nouns win the NA royal rumble at TI12; secure top 8 by eliminating TSM

The battle for the best North American Dota 2 team at TI12 has been won by nouns, who leave TSM and Shopify Rebellion behind.

The International is back to Seattle, and it wouldn’t be fair to not have a North American team during finals weekend when the top 8 teams fight for the Aegis. As fate would have it, the three NA teams at The International 2023 (TI12) were so placed that two would be eliminated and one would be guaranteed to make it to the top 8. That battle for NA supremacy has ended, and it is nouns that have risen from the dust to carry North America’s hopes for the fight for the Aegis. They defeated TSM 2-0 to secure a chance to play at the Climate Pledge Arena.

Earlier in the day, TSM defeated Shopify Rebellion in the first round of the TI12 lower bracket. After brushing them off 2-0, TSM seemed poised to be the favourites to take down nouns as well, especially as they had nouns’ numbers for the majority of the season in the NA DPC League. But nouns had other plans.

nounsvsTSM

Even though game 1 went on for nearly an hour, nouns were always the team with the advantage as they had a Naga Siren against TSM’s Luna. Luna needs to play from ahead and usually runs on a timer, but TSM weren’t able to hit that time. The net worth was extremely even till a little before the half hour mark, but once things started to fall in place for nouns, all TSM could do was use their Bristleback to delay the inevitable. There was a hilarious moment where Bristleback was 1 v 5 against nouns heroes, but they did not have break and couldn’t kill him. Eventually, they decided to ignore him and hit the buildings. The production played that part of nouns’ conversation.

Game 2 was much closer, and could have gone either way. nouns’ Phantom Lancer farmed for the majority of the game, but TSM’s Muerta matched him for farm throughout. The game was extremely back and forth with the net worth difference never going above 10000 gold. In the end, it came to a point where Muerta opted to go for a Divine Rapier and Refresher Orb without saving for buyback. Her death was the key that unlocked the path to the throne for nouns.

These results come as a bit of surprise for anyone following NA Dota 2, as Shopify Rebellion have been the dominant team of the region for all season, followed by TSM with nouns in the third position. But for TI12, the order seems to have flipped. nouns will now take on the winner of 9Pandas and Gaimin Gladiators for a position in the top 6 at The International 2023.