Dota 2 team Fnatic may have exited the MDL Disneyland Paris Major early, but fans may have another reason to celebrate. It appears that despite earning the minimum DPC points at the tournament, that may have been enough for the team to earn a coveted slot at The International 2019. Fnatic joins Team Secret, Virtus.pro. Vici Gaming, and Evil Geniuses as one of the confirmed teams so far.
The team is composed of Pyo "MP" No-a, Abed Azel "Abed" Yusop, Daryl "iceiceice" Koh Pei Xiang, Djardel "DJ" Mampusti, and Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong. Other members of the team include Kim "DuBu" Doo-young as Coach and John Paolo "Sandata" Bago as Analyst.
During The International 2018, Fnatic was then composed of Abed, DJ, Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao, Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora, and Johan "pieliedie" Astrom. Despite what looked to be a strong team, Fnatic entered the Main Event in the Lower Bracket and was eliminated by Team Serenity. It was then that the team decided to do a roster reshuffle and have the line-up it has now.
Since then the team has managed to enter all of the Major tournaments so far. During the Kuala Lumpur Major, the team managed to reach the third round of the Lower Bracket before eliminated by EG. The team had a better showing in the Chongqing Major, but was eliminated by PSG.LGD. So far in both of these tournaments, Fnatic entered the Playoff stage in the Upper Bracket, but immediately fell to the Lower Brackets.
The DreamLeague Season 11 initially was different as Fnatic started out strong. The team swept Virtus.pro and then Keen Gaming to reach the semifinals of the tournament and a guaranteed third place finish. However, the group was unable to stop Vici Gaming and had to drop to the Lower Bracket. Here they would again face VP, but despite a valiant effort, VP moved to the Grand Finals leaving Fnatic in third place.
Fnatic's performance in the ongoing MDL Disneyland Paris Major has to be its worst in the DPC Season. The team ended the Group Stage at the bottom, winning only one game out of the five it played. This meant a Lower Bracket start in the Main Event, where Fnatic was eliminated by Keen Gaming.
There is still one more Major tournament left before TI9, and we will see how Fnatic fares this time.
In addition to Fnatic, it appears that PSG has also earned a slot for TI9 based on the possible points the team can get. PSG is still in the running in the Disneyland Paris Major after it defeated VP 2-0.
