Last Two Teams Announced, The International 3 Invites Completed

After the past few days of anticipation, excitement and debate among many thingsw, the list of the thirteen invited teams to The International 2013 is finally complete! Invasion.MUFC and LGD.int taking the last two invites was rather expected judging by details the details that have been more-or-less revealed in various social networking sites. With the addition of these last two teams, fans can now move on to speculating and debating about who deserves to be part of the Eastern and Western Qualifiers. But before we do that, let’s move on to looking at the latest and final additions to the recipients of non-qualifier invites for TI3.

Invasion.MUFC

Due to several problems, last year’s MUFC roster was not able to attend The International 2012 even though they were invited. They were instead replaced by Mousesports after defeating World Elite to take the vacated spot. The roster staggered since then and underwent some changes until its members disbanded in January 2013 and came back with a new roster two months after. In a short time since their reformation, MUFC had undergone some inconsistencies in their plays, but still proved that they are indeed a strong team that should not be ignored. Among their notable accomplishments include placing second on the Asian Gaming League 2 as well as winning the championship of Gigabyte E–Sports Tournament (GEST) – April 2013. Will they be adding a place at The International 2013 to their accomplishments?

Current Roster:

Litt-Binn “WinteR” Chan
Daniel “TFG” Wong
Cheng Hor “FzFz” Siew
Woi Cheong “Ling” Sim
Raymond “Sharky” Wong
Jun Liong “dabeliuteef” Loh

LGD.int

For most DOTA 2 pro players, going to China is an achievement of various sorts. Being picked up by a Chinese organization to practice in China against strong Chinese teams is a whole new level. That is what happened to LGD.int. Although this is not the first time that an organization picks up foreign players for its squad, LGD.int is special because they get to train in a Chinese team house unlike previous organizations. The community anxiously waited for their debut, as there seemed to be a strange silence as to what LGD.int was doing or up to at the time. On December 2012, however, LGD.int took the first prize of the GEST Dota 2— The Challenge. Another notable accomplishment was their second place at the G-League Season 2 where they faced off against Invictus Gaming in the finals. For these five young men from the West who trained in the East, could TI3 be their time to shine?

Current Roster:

Per Anders “Pajkatt” Olsson Lille
Sergey “God” Bragin
Braxton “Brax” Paulson
Rasmus Berth “MiSeRy” Filipsen
Sivatheeban “1437” Sivanathapillai

So What’s Next?

The release of the invites and the completion of which is actually just the beginning. Now that we have determined who the invited teams are, it’s time to speculate and guess about the other teams that will be part of the 16 teams that comprise the Eastern (8 teams) and the Western (8 teams) Qualifiers. The winners of the Eastern and Western Qualifiers will take two of the remaining three spots. The teams who place second for each of said qualifiers will then face off with each other in the Wildcard match to be held right before The International 3 to determine who takes the final spot to complete the 16 competing teams.

Predictions include Mousesports, Evil Geniuses, RoX.KiS, Team Empire, QPad Red Pandas, Vici Gaming, First Departure, TongFu and MiTH.Trust among others. However, we can’t be too sure, as even at the last minute, teams are making significant changes to their rosters. For instance Ivan “Vigoss” Shinkarev takes the bench as Dmitriy “Light of Heaven” Kupriyanov joining Team Empire whose former members Artur ‘Goblak‘ Kostenko and Airat ‘Silent’ Gaziev join dd.DOTA. Kaipi also announced the addition of Alexandru ‘ComeWithMe’ Craciunescu  and Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev.  On the other hand, Team Mousesports has removed Alexander “Alex-“ Reinhardt and are, as of the moment, lacking one member.