Dota 2 TI10 Day 4 recap: Wild Group Stage comes to a close
The Group Stage of The International 10 (TI10) has now concluded after four days of action. The 18 initial teams in the tournament have now been reduced to 16, with the eight best performers of the Group Stage starting the Main Event in the upper bracket while the remaining eight will start from the lower bracket.
Chinese powerhouse Invictus Gaming (IG), top Eastern European team Virtus.pro (VP), back-to-back defending TI champions OG, and top Southeast Asian squad T1 earned upper bracket berths from Group A.
North American teams Undying and Evil Geniuses (EG), Team Aster from China, as well as Alliance from Europe will be the lower bracket seeds for Group A. Meanwhile, South America's Thunder Predator (TP) couldn't win a single game through the entire Group Stage and were thus eliminated.
Over in Group B, Chinese juggernauts PSG.LGD and Vici Gaming (VG) as well as Team Secret from Western Europe and Team Spirit from Eastern Europe qualified for the upper bracket.
Beastcoast from South America, Quincy Crew (QC) from North America, Elephant from China, and Fnatic from Southeast Asia will be starting the Main Event from the lower bracket. SG Esports from South America only managed to win two games and were the second team to be eliminated.
Here's how every match of the final day of the Group Stage went down:
Group A:
IG 1-1 OG
VP 2-0 Aster
T1 2-0 TP
EG 1-1 Undying
Group B:
PSG.LGD 2-0 Elephant
QC 2-0 SG
Spirit 2-0 Beastcoast
Secret 0-2 Fnatic
Spirit 2-0 SG
PSG.LGD 2-0 Beastcoast
Elephant 0-2 QC
VG 0-2 Secret
With the match between OG and IG ending with a 1-1 draw, T1 sweeping TP, and EG winning the first game of their series against Undying, there was a potential for a three-way tiebreaker between OG, T1, and EG for the last two Top 4 spots in Group A. However, Undying managed to pull off an incredible comeback in the second game of their series versus EG to deny their fellow North American team a spot in the upper bracket.
Things were less chaotic over in Group B, however, with Team Secret, VG, and Spirit joining PSG.LGD — who already secured an upper bracket berth in day three — in the upper bracket without much fuss. Despite losing 0-2 against Fnatic, Secret punched their ticket to the upper bracket with a huge sweep over VG. Spirit followed after scoring sweeps over Beastcoast and SG, who were mathematically eliminated earlier in the day after losing their match against QC.
Here are the final standings for TI10's Group Stage:
Following a one-day break on 11 October, TI10's Main Event will commence from 12 to 17 October. It will be a double-elimination bracket with the best-performing teams from the Group Stage starting in the upper bracket while the remaining teams start in the lower bracket.
The upper bracket will have three rounds, with all matches being a best-of-three. The winners of each upper bracket match will advance to the next round while the losers will drop down to the lower bracket. One team will qualify for the grand finals from the upper bracket.
The lower bracket will have six rounds and will see the losing teams get eliminated. The first round featuring the lower bracket seeds from the Group Stage will be comprised of best-of-one elimination matches. Teams that survive to the succeeding four rounds of the lower bracket will then fight for their tournament lives in best-of-three matches. One team will qualify for the grand finals from the lower bracket.
The grand finals will feature the two teams that survived the upper and lower brackets duking it out in a full best-of-five series for the right to claim the US$18.2 million grand prize and the Aegis of Champions.
Here's the initial bracket for TI10's Main Event:
For everything you need to know about TI10, check here.
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