nouns stun Tundra Esports to secure an upper bracket spot at TI12; will face Azure Ray

nouns defeated Tundra Esports 2-0 in what is a huge upset at TI12. They will meet Azure Ray in the upper bracket of the playoffs.

The International is a tournament where dreams are made, and some of the biggest upsets of the season materialize. Because the stakes are so high and everyone wants their names etched into the Aegis of the Immortal, teams either pull out their best gameplay or aren’t at their usual level due to nerves. In nouns’ game against Tundra Esports, it was a combination of the two. nouns played their hearts out, while the Tundra that showed in the phase one of the group stage was nowhere to be found.

Tundra topped Group D, and picked nouns as their opponents! It seems like nouns took that personally, because they really came out to play with a style of their own.
 

Tundra Esportsvsnouns

In the first game, nouns pulled out a position 3 Witch Doctor. Witch Doctor is a hero that has had a lot of ups and downs in terms of nerfs and buffs, and right now, he isn’t looking too hot at TI12. But nouns weren’t afraid to go against the meta. Their Naga Siren would absorb a lot of the enemy spells, and the Witch Doctor would do loads of damage from the backline. He ended up doing 32513 damage, only second on his team after Naga Siren, who did 33615 damage.

In the second game, nouns pulled out the mid Ogre, which they had used to crush Gaimin Gladiators in phase one of the group stage. Tundra had no answers for nouns’ fast paced draft, and even though there was a glimmer of hope at the end as Tundra put up a fight after losing all barracks, the chance of a comeback was bleak. nouns are now guaranteed to finish at least 9^th-12^th at The International 2023 (TI12), and will have a chance to secure a top 6 finish when they face Azure Ray next weekend.
 

EntityvsAzure Ray

Azure Ray became the second Chinese team to make it to the upper bracket after they took down Entity 2-0. First game was a close contest, which could have gone either way. But the second game was smooth sailing for the veterans of Chinese Dota 2, as their death ball lineup with Luna and Necrophos proved to be too strong for Entity to stand up against.

The bracket is now set for the playoffs. Western Europe, the region that dominated TI11, has only one team in the upper bracket! Eastern Europe seems to have taken over the mantle of the most dominating region with three teams in the upper bracket, followed by China with two, and WEU, North America and Southeast Asia with one each. The only region absent from the upper bracket is South America.

The TI12 playoffs will begin on the 20th of October. For the next four days, teams will have time to improve on their mistakes and rethink their understanding of the meta in an attempt to come out on top in the playoffs.