Talon flipped the narrative and secured the first SEA spot at The International 2024 after a 2:0 sweep over Aurora.
Of the only six invites that were bestowed directly to the teams, none were awarded to any Southeast Asia team.
Aurora were poised to be the favorites – having taken a consistent 7-9th place finish at various international events. Most of the other teams struggled to even find their seat at the table for events, including Talon who didn't have a single appearance at any of the Tier 1 LANs this year. Just before the TI qualifiers kicked off, Rafli "Mikoto" Fathur Rahman joined Talon on June 4th, replacing captain Ng "ChYuaN" Kee Chyuan who had been playing with the team all season – and the change seems to have worked out for them.
Typically Aurora takes the series between these two. This time things would be different as Talon finally flipped the narrative. It was an overwhelmingly favorable first game for Talon – a perfect game for Chung "Ws" Wei Shen and a fantastic one for Eljohn "Akashi" Andales. The second match seemed to favor Talon but Aurora refused to give up. They pushed Talon to the edge, forcing them to throw everything they had into the game and still come up short of answers. Multiple times they broached the high ground and ancients but could not close things out and were pushed back again. After 50 minutes and almost 30k gold lead, Talon finally clinched the game, series, and TI spot.
Aurora still has a chance to punch their ticket to Denmark. There is one more slot open for the region, the qualifiers will conclude tomorrow.
The action resumes tomorrow with the Lower Bracket Semi-Finals.
Execration
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TNC Predator 06:00 CEST
The International 2024 (TI13) Teams
This year sixteen teams will compete at TI13. Valve announced the six teams that received a direct invite to The International 2024. The remaining ten teams will come from regional qualifiers. For The International, there will be only six regions – sorry MENA, you are lumped in with WEU as usual.
Direct invites
Team Spirit 
Xtreme Gaming 
Team Falcons 
Team Liquid 
Gaimin Gladiators 
BetBoom Team
Qualified teams
Team Zero - China 
G2 x iG - China 
nouns - North America 
Heroic - South America 
beastcoast - South America
1win - Eastern Europe 
Talon Esports - Southeast Asia
TBD - Southeast Asia
TBD - Western Europe
TBD - Western Europe
The International 2024 (TI13)
The International 2024 is set to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark in September at the Royal Arena. This will mark the second time The International is coming to Europe, but the first time when, hopefully, fans will be able to attend. The first time Valve tried to bring its most prestigious tournament to Europe was in 2020 when the pandemic hit the world. TI10 was postponed for 2021 and moved from Sweden to Romania, and although tickets were sold, a new wave of coronavirus forced Valve to refund all tickets and hold the tournament in an empty stadium in Bucharest. Since then, TI moved to Singapore in 2022 and last year it returned home, to Seattle.
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