Commentator Nikita "4ce" Kotkov assessed the performance of teams in the regional qualifiers for The International 2024 in Dota 2. He believes that Eastern Europe showed the weakest performance.
"It seems to me that many teams didn't fully study the new patch. It looked like half of the rosters in all regions weren't prepared at all, playing with heroes from older patches that simply don't work (for example, VP). Some tried to figure it out but seemed to misunderstand the meta."
"Maybe I started noticing this because I watched the games more closely, and perhaps it has always been like this, I don't know. I would say that China deserves the most praise for its meta-preparation. Additionally, the team nouns stand out, although the North American region itself doesn't usually deserve much attention since there aren't any potentially competitive teams there."
"The teams from our region—Eastern Europe—performed the worst. I haven't seen such bad picks from anyone else, and many teams played without any clear strategy," Nikita "4ce" Kotkov observed.
The qualifiers for The International 2024 were held online from June 9 to June 23 across six regions. Participants competed for ten slots in the World Championship, which will take place from September 4 to 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The prize pool for the tournament is still unknown. The complete list of participants can be found in the material below.