In less than a week, The International 2016 will kick off its Wild Card series. The current prize pool is sitting at over 18 million and growing. If you haven't been following Dota 2, below is a quick rundown of the teams:

Invited Teams

Qualified Teams

Wild Card Teams

Haven't actually had much time to follow this year's developments in detail, but I get the feeling that no one team is considered overwhelmingly favoured to win TI6. That's good news! Obviously, OG, Liquid, and Wings have been going strong lately, but Na'Vi's recent first and second place finish at Starladder and ESL might be a sign of things to come at this year's TI. Is Na'Vi truly back? We'll see.

Secret clawing their way to the main event through the open and regional qualifiers, finishing first in both instances, has built a heck of a narrative the casters will no doubt exploit during the tournament, not to mention that both w33 and MiSeRy also managed to clinch a main event position with the new Digital Chaos.

The old men of CNdoto have finally began training new blood. Chinese fans have long since lamented the state of the Chinese scene with the meme "CNdoto, dead gaem", and the disaster that is the Shanghai Major was widely considered a devastating embarrassment domestically and aboard. There's a lot more than just prize money on the line for the Chinese teams this year.

Alliance is kinda back, also, maybe? It's the same roster that won TI3, but their level of play clearly leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe they'll have shaped up by August? Who knows. I'm not betting anything on them, though.

SEA is a bit of a crapshoot. It was the only region that I didn't get a single top 3 prediction correct. Fnatic is the go-to, and DeMon being back on a team is nice, I guess.

The official page still isn't up. More to come when details are out.

I don't really play or watch mobas but I do tend to watch every TI. Since the first one I felt Puppey was a cool guy so I support him on whatever team he's on.

Let's go Secret!

I don't really follow Dota but always enjoy seeing Dendi interviewed.

I got into Doto because of Brad and "Free to Play". I'm not playing anymore, but I will always be rooting for Fear, because I love his story.

I took off a few days of work to watch the last few rounds, and I'll be watching what I can from work as well. I hope they have the newbie stream back in full force this year.

Easy win for MVP

I like to watch The International but I don't follow DotA closely. I just started watching the live coverage for TI tonight. I thought the pick phase looked pretty cool this year!

The production has been great this year, it's amazing how much they improve every time.

BUT THE GAMES! So close, so competitive, this is why I love dota. That EG match was nuts, I was just staring in disbelief. Sad to see OG out but it can still root for digital chaos I suppose.

EG vs EHOME game 1 was one of the best games i've ever seen. Somehow, every person on my friendslist that played dota just had to rave to me about it.

Here are the highlights of that first game. Especially the ending is amazing and shows what happens if all the heroes on the field achieve their ultimate end game.

I haven't followed in a couple of years, are Na'Vi still around? Any Russian teams or is it all Chinese these days?

@poveren:Na'vi is still around. Dendi is still playing for them. They won the final tournament before the international, but got knocked out in the international itself. There's a healthy mix of EU (1) , Chinese(2), NA (2), and South East Asian (3) teams left so far. Big teams have been eliminated (OG, Secret, LGD, Na'vi, Newbee) while smaller teams have performed better than anyone could have predicted (TNC, DC). Resolution, the Russian player that played for Empire before, is now part of the international team DC.

Anyone of the teams left can win it all. It's that exciting.

We still have a couple more days of games ahead of us but even at this point I feel like this has been the best International ever. The metagame seems really good right now in a way that favors interesting team fights, lots of hero use variance, and high levels of play out of all of the teams and players rather than just two or three top tier teams. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I may have seen my personal favorite game of dota ever last night. Also the casting and commentary around the game is great right now.

If you've ever been into dota or what to check it out this is a great year to watch.

Edit: If you haven't watched since TI3 you'll find that teams have shuffled a lot of players around but you'll still see plenty of familiar faces.

As much as I enjoyed that All Stars game, if we're still going by Gabe's standards for commentating per the Shanghai Majors, everyone is getting fired.

Been a great tournament so far, so many unexpected turns, so many upsets, so many outstanding games. I don't even care about my predictions at this point (RIP). This is great doto.

Still holding out for MVP, but probably EG going to take it again.

Underlord baby! I'm excited to see how far DC makes it, it's insane how far that team has come, I remember when sunsfan first announced it everyone just sort of laughed them off, now they may end up taking the tournament.

Also not even close, the Shanghai major was a shitshow, and not funny at all. You can say whatever you want if it's funny. Like Charlie may get booted because he's just not funny in the slightest. There's a difference between good humored ribbing and just saying ridiculous shit

Thanks for opening chat for the international. It was a very fun way to hang out with people who love the game and people that are new to it.

Well, to be fair, zero of the five players that just finished second as DC were on that original 'founding' team, and only one of those original players (Bulba) even made it to TI this year as a player.