The main intrigue of The International 10 EU qualifiers

On July 7, qualifiers to The International 10 in Europe start. After the whole DPC season, only Team Secret and Alliance could get the invitations to the year's main tournament, and the rest of the teams will have to fight for the cherished ticket. There are a lot of questions about these qualifiers, and here are the main ones:

Could KuroKy attend his tenth The International?

This year's The International will be the tenth tournament in the series. Only 2 players in the world, ??Kuro "KuroKy" Tahasomi and ??Clement "Puppey" Ivanov, have attended all 9 previous ones. ??Puppey and Team Secret have already secured their place in the tenth tournament, while ??KuroKy and Nigma will face the toughest qualifiers. Only by winning them ??KuroKy could continue his incredible streak.

Nigma has a very difficult task at these qualifiers. The last time the team won was back in July 2020, at the OGA Dota PIT Season 2. The current DPC season can be called a failure, as they have failed to reach the required number of DPC points.

Is the OG era over?

The champion of two The Internationals, in 2018 and 2019, the OG team, may miss the current tournament. A disappointing season, which prevented the team from qualifying for the majors, and the resulting lack of points for a direct invitational, forced them to participate in qualifiers.

Just a month before qualifiers, ??Anathan "Ana" Pham left the team once again, and his place was taken by ??Said Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan. The team even turned to psychologist Mia Stellberg, with whom they won The International 2019. Right now, the team is on a bootcamp. But the question of whether they can win in these toughest qualifiers remains open.

Will Team Liquid's record-setting streak be broken?

In June, ??Samuel "Boxi" Swann returned to Team Liquid after a two-month break. The organization never disclosed the reason for his absence. But with his return, Team Liquid continues on its way to being the most stable team in Dota 2 history. There are 615 joint official matches on account of the whole five players. The record, set by Alliance back in 2013, is still 41 maps away.

There are fears that failure at qualifiers may force a cohesive roster to change, and Alliance's record will hold.

Could at least one young team put up a fight against the grands?

Another question hanging in the air is whether at least one young team can put up a fight against the trio of OG, Nigma, and Team Liquid. Right now, there are 3 teams — Tundra Esports, Vikin.GG and Brame — that showed some noticeable results during the DPC season. Given that the qualifiers are online, we can expect these teams to be sensational.

Qualifiers for The International 10 in Europe will run on July 7-10. The strongest team from the region will get a direct invitation to the main tournament of the year.