Second part of our qualifiers meta recap will be focused on the remaining three regions: North America, South America and Europe. These three regions had drastically different results throughout the DPC season, but their representatives all deserve the attention—with how quickly the game has been developing the last couple of years some surprises are inevitable.

The qualifiers are over and we know our top eighteen teams. Qualifiers gave us some of the most intense matches, but also some of the most predictable outcomes and today we would like to discuss how some of the qualified teams got to glory.

Europe was really stacked this year. Five directly invited teams through the DPC rankings is a big achievement for the region that was already quite impressive. Over the last season we’ve witnessed not only dominant performance from the usual suspects, but also incredible levels of growth from the teams relatively new to the scene.

Southeast Asia is probably the fastest developing region in Dota. Several years ago most victories by the teams from the region were considered an upset and any placement higher than top12—a success. Coming into TI9, SEA finally looks like a major contender and perhaps this is going to be the year the region claims its first Aegis of Champions.

Three teams from China have received a direct invite to the home tournament and are preparing for the biggest esports event of the year. After somewhat disappointing results last year, with a single team in top8, the teams from the region have picked up their slack and looked a lot more active throughout the year during the DPC season.

With the International 2019 rapidly approaching, it is time to have a quick look over the participating teams. Today we are going to concentrate on the sole representatives of the North American and CIS regions.

The EPICENTER Major was immediately followed up by a small balance patch that will change the meta slightly, however none of the changes were too drastic. We will closely monitor new developments during the qualifiers for the International, but for now will concentrate on what lessons we can learn from the EPICENTER.

Every time Slark was viable in the professional scene, he was absolutely rampant in pubs. This generally happens to pub-stomping, snowball-oriented heroes and it is probably a nightmare to balance them, but for the first time in a while the pattern has been broken. Slark might not be the most popular hero in the professional scene, but he is situationally excellent and maybe it is time to give the hero a chance in pubs, despite his average win rate.

Meta is always cyclical. New patch introduces something above the general power curve, teams and players start looking for answers and soon, these answers start demanding adjustments from players looking to win.

Position five heroes are the backbone of any team. They are often a sacrificial role with lowest gold and experience priority, but their impact is not limited to the first 15 minutes of the game.