New Players and Teams to watch out for at The International

The old pillars of Dota have been phased out, and a new age of Dota is here. We are in a new age of Dota. This new generation of Dota 2 players and teams has surpassed the legends of the old. And with that, we are here to highlight a couple of new teams and players heading to TI for you to keep your eyes on.

The Dota 2 landscape has changed so much over the past couple of years. Dota has become so much more than what it once was both in and out of the game. If you showed a Dota player from TI5 today's Dota, it would be a totally different game. Try explaining the purpose of an aggressive Tri-lane to a newer player, or what the Side Shop was to a new player.

Nowadays, Dota has been and continues to evolve. With that, new players and teams come fourth. On the other hand, older players seem to phase out of top Dota play, while others seem to phase out of the Dota scene completely. Every year, with each new TI, there are fewer and less returning players. There's no LGD, no Shopify Rebellion, no Team Secret, no OG. Few members of the "old guard" are at this year's international.

We can't avoid talking about Team Spirit when it comes to the next generation of Dota 2. Team Spirit are one of, if not the best team in the world. They are one of the only teams (aside from old OG) who have won two Internationals. The team mixes Miposhka's years of experience with the rest of the young team. The combination of their offlaner Collapse, who you can't even counter pick, and Yatoro's seemingly endless Hero pool. Spirit has been on a roll since The International 2021 and it doesn't seem like they are going to stop.

Team Falcons are the newest and arguably most dominant team heading into The International. The team hasn't been around for long, but despite that Team Falcons have looked beyond dominant. When they first debuted, no team could even take a single game off them, let alone a series. Despite the formation of the team being new, their players are an amalgamation of the best. Specifically, the spotlight is on Amar "ATF" Al-Assaf and Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak. The Offlaner who crushes anyone who stands in his way and then BM's them afterward. And the mid laner Malr1ne who came out of nowhere and outskills his matchups.

Next up from the South East Asian region is Talon Esports. Despite no SEA team getting a direct invite to TI, Talon battled their way up through the closed qualifiers quite dominantly. Only dropping a single game to Execration in their upper bracket run, Talon under the coaching of Pieliedie have really come into their own. With SEA legends like Rafli "Mikoto" Fathur Rahaman and Tri "Jhocam" Kuncoro and new players, Talon has a lot of momentum heading into TI with these new players.

Last but not least is 1Win coming out of the CIS Region. Although they were originally known as the "sweedenstrong stack", 1Win has come into its own. The team formed earlier this year seemingly out of nowhere. The most well-known player on their team was Georgii "swedenstrong" Zainalabidov, but even then he was still relatively unknown in the tier 1 scene. However, with his squad, they impressively won the Closed Eastern European Qualifier after beating out favorites like Navi, 9Pandas, and Virtus Pro.

Of course, these aren't every single player we have our eyes on, as that would be quite an extensive list. As all players invited to The International have earned the spotlight.

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