Four months from today The International 2018 Grand Finals will be played with millions of viewers tuning in around the world. It could be the first year we see a two-time winner of Dota’s de facto World Cup, or an underdog could come out of nowhere to snatch the Aegis. Eight teams will qualify directly for the event based on their performance this year in the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), and it’s likely (but not guaranteed) that eight to ten more will qualify in various regional qualifiers. The window for those direct invites is closing, with only 5 more DPC events left this season ….

There’s ~2.2 * 10²⁰ ending top 4 permutations these final events could create, but obviously some of those outcomes are way more likely than others (and most outcomes don’t actually affect which teams will qualify for a direct spot). As a result, we can effectively model some of these remaining brackets using the team’s current Glicko ratings and Monte Carlo methods. This provides a way to reasonably compute expected (average) outcomes, but in a way that’s flexible enough to be updated live (every time a match is played it can impact the final outcome). This lets us measure some key metrics:

How likely is a team to earn enough points be qualify for TI?

What are their expected points and placement?

What’s the average cutoff point?

There are three assumptions made in this model:

A team doesn’t undo it’s post-roster-lock changes (i.e. OG doesn’t get Resolution back) and attempt to qualify with that roster (provided they didn’t kick the player from the in-game locked team).

None of the currently eligible top 10 teams make a roster change that’d make them ineligible for a direct spot.

VGJ. Storm win the Supermajor NA Qualifier, the final qualifier spot for main-season DPC. I could’ve added this qualifier as part of the model, or waited until tomorrow for the qualifier to end — but for now I’m going to be a bit lazy and assume they win the qualifier (and I’ll adjust it if it’s wrong). Technically 5 of the 6 teams could still win it — but it’s very likely VGJ. Storm win against isGG (who are already out of the running) and get at least 1 game off Immortals (who need to win all remaining matches to qualify). I’ll update the model tomorrow anyways.

So let’s look at the model output as of now.