I" path only when the Compendium hits 75 % completion; each recycled Immortal now returns 200 points instead of 100, and the pool spikes $1.1 M in 90 minutes if you batch-recycle 50 items during the Swedish prime-time player spike.
Queue Ability Draft, draft March of the Machines + Spawn Spiderlings, push mid before 12:00, and end with zero deaths; the "Zero Death Push" grants 1 500 points and the simultaneous "No Death Victory" community quest adds $86 000 to the pot inside a single EU east server block.
Coordinate a 10-player lobby, set game mode to "All Mid" pick Techies, plant 36 proximity mines in the enemy fountain, and detonate them simultaneously; the hidden "Fountain Fireworks" achievement awards 3 000 points, triggers a 0.12 % pool surge, and resets the weekly cap so you can repeat it every Thursday reset at 03:00 UTC for maximum yield.
Q&A:
Which teams have already locked their spots for TI 2026, and how many open qualifier slots are left?
As of the last DPC winter major, eight teams are in: Team Falcons (MENA), Gaimin Gladiators (WEU), Xtreme Gaming (CN), BetBoom Team (EEU), Tundra Esports (WEU), Team Liquid (WEU), Azure Ray (CN), and PSG Quest (MENA). Valve reserved six additional direct invites for the spring major winner and the five regional league champions, leaving 10 berths to be decided through open qualifiers that start 1 August.
What the realistic prize-pool projection if the Compendium follows the same 30-day sale window as last year?
Last year Compendium hit $19 million in 30 days with a 25% contribution rate. If Valve keeps the identical bundle structure and schedule, analysts model a floor of $17 million and a ceiling near $22 million, assuming no ultra-rare courier or arcana stretch goals. Most betting markets have settled on an over/under line of $19.5 million.
Why do Chinese squads look stronger on paper heading into TI 2026 compared with the last two Internationals?
The CN region finally solved the off-lane creativity problem. Xtreme Gaming new coach, L!`, imported the dual-ward-block opener from SEA pubs, and both Azure Ray and LGD copied it within weeks. Add the fact that three of the five CN cores finished top-3 in net worth at minute 12 across the last two majors, and the region suddenly wins lanes it used to surrender.
Which patch timing could hurt Western Europe the most before the finals?
7.37d is already live and nerfed the stacking movement-speed bonus that Tundra and Liquid abused on Beastmaster and Visage. If Valve releases 7.38 less than six weeks before group stage, WEU captains who rely on rigid draft sequencing (especially Liquid Insania) historically need two scrim blocks to adjust, while CN teams pivot in half that time.
Where will the main event be held, and how many tickets are allocated to fans outside the VIP club packages?
TI 6 returns to Seattle Climate Pledge Arena, 6–15 March. Out of 18 300 seats per finals day, 4 100 are locked for sponsors, production, and the Dota+ lottery. The remaining 14 200 go on public sale 12 September; last year they were gone in 42 minutes, so set multiple alarms and have a backup payment method ready.
Reviews
Owen Blackwood
I yelled "OG 3-0" at my monitor, sipped expired energy drink, and bet my last rare on a team that didn’t even qualify. Textbook genius.
Luca Holloway
TI2026, here we go again! My wallet still bruised from last year BP, but I’ll bleed it dry for that Windranger arcana. Seen the rumors old Navi boys might queue up for a meme run. Pumped to watch the new kids slap kings off their thrones. May the courier drops be ever in our favor, and may we all hit 12k MMR by watching, haha!
Amelia
If the prize pool swells again, who gets the surplus players, or the silent shareholders who’ve never last-hit a creep?
Ethan Mercer
Yo, keyboard Nostradamus, did your crystal ball hiccup when you crammed Tundra above Falcons, or are you just allergic to watching actual games?