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Xtreme Gaming continued their strong start to TI 2024 by becoming the first team in the upper bracket.
Chinese powerhouse 
Xtreme Gaming are the first team to advance to the upper bracket of The International 2024 (TI 2024) Playoffs after they soundly swept Southeast Asia's 
Talon Esports, 2-0, in their best-of-three seeding decider match.
Many considered Xtreme as one of the biggest contenders to win this year's Aegis of Champions, having earned a direct invite to TI 2024 after winning three tournaments throughout the year and cementing their place as the best team in China. In their last tournament appearance before TI 2024, Xtreme won the Clavision: Snow Ruyi Invitational over defending TI champions Team Spirit in early August.
But even if Xtreme didn't play in any more tournaments for a month before TI 2024 kicked off, they didn't show any signs of rust in the Group Stage. The Chinese squad cruised to the top seed of Group A with a 5-1 record – tied for the second-best performance of all teams – with their only loss coming at the hands of rookie Eastern European squad 1win.
Meanwhile, Talon earned their spot in TI 2024 through the Southeast Asian regional qualifier. They also competed in the Snow Ruyi Invitational after punching their tickets to Copenhagen, though they only managed a 7th-8th place finish there.
Talon had an uninspiring start to TI 2024, only managing the fourth seed of Group B with a 1-5 record, with their only win coming in a 1-1 draw with a Tundra Esports roster still trying to integrate last-minute stand-in Martin “Saksa” Sazdov. That then set up the A1-B4 Seeding Decider matchup between Xtreme and Talon, which the former ended up winning with ease.
XinQ's Mirana leads Xtreme to the upper bracket
Xtreme opened the series by running a heavy ranged damage strategy centered on Zhao “XinQ” Zixing's support Mirana with the Solar Flare Facet buffing Wang “Ame” Chunyu's Drow Ranger and Guo “Xm” Hongcheng's Storm Spirit. Lin “Xxs” Jing on Mars manned the frontlines while Ding “Dy” Cong on a support Naga Siren provided crowd control.
Talon opted for a draft with strong pickoff potential, featuring Eljohn “Akashi” Andales on Monkey King, Rafli “Mikoto” Rahman on a mid Nature's Prophet, Chung “Ws” Wei Shen on Doom, Tri “Jhocam” Kuncoro on Lion, and Pang “ponyo” Sze Chuan on Undying.
Talon looked to slow down the impending midgame snowball from Xtreme by scoring multiple kills on Ame during the laning stage, though this largely freed up Xm to wreak havoc and bridge his team to their timing. Once Xtreme hit their power spikes and started forming a deathball, Talon could do little against their overwhelming damage output and were forced to call GG after 34 minutes.
Ame and Xm paced Xtreme's 26-13 kill lead in game one with eight kills apiece and a combined 27 assists against four and two deaths, respectively. XinQ also turned his support Mirana into another core hero and finished with seven kills and 16 assists on two deaths.
Game two saw Xtreme go with their game one strategy again, with XinQ on Mirana once more alongside Ame on Shadow Fiend. Xm on Puck and Xxs brought initiation and teamfight control while Dy's Tusk provided both damage amplification and saves.
Talon put up a better fight in game two with a heavy teamfight lineup that included an offlane Enigma for Ws, Batrider for Jhocam, and Phoenix for ponyo while Akashi's Windranger and Mikoto's mid Dragon Knight dished out damage.
A couple of early teamfight wins for Talon allowed them to slow down Xtreme's lineup from ramping up and survive what would have been a game-ending midgame push. However, the game going late still played into Xtreme's favour as they built up a huge gold lead and outscaled their opponents with XinQ's Mirana once again turning into another core hero. Despite Talon's best efforts to mount a comeback, Xtreme could not be denied as they secured the 2-0 series sweep and an upper bracket Playoff berth in 51 minutes of action.
XinQ notably showed out in the closeout game with a series-high 11 kills and 13 assists on three deaths on his now-signature support-turned-core Mirana.
TI 2024 is this year's iteration of Dota 2's annual world championship tournament and features 16 of the best teams in the world fighting for their cut of the growing $2.36 million prize pool and the Aegis of Champions.
The event is being hosted from September 4 to 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark and is split into two distinct phases: the Group stage (September 4 to 5) and the Seeding Deciders (September 6 to 7). The first two rounds of the Playoffs (September 8 to 10) are branded as part of The Road to The International, while the remaining portion of the Playoffs for the remaining eight teams (September 13 to 15) are branded as The International itself.
For more of everything you need to know about TI 2024, check here.
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