feaver
Dota 2 fans around the world have been waiting two years for this moment. Finally, the playoffs stage of The International 10 begins on October 12. The group stage brought many victories and defeats to the teams, now it’s time to watch a truly high skill Dota with the magic of the TI.
According to the rules of The International, the team ranked first in the upper and lower bracket has the right to choose an opponent. The other two teams will have to play a match against each other.
Invictus Gaming vs Team Spirit
And so, Invictus Gaming picked Team Spirit and they will be fighting in the upper bracket. IG have shown a solid level of play in the group stage of TI, playing without a series loss. They have an aggressive playstyle and like to pressure from the lane stage. Their midlaner Emo shines on his signature heroes, Ember Spirit and Storm Spirit. Emo’s other heroes are also great. The Chinese team has shown that they have enough strategies in their arsenal, so banning popular heroes like Tiny won’t be a problem for them. Their carry flyfly is a fairly flexible player. He can play active Dota with the team from the beginning, and can also farm on Antimage or Medusa for a long time. Their offlaner JT- can also be a playmaker and lead the team. He demonstrated this vividly in his Earthshaker game against OG.
Team Spirit showed a good game, they even showed their Arc Warden, which won them a game against SG-Esports. However, Team Spirit have a problem with the distribution of roles. For example, the team’s playmaker role is played by TORONTOTOKYO, although Team Spirit often plays relying on Collapse. The problem is that Collapse is the team’s offlaner, and his heroes are not always able to do the functions the team needs, such as dealing damage.
I think Invictus Gaming will still beat Team Spirit 2:1. Chinese teams are less emotional about bad moments, which means that the big stage of the National Arena in Bucharest should not scare them. Moreover, IG already won on the big and important stage at the One Esports Singapore Major. Team Spirit have not enough experience to win such strong team at the main stage of TI.
Team Secret vs OG
I can’t say that Team Secret showed their best game in the group stage of The International. Perhaps Puppey and his team were just tired. At times, Team Secret do not make the best decisions in the game. Unsuccessful draft picks don’t make things better either. Although I think Team Secret should play much better in the playoffs than they did in the group stage. Never underestimate Puppey, because he is a master of mind games and may not have shown all the strategies he brought to the tournament. At the same time, you can’t question the presence of those strategies, as Team Secret has never had a problem with it.
OG show a strange, but interesting game. They have not changed their style of play since 2018. Sumail plays for the whole team instead of ana. Of course, this is all a joke. The whole OG team plays at a very good level, but sometimes they make strange decisions during the game. For example, they almost gave the game to their opponents by feeding them by dying one by one in the game against Invictus Gaming last day. Also OG demonstrated a strange drafts as Dragon Knight or Legion Commander position 5. You can count several such episodes during the group stage. The YOLO actions often lead OG to defeat. But OG wouldn’t be themselves if they didn’t play that style.
I will say that OG should beat Team Secret 2:1 because The International stage definitely makes them stronger. OG can win under stress even a losing game.
PSG.LGD vs T1
PSG.LGD’s game looked threatening in the groups. They crushed everyone in their path. The team plays at a super high level and almost makes no mistakes. Even though the community teases LGD by calling them robots for their incredible play, we know they are still humans. And we also know that humans can make mistakes, and LGD had similar episodes in the group stage. They couldn’t to finish the first 100% winning game with Elephant for a long time due to some minor flaws and they also gave one game to Team Secret.
The T1, on the other hand, are playing at the level that everyone expected of them – better than average. I think the stage will strengthen them as well as OG. Teams from Southeast Asia always did well at TI because of the atmosphere of this incredible stage. Especially Carlo “Kuku” Palad is an experienced captain and he knows exactly how to show a good game at TI.
PSG.LGD already met T1 on WePlay Animajor and LGD defeated T1 2:1. The team from the SEA region gave a brutal fight. I think this time the result will be 2:1 in favor of T1.
Vici Gaming vs Virtus.Pro
The fate of this match looks more unambiguous. Vici Gaming is a well prepared team just like VP, but the big stage factor has always been a disadvantage for the Russian team. Virtus.Pro always showed their strength in the DPC season, losing in the Major tournaments in the first games. By the way, Vici Gaming was the team that sent home the VP from Kyiv at WePlay Animajor.
Virtus.Pro didn’t show as rich an arsenal of strategies as Vici. The Russian team took the fewest number of heroes in the draft. This means that VP either left their trump cards for later, or they simply don’t have strategies other than they already showed in the group stage. The Russian team also showed their home run, Dawnbreaker at the carry position. However, the games with her were unsuccessful for VP, although maybe it wasn’t Valora’s trouble at all, because Nightfall had good personal results and items playing this hero.
I think the victory here will be for Vici Gaming, but keep in mind that VP can fight back and take one game away from the Chinese team.
Undying vs Fnatic
Team Undying were the real discovery of this tournament. They showed such a good game that nobody expected from them. Fnatic, on the other hand, was not initially coming to the tournament as the strongest team. They played unstable and often took completely incomprehensible drafts. Even though Fnatic beat a strong team like Team Secret on the last day, it doesn’t change anything. Secret rather threw this game and gave it to their opponents.
The North American team looks more interesting with their not always standard strategies and drafts. I think Team Undying can beat Fnatic at bo1.
Quincy Crew vs Team Aster
Probably no team would want to be in Team Aster’s situation. All 10 members of the team were infected with COVID-19 before the tournament. Valve thought long and hard about what to do with it and decided to let Aster play the tournament from their isolated practice room. Team Aster had a mediocre results in the group. Of course, their health played a crucial role in their play. However, the Quincy Crew’s preparation also left much to be desired.
Nevertheless, I think Quincy Crew just hasn’t woken up yet, while Aster already had a bad experience in the playoffs of the two most important LAN tournaments. I think the Quincy Crew should beat Team Aster in the bo1 series.
Beastcoast vs Alliance
The Swedish team Alliance showed a terrible games, especially compared to what the analysts expected from this team. Alliance looked like the worst team in the group and was the main contender to go home after the first two days. Alliance was saved only by the fact that there was a team in the tournament that was even weaker than Alliance and didn’t won any game at all. I can’t say the same about the Beastcoast. They were on the verge of making it to the upper bracket. I think Beastcoast is in much more convincing shape than Alliance. They should win the series.
Evil Geniuses vs Elephant
In EG vs Elephant, we can see that Evil Geniuses are in better shape than the legendary Chinese players after all. Yes, EG wasn’t strong enough to make it to the upper bracket, but they have a lot of trump cards up their sleeve. You can remember the old EG strategies with the active fourth position. They already did that in the group stage and destroyed their opponents without a chance, letting Cr1t play his favorite Earth Spirit.
I don’t see any ways for Elephant with their level of the game to win a team of EG’s caliber, despite the fact that the North American team didn’t play well in the group stage. Elephant doesn’t have that kind of cohesion, they play passively and many teams have punished them for that. I think EG will take the bo1 series without a problem.