Well the Majors are back and the first of the new season will be held in Boston this year. A lot of hype around the direct invites this year especially as some of the rosters were still in the testing stages. A lot of expected names have made this list but there were some teams that probably should’ve made it. Well nevertheless, here is the list:

Wings Gaming.

This is probably the easiest guess out of all the direct invites. With TI6 under its belt and not a single change in the roster, Wings gaming had to be the obvious direct invite.
After TI5, Wings have appeared in 2 lans, Nanyang Cruise and Dota 2 Professional league. Wings won the Nanyang Cruise cup which was, as the name suggests, held on a cruise and hosted only 4 teams. Wings beat Newbee to claim the honour.

Digital Chaos.

After Wings gaming, DC was probably the easiest one to guess. This runner-up team at TI6 had only one roster change replacing Moo with the OG offlaner Moon.
This team has not played on any big lan since its roster change although Moo and Moon have very similar playstyles so it is not a groundbreaking change to the squad. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see the TI6 dark horses to perform at Boston.

Evil  Geniuses.

Evil Geniuses, a team that most people had deemed as the one of the best teams to come out of the roster shuffle. EG had a good run at TI6, with Sumail outclassing every midlaner and Zai also showing a dominant performance. They ended up losing to their American rivals DC for the final spot in the grand finals but nonetheless it was a good tournament for them.
Post TI6 roster shuffle, they had some good changes in Crit and Artour and that reflected in the MDL where they won the first place beating Newbee in the finals.

Newbee.

Before TI6, Newbee had an amazing run and many predicted that Newbee has the potential to make it all the way or atleast end up top 3. However, none of those two happened and they got kicked out early in the tournament. This resulted in the big roster change.
The new roster has performed exceptionally well. Not many predicted that Newbee’s new roster would be this great. With Sccc and uu9 just crushing games and the stable duo of Kaka and Faith as solid as ever. They were placed second in 2 lans post TI, MDL and the Nanyang Cruise cup.

Ehome.

The invite that raised most eyebrows was the Ehome invite. They had a fantastic run in TI6 coming in from the Wild Cards and ending up top 6.
Post TI6, Ehome has been in a lot of tournaments experimenting with its new roster. They were third at the Shanghai Dota 2 open tournament, they also took the only spot in the Chinese qualifiers of The Summit 6 and they are not doing so well in the Dota 2 professional league though but I guess the aforementioned victories were enough to get them a direct invite.

Execration.

This invite is probably more surprising that the Ehome invite. Many people question the invite of Execration over Fnatic and Tnc. However, stunned everyone with their impressive performance in however long they stayed at TI. And the roster shuffle that brought in DJ, Rapy and Gabbi made the squad stronger in many aspects.
And post TI, they dominated the SEA scene in MGPL SEA championship. They haven’t found much success other than that though. It will be interesting to see Execration in Boston Major testing its new squad amongst the top teams in the world.

OG.

OG has consolidated its squad after losing Miracle, Moon and Crit, replacing them with Ana, S4 and Jerax. This recently changed has seen a lot of daylight in the MDL trophy where they were placed 3rd losing to EG for the finals spot.
S4 is playing splendidly on that new offlane position. His initiation and map sense is absolutely amazing and his initiation is unparalleled. Ana has also shown his exceptional skills and even Jerax fitting it well. The team definitely deserved its invite.

MVP.Ph

The second SEA team to be invited after Execration, was MVP.Ph. With roster changes including Reisin and Velo joining the team with the departure of MP and Forev.
The new Korean squad was placed second in MGPL SEA dota league losing to Execration in finals in a rather spectacular fashion though. Nonetheless they had shown really good skills up until the finals. They were kicked out of MDL in the first round by VG and they dint find much success in the Summit SEA qualifiers as well, so it’s comes as a bit surprising that they got invite ahead of Faceless, Tnc and Fnatic. Or why 2 sea teams got invited despite the EU and CIS scene looking pretty strong.

Well we can’t question the lord Gaben’s decisions, we can only hope for an amazing Major with so many good teams to look forward to.