Almost every team is locked in for DreamLeague Season 28

DreamLeague Season 28 might be over a month away, but with most qualifiers concluding over the recent weekend, almost every team is locked in.

January 2026 has kicked off with a ton of qualifiers for Dota 2’s professional scene. Starting with BLAST Slam VI, we then moved into DreamLeague Season 28 qualifiers, which rounded up over the recent weekend. However, the China qualifiers will only take place late in January, while one final team will come through the DreamLeague Division 2 Season 3 tournament.

With that said, 14 of the 16 participants have now locked in, with some interesting results from a few of the qualifier regions.

Closed qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 28 cause chaos

When it comes to regional qualifiers, there are usually a few teams to look out for that are the favourites in each. While there were six teams that reached the tournament through the ESL Pro Tour Season 2025/2026 (EPT) Leaderboard, the remaining teams would need to battle through open and closed regional qualifiers. For South America, HEROIC was thought to be a shoo-in for the spot at DreamLeague Season 28. However, when it came down to it, the unlikely Perú Rejects, with two of their previous players, would be the ones to cause a massive upset and secure their spot at the event. Similarly, in Southeast Asia, Team Nemesis fell by the wayside, as Execration was the dominant force during the qualifier.

Read more: Peru Rejects deny HEROIC a spot at DreamLeague Season 28

When it came to Western Europe, with four slots available, we, once again, saw Nigma Galaxy unable to make ends meet, while Virtus.pro also failed to qualify. In Eastern Europe’s qualifier, it was Aurora Gaming that failed to hit the mark with their new roster additions, while GamerLegion continued to be the shining force of North America.

This left 14 teams qualified for DreamLeague Season 28 so far:

• Team Yandex (EPT Leaderboard)
• Team Spirit (EPT Leaderboard)
• PARIVISION (EPT Leaderboard)
• Xtreme Gaming (EPT Leaderboard)
• OG (EPT Leaderboard)
• Tundra Esports (EPT Leaderboard)
• MOUZ (EU qualifier)
• Team Liquid (EU qualifier)
• Natus Vincere (EU qualifier)
• Team Falcons (WEU qualifier)
• BetBoom Team (EEU qualifier)
• Execration (SEA qualifier)
• GamerLegion (NA qualifier)
• Perú Rejects (SA qualifier)
• TBD (ESL China Challenger)
• TBD (Division 2 Season 3)

Read more: Larl to miss the first tournaments of 2026

The final two teams will come through the winner of DreamLeague Division 2 Season 3, which wraps up on February 12th, 2026, and ESL China Challenger, which ends on February 1st. The caveat for the latter will be that if Xtreme Gaming wins the event, the runner up will qualify for both DreamLeague Season 28 and ESL One Birmingham 2026.