Na'Vi and TI5

I thought about this a bit...Na'Vi are obviously previous winners and serious contenders in every TI bar the last one. Dendi is/was rated as one of the best player's in the world, probably the best well known overall. The team have a huge fan base from their many years of success.

However, as much as I would like Na'Vi to be there for the history, I think Valve should invite purely on merit/current form. Maybe you can/should always invite last year's champions back to defend their title, but you can't go back and invite every team that's ever won it if they're not good enough to compete anymore. That's not fair on the current crop of top contenders. How many 'new' teams could be invited once the competition got a few years older otherwise?

If Na'Vi are good enough, they'll make it through the qualifiers.

The thing is, I not even too sure if Newbee is capable of holding their own anymore with the world's finest without Xiao8, maybe they could pull a Tinker and get American citizenship so they can play in the American qualifier. They never have been the same team without him.

But on the subject at hand, if Na'Vi gets invited soley based off reputation instead of their recent merits, then I think they'll get exposed. What happens then if they go 0-15 or something in the group stage (doubtful, but you get my point) then you'll lose all the "viewership" that Na'Vi (Dendi) brought in and you may lose it before Na'Vi (Dendi), because let's face it, nobody wants to watch a loser. So I really think you have to invite teams based off their most recent accomplishments, ie EG for winning the DAC, Vici for winning Starladder and so on. It should be like the playoffs for any sports league; you have to win get in.