Fnatic and HellRaisers leave The International 7 early, main event now ready to kick off
The first stage of The International 7 has concluded, meaning that the playoff bracket matchups have been determined. Now, the legendary KeyArena stadium is ready to host the most elite teams in the Dota 2 professional scene, and so are the millions of eager fans.
Unlike the format of last year’s tournament, TI7 featured 18 teams in the group stage with two of which eliminated after yesterday’s games. Asian dreamers of Fnatic and European underdogs HellRaisers dropped out of the tournament after finishing dead last in their respective groups.
Fnatic were projected to make it past the group stages in the lower bracket at least, but from their performances in the preliminaries, it’s clear that they were affected by a lack of team chemistry and coordination. They were knocked out of the event after losing their first game to Evil Geniuses. HellRaisers, on the other hand, were not expected to do well anyway given their relatively low strength compared to the rest of the teams —and that’s exactly the fate they were met with. Fortunately, they’ll at least receive a small share of the prize money for making it to the event.
Meanwhile, Team Liquid and LGD Forever Young got the top spots of their respective groups, awarding them the choice of opponents in the first round of the upper bracket. Team Liquid chose Invictus Gaming, while LFY selected TNC Pro Team. This places Newbee against EG, and the main LGD Gaming squad against Virtus Pro.
Fighting for best-of-one lower bracket will be Team Secret, Execration, Cloud9, Team Empire, OG, Infamous, iG Vitality, and Digital Chaos. OG, who are in danger of exiting the tournament in 16th place, are the ones with eyes on. Based on their group stage performance and their history of losing to teams weaker than them on paper, it’s possible for Infamous to eliminate them this early. Cloud9 will also be worth watching in the lower bracket, especially if they manage to get past the sudden death round.
The TI7 main event begins Aug. 7, starting with the best-of-three upper bracket match between Team Liquid and Invictus Gaming. You can follow all of the action live on the official TI7 Twitch channel.
