Valve throws Outsiders out of TI11, Fnatic invited instead
Despite having a berth to The International 2022 seemingly locked up through the Dota Pro Circuit, the Outsiders squad sponsored by Virtus.pro will have to work its way in through the TI11 qualifiers while Fnatic takes it’s spot.
The Dota Pro Circuit standings were finalized by the Arlington Major, which concluded with Team Spirit taking the title with a 3-1 win over PSG.LGD. The actual invites were mathematically secured a few days prior after the eliminations of Outsiders, Team Entity, Team Liquid, and Fnatic. According to Liquipedia, the standings at the end of the event had Outsiders securing the final TI11 invitation over Fnatic by a 0.055-point margin. Valve says differently, though.
For whatever reason, Valve opted to use its own unique system of mathematics for calculating the standings for the Dota Pro Circuit. Here’s why Valve is inviting Fnatic to The International 2022 and not Outsiders.
Why is Fnatic invited to TI11 and Outsiders is going to qualifiers?
According to Valve’s official standings, Outsiders is one point behind Fnatic in the Dota Pro Circuit with scores of 1019 and 1020, respectively. This resulted in a 13th-place finish for the CIS squad and will force them into regional qualifiers. So how did Valve come to this conclusion when Liquipedia and every other outlet had Outsiders’ score at 1020.055?
For whatever reason, Valve’s scoring system wholesale rejects decimal points and doesn’t round them. It effectively docks teams even more for roster changes and substitutions than it technically should. This isn’t usually an issue but with the margins as narrow as they are, it costed Outsiders dearly.
Strictly doing the math, Outsiders should have received a total of 198 points for the first DPC tour. This was reduced to 168.3 after a 15% point deduction for the departure of Illias “illias” Ganeev. For the second tour, it earned 20 DPC points for its fifth-place league finish to move up to 188.3, which was followed by another 15% deduction for the departure of Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko, reducing it down to 160.055. A first-place finish in the CIS league for 500 points and 360 points for a top-eight finish in the Arlington Major combined to push the final score up to 1020.055.
For reasons that remain unclear, Valve’s approach to this involves dropping decimal points entirely. Instead of having 168.3 points at the end of the first tour, Outsiders just had 168 points, which left the team with just 159 points after its deductions in the second tour. Add in the points from the third tour and Outsiders has just 1019.
This is an extremely granular distinction that was extremely unlikely to arise. Things have been close in past seasons, with 12th and 13th place separated by less than 10 points in the 2019-2020 season, but the point difference has also been as wide as almost 500 as well.
Ultimately, regardless of how this came to pass, the TI11 regional qualifiers for the CIS and Southeast Asia regions are looking very different than they were a few days ago.
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