Aurora secure an upper bracket playoff start at The International 2024

headline photo credits: Valve

Day 1 of Seeding Deciders on the Road to The International 2024 closed with good news for Southeast Asia fans.

Aurora and Team Zero closed the day with their direct confrontation counting for the playoffs seeding. The former placed third in Group D and the latter ended up second in Group C courtesy of an upset over BetBoom Team and a draw score with Team Falcons.

Team ZerovsAurora: 1:2

Aurora kicked things off in the best-of-three decider with some of their most played heroes this year, mixed with hot meta picks. They paired a Windranger carry with Elder Titan, which has been a centrepiece of their drafts pre TI13, while also securing Timbersaw, the hero that they picked the most in 2024. However, as the draft progressed and it became clear that Team Zero will send a Sand King in the mid lane, Aurora flexed the Timber to mid and reserved their last pick for a Dark Seer offlane to deal with the enemy Shadow Fiend carry.

Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong went all aggressive in the offlane, cutting creep waves from the first minutes of the laning stage, which eventually led to Aurora securing the first blood on Yang "Erika/YSR-04E" Shaohan’s Shadow Fiend.

Team Zero scored their first kill of the game at the 18-minute mark and two minutes later went to secure the first Roshan kill as well, hoping to mount a comeback. However, Aurora were aware of the Roshan attempt and managed to get rid of the Aegis on the SF seconds after he claimed it, while also securing a total of three kills in that teamfight.

The SEA representatives were able to keep a high tempo throughout the entire game, courtesy of an extremely early Aghanim's Scepter on Artem "lorenof" Melnick’s Timbersaw and seal the deal with 31 kills to 3 and a 36k gold advantage.

Heading into the second game, Team Zero secured the Windranger for themselves and had overall a better laning stage presence and sustain with an offlane Kunkka and a support Phoenix. They capitalised on early errors from Aurora to build a decent lead and later on, the Sun Ray percent damage coming from Phoenix proved to be crucial in the teamfights, as Team Zero were up against Dragon Knight and Doom.

A teamfight around the Radiant Roshan pit at the 33-minute mark went horribly for Aurora, who got team wiped, which gave Team Zero the full opportunity to even the series.

Windranger and Phoenix stayed on the Team Zero side in game three as well, but they were first and second pick, which gave Aurora the time to react and go for Snapfire to deal with the Egg. The SEA team had the overall last pick of the draft , and they opted for Drow Ranger to address the enemy Bristleback. Their draft was once again built for teamfight with big AOE ultimates and better sustain provided by Kunkka and Treant Protector. They enforced a “buddy system”, with three heroes rotating around the map most of the time, to avoid early pickoffs, and made sure that Nuengnara "23savage" Teeramahanon had all the space to farm his Drow and carry Aurora to the upper bracket for the playoffs stage.

But even with a six-slotted Drow, Aurora were not able to close the game and in the late stage they were a few times on the brink of losing it all. At the 42 minute mark, Team Zero found a perfect initiation to win their first big team fight of the game and hope for a full comeback. Ten minutes later the Chinese TI debutants team wiped Aurora and scared them off for good.

Aurora were forced to defend their own base a couple of times and wait for Tier 5 neutral items before being able to seal the deal in their favour.