The period before the TI is full of excitement and surprises for the fans as teams finalize their rosters to participate in the International. Post Kiev Major, Valve has announced dates and rules and accordingly all the teams have time until the 24th of May to work on their roster.
The International Shuffle starts off on May 3, and it has a two-step structure. Drop period followed by an invite period. All those who want to be eligible for an invite to The International 7 regional qualifiers or the main event must comply with the two step shuffle. They also must consider the time frame and have to keep their roster intact until after TI7. Of course, those who will fail to qualify for the biggest Dota 2 event of the year are free to start the post TI7 Shuffle at any time they want.
Drop Period:
The drop period is currently open until May 16th at 00:00 PST. After that period teams won’t be able to remove players from their team anymore. Instead, they will be able to add new players to a team to a maximum of five. Players in teams that haven’t confirmed participation by May 16th at 00:00 PST will be dropped automatically.
Invite Period:
The second step is the invite, or the pickup period, which starts immediately after the drop window. During this period teams should issue their invites to the players to add them to The International 7 rosters. The Invite period will end on the May 24th, 00:00 PST. Any team which fails to lock their final players before the aforementioned date and time stand disqualified for TI 7. And eventually, will lose their eligibility for an invite. Any changes after that will also lead to losing eligibility for the invite.
The International 7 is set to be held over six days in August, from Monday the 7th to Saturday the 12th in the KeyArena in Seattle, Washington. You can check the invites and finalized rosters on the official Valve website.
