The International 2023 is not a safe place for top-seeded teams, with all but one dropping at least one game as the group stage kicked off with a day of upsets.
Gaimin Gladiators was the biggest example of this initial round of surprises, opening their TI12 run with an immediate 0-2 loss to LGD Gaming that wasn’t particularly close for the undisputed champions of the 2023 DPC season. Quinn and crew bounced back with a sweep on Virtus.pro, but also split their series against nouns—going an even 3-3 after entering the event as arguably the overall favorite.
Team Liquid also split their TI opener against Azure Ray, falling to an utterly dominant performance from fy in game one where he set a TI record with eight kills in under nine minutes—something only two players have ever done on LAN before. Liquid would finish day one at 5-1 after decimating BetBoom and cleaning up against Shopify Rebellion in the “group of death.”
Tundra nearly got away without a loss after back-to-back sweeps over TSM and Talon, but Keyd Stars were making everyone work for their early wins. The band of Brazillians powered through the combo of Topson’s Pangolier and skiter’s Luna to make a 51-minute comeback victory and put Tundra at 5-1 on the day.
Team Spirit is the only team that got off without taking an early hit and locked up a spot in the TI12 playoffs, finishing a perfect 6-0. LGD also went undefeated, though they played one less series and ended the day 4-0.
Heading into day two, Team SMG and Thunder Awaken are likely just one loss away from being officially knocked out of TI12, but EG and Shopify aren’t in the clear just yet. Talon and VP both have a little more wiggle room in their groups if they can snag at least one series, but we will see four teams eliminated before Oct. 14 no matter what.
We also saw Valve drop an emergency patch to the Dota client after several bugs impacted the group stage, like Somnus getting stuck rolling as Earth Spirit, and the viewing experience through Dota TV.
