Favorites Prevail; Aurora Outlast Team Zero In Incredible Series

The first meaningful day of the Group Stage has ended, as eight teams had their Playoff starts decided, whether it’d be in the Upper Bracket, or the Lower Bracket. The day ended with a nail-biting match between two Asian teams.

Xtreme Gaming 2-0 Talon Esports

The first series of the day wasn’t too exciting, as the Chinese titans continued displaying their experience and dominated Talon Esports. The series was a 2-0.

In both games, Talon Esports could hold on throughout the mid-game, but once Xtreme Gaming got their core items, it was clear who the better team was. 

XinQ played exceptionally well on Mirana twice, going 7/2/16 on the first game and 11/3/13 on the second, purchasing Skull Basher and Assault Cuirass to cancel Ws’ Black Hole. 

Team Liquid 2-1 BetBoom Team

The most anticipated series of the day matchup-wise was between Team Liquid and the BetBoom Team. 

In the first game, the BetBoom Team picked strong laning heroes and built a 6,000 net worth lead at the 20-minute mark. However, problems continued to show for the Eastern European squad as they lost their footing and allowed Team Liquid to find a way back and win. 

Boxi played Position 4 Medusa and went 5/4/23, but miCKe was the star of the show going 10/2/16 on Luna with 64,000 hero damage. 

For Game 2, the BetBoom Team went for a similar approach with a Nature’s Prophet and Chen lineup. The strategy worked out as they could pick up the pace and win the game in only 22 minutes.

Unfortunately, the third series wasn’t too entertaining as Team Liquid completely outclassed their opponents. It was another great showing from miCKe, who played a flawless Weaver game going 14/0/7 to wrap up the series 2-1. 

Cloud9 2-0 1win Team

The Cloud9 squad who won their group decided to choose the 1win Team as their opponent. Despite being the “dark horse” of the event, Cloud9 could easily dispatch the underdogs with ease. 

It was a brilliant series for Cloud9, who destroyed the 1win Team in both games very convincingly, winning Game 1 with a kill score of 24-10 and Game 2 with 36-10. watson even pulled out a Carry Invoker in the second map to allow No[o]ne- to play Monkey King Mid against Pangolier. 

Team Zero 1-2 Aurora

The final series turned out to be the best one. Team Zero, who looked promising in the group stage, was tasked to face Aurora.

It was clear that Game 1 was the worst game the Chinese squad had played in this event. They were behind throughout the entire game, though the gold lead wasn’t too significant. However, Team Zero could not find any kills, and bombed out of the game with a kill score of 3-41 in favor of Aurora. 

Game 2 was a much better showing from the Team Zero side. They got heroes they were comfortable with, and Erika and 7e went on a tear on Windranger and Sand King to keep the series level.

The third and final map featured everything we’d want in a Dota 2 match. It was a back-and-forth game that managed to cross the 60-minute mark. Despite having a 21,000 net worth lead at one point, Team Zero could not finish the game and ended up losing. lorenof was the key player for Aurora, going 10/3/19 with almost 70,000 hero damage. 

Overall, the higher seeds from each group won except for Team Zero, who seemed to crack under pressure during important games. Tomorrow marks the final day of the Group Stage for The International 2024.