headline photograph courtesy of Valve
Cloud9 walked over 1win as they marched straight into the upper bracket for The International 2024 playoffs.
Today we saw the first few games of the Seeding Decider at The International 2024. After 
Team Liquid and 
Xtreme Gaming claimed their spot in the upper bracket earlier in the day, 
Cloud9 and 
1win were next to go to battle. Unfortunately for one of the teams, the lower bracket would be where they end up for the playoffs.
Enigma at the centre of Cloud9’s victory
In both of the earlier series today, we saw Enigma get picked up, with the threat of the Black Hole always a great way for a team to control the game. However, so far today it has been hit-or-miss, with 
Talon Esports unable to make the hero work for them, while Liquid managed to win their second game with it. C9, on the other hand, banked on the hero in both of the two games required for them to take the best-of-three series. In both games, it was 
Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin to pick up the Enigma, and even when going up against the threat of a Georgii “swedenstrong” Zainalabidov's Rubick in game 2, he managed to help his team to an emphatic victory.
With 20 assists and going unkilled in game one, DM continued into a fantastic game two – but it was an excellent showing from every single player on the C9 roster, with 
Volodymyr “No[o]ne” Minenko bringing out Kunkka and 
Alimzhan “Watson” Islambekov picking up Invoker during the series. Although 1win had some decent opportunities, they were all on the back foot in defence, and it was never going to be enough to turn things around. Nikita “Munkushi~” Chepurnykh's Alchemist had no chance to farm anywhere close to what was needed to take down C9’s draft, and in the end, it was a major damage issue that came to light.
For Cloud9, the win takes them directly into the upper bracket for the TI2024 playoffs, where they await their next challenger – which will be either 
Team Zero or 
Aurora, who will close out the first day of Seeding Decider action. For 1win Team, they will head into the dreaded lower bracket, where a single loss could see them eliminated.
