The International 2017 Group Stage Day 1 Recap
The International 2017 has kicked off with the Group Stages. The eighteen teams have been split into two groups and play in a best-of-2 round robin. Teams who go 2-0 get 2 points, a draw gives both teams 1 point each, and a 0-2 loss nets 0 points. The top four teams in each group advance to the Upper Bracket of the Main Event. Bottom teams are eliminated. Remaining teams advance to the Lower Bracket of the Main Event.
The International 2017 Filipino Coverage is presented by WomboXcombo. Watch the games live here and here.
Here’s a recap of the action from Day 1; which teams showed up and which teams fell flat.
BIG WINNERS
LGD GAMING AND LGD.FOREVER YOUNG
Both Chinese squads finish undefeated in Day 1. LGD Gaming, coming off a fresh championship run at the Mars Dota 2 League 2017, seemed unstoppable, as Fnatic, Empire, and Secret would learn. In one of their games against Fnatic, Victoria finished 3/0/13 on Nighstalker and Maybe finished 11/0/9 on Ursa.
Over in Group B, sister team LGD.Forever Young also had breakout games against HellRaisers and Execration.
Team Liquid
With Amer Al-Barkawi on the team, Liquid were no strangers to Miracles. In their second game against iG.V, Liquid managed to come back from a 9.7k net worth deficit. Despite Xu “Sakata” Zichen’s 18-kill Krobelus and Zhang “Paparazi灬” Chengjun with a game-high 500 CS, Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi’s 12/4/13 Invoker and Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Aukusti Urpalainen’s 10/8/16 Faceless Void managed to turn the tide. They also managed to go 2-0 against Fnatic, and 1-1 against the boys in blue Evil Geniuses.
TNC
The Phoenix rose to a 3-1 record on Day 1. After going toe-to-toe against the TI5 champs EG in the very first game on The International 2017, they went on to go 2-0 against Fnatic later that day.
Virtus.Pro
After a convincing 2-0 win against Digital Chaos, the Russians go 1-1 against Execration.
OG
Major Kings OG show up strong against other Group B teams Cloud 9, going 2-0 with their late-game, scaling composition, and Digital Chaos, in which the second game was a 55-minute, 23-39 bloodbath of a game.
Newbee
Newbee Gaming went 1-1 against fellow Chinese team invictus Gaming, while going 2-0 against Cloud 9.
MIDDLE OF THE PACK
Evil Geniuses
The boys in blue went even in all their matches in Day 1. After a scary early start in Game 1 where they were down 9-5 in kills due to TNC’s aggressive composition they managed to rally back in the mid game and snowball their lead. They also went 1-1 against iG.Vitality and Team Liquid.
Infamous
The underdogs headed into the tournament, the Peruvians and first-time International-goers split both games against Team Secret and Team Empire.
Team Empire
Empire started out the day with a 1-1 against Team Secret before going down to LGD 0-2. They rallied back later in the day to go even in the series against Infamous.
Team Secret
Zheng “MidOne” Yeik Nai led his team to a 1-1 tie against Team Empire in the first set of games. They also equalize their games against Infamous before going 0-2 to the dominating LGD.
iG Vitality
In a stacked Group A iG.V fell 0-2 to Team Liquid but managed to split their game against Evil Geniuses.
Invictus Gaming
iG only had one game in Day 1 and went 1-1 against Newbee Gaming.
Execration
The Filipino squad were unfortunate to be up against the strong LFY and fell 0-2, but managed to go even against Virtus.Pro.
Digital Chaos
After falling 0-2 against Virtus.Pro, Digital Chaos went 1-1 against 4-time Major champs OG.
BOTTOM RUNG
Fnatic, HellRaisers, Cloud9
Three teams went winless in Day 1. Fnatic had a tough schedule, getting set up against LGD, Liquid, and TNC. Cloud9 crumbled against OG and Newbee, and HellRaisers lost their only game of the day against LFY.
The International 2017 Group Stage continues today at 12:00 MN PHT UTC+08:00.
Filipino coverage presented by WomboXcombo. Watch the games live here and here.
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