Four out of nine rounds of games are played and done, the opportunities to change one's own fate iare getting fewer and fewer. ViCi Gaming is still leading the race, followed by EG, iG and DK. Arrow still sits at the bottom of the leaderboard, while Alliance has yet to claim a victory today.
Prior to The International 4, only a small number of fans included ViCi Gaming in their top-4 predictions. Sure it was possible, but they mostly got overshadowed by the other three Chinese invited teams, DK, iG and NewBee. Out of those, iG is doing well whereas NewBee's and DK's performances are more shaky. Worth noting is that iG and ViCi run their kind of Dota, as seen plenty of times before over the months - they are in their comfort zone. Nevertheless, DK is still hanging onto the top half. After getting demolished by ViCi, they lost to Titan in a tight game, in which an aggressive push strategy went up against a Naga Siren. DK also claimed a victory against Na'Vi.NA.
The underdogs keep surprising, showing once again that there are no "free wins" in this TI. Na`Vi.NA beat the European Na`Vi squad without hesitating too much, for instance. And even teams that tend to lose a lot generally put up a fight throughout most stages of the game. Mouz for instance fought well against DK (even though they lost) and then they managed to take a game from Titan. One of the absolutely most surprising teams is Team Liquid, the team that had to fight to even be part of the 16 group stage teams. After a mediocre performance yesterday, they managed to take down Invictus Gaming today on the back of a Storm Spirit pick wrecking havoc. However after a thrilling game versus Natus Vincere, the old dogs in the Ukrainian-based squad still claimed the victory.
Some of the favorites are struggling, quite a bit actually. Especially Alliance who might be the Spain of this tournament. Spain won the last Football World Cup four years ago and were eliminated in the group stage already this cup, without reaching the playoff bracket. Similar fate appears to be waiting for the champions of last year's International. Today they suffered defeats at the hands of two Chinese teams, LGD and then most recently ViCi Gaming. The situation for the Swedish squad is looking dire and not at all radiant.
Standings, mid-day 3
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Headline image by Helena Kristiansson and ESL One (flickr)
