The first day of The International 2018’s Main Event is over and for 4 of the 16 teams, the tournament has ended. The matches were absolutely spectacular with back and forth action, great comebacks and 3 upsets.
Virtus.pro had dominated the regular season, winning 4 Majors and finishing the Dota Pro Circuit in 1st place. But as soon as The International started, Solo and his teammates started to show signs of weakness, drawing against much weaker teams and even losing to them.
Still, the CIS team was expected to beat PSG.LGD and for the better part of game 1, it certainly seemed capable of doing that. But then disaster struck and VP went from a big lead of around 9K gold to losing the game in under a minute. It was a really bad defeat that crushed VP’s confidence for game 2, which they lost right from the laning phase.
After this loss, Virtus.pro has dropped to the Lower Bracket and will need to repeat Team Liquid’s performance from 2017 in order to claim the Aegis of Champions.
Fnatic was regarded as a top 8 team for sure going into The International 2018, so when their Lower Bracket match against the totally unknown Team Serenity began, people assumed that it would end with a quick victory in Fnatic’s favor.
But it wasn’t to be. EE’s Ursa got destroyed in the laning phase by a very aggressive Tiny/Necrophos duo while Abed’s Visage went head to head with a fairly strong Lina. Early to mid game, it was all on Universe’s Mirana to deliver and secure a decent lead for his team, which he did. But a bad mistake from EnVy’s Ursa lead to a complete team wipe in exchange for an Ogre and the game then snowballed out of control.
After this loss, Fnatic finished 13th – 16th, which is a very poor performance for such a star filled lineup.
Like Fnatic, the TI 7 finalists looked in control for a decent amount of time, but Winstrike somehow managed to nulify their advantage, go head to head with them for more than 30 minutes and then deliver the crushing blow after a Roshan fight. As a result, one of the strongest teams from last year is already out of the competition after day 1.
On the second day of TI 8’s Main Event we’ll have 4 matches.
This match is definitely VGJ.Storm favorite and should end in two games unless the North American team messes up its strategy or draft. OG is nowhere near VGJ’s level at this point so I don’t expect any upsets in this match.
As good as Puppey is as a captain, his past successes against EG won’t help him in this match as he is facing a superstar lineup that seems fully capable of claiming the Aegis of Champions. Which is why I’m expecting a victory fo Evil Geniuses in this match.
In spite of losing to Team Liquid on day 1, OpTic Gaming is definitely stronger than Team Serenity and with ppd’s experience, they should be able to pull through. A 2 – 1 result in OpTic’s favor is the most likely outcome here.
If VP can mentally recover after the crushing defeat from day 1, this match should be a quick 2 – 0 victory in its favor. The skill difference is too big and VP shouldn’t have dropped to the Lower Bracket in the first place. Its level is way above the one of their competitors in this bracket.
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