South America's struggles continued to follow as Heroic fell 1:2 to Aurora, ending their run at The International 2024.
The final day of the Road to The International 2024 is a bittersweet day for teams in the lower brackets. One team's success is another's ticket to the airport, an end to the TI journey before stepping on the Arena stage.
Earlier in the day Heroic staved off elimination by bringing down their South American peers – beastcoast after a hard-fought three-game series.
Aurora found themselves in the upper brackets after a thrilling upset in the Deciding Seed series against Team Zero, but once there, were quickly dropped to the lower brackets Cloud9 with a 2:0 sweep.
Both teams struggle to get more than the top 8 at International events but equally, both are capable of making upsets.
Aurora![]()
vs![]()
Heroic 2:1
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HeroicThe first match Heroic started with the Shadow Demon they played twice earlier against beastcoast, but Aurora quickly countered and punished their draft with the Morphling – Nuengnara "23" Teeramahanon's best hero – as well as an Elder Titan and a Tiny last pick. Despite Aurora coach Lee "SunBhie" Jeong-jae saying the draft went as they expected, it was actually Aurora who was punished for their passive farming. Heroic just trashed the SEA team, there was a rage buyback from 23 Savage and then GG was called after another losing fight 30 minutes in.
Needing to change things up for the second game, Aurora went with Spectre in the lineup and aggressive supports to fix some of their passivity from the last match. Heroic ended with a Héctor “K1” Rodríguez speciality Troll pick. Out of the gate, Heroic picked up where they left off last game, riding high on momentum and dropping Aurora heroes like flies. However, a good fight took the air out of Heroic for a bit and then a super clutch play by Worawit "Q" Mekchai at Roshan turned the tides for Aurora. That, along with an unkillable Artem "lorenof" Melnick’s Timbersaw, Aurora took the game and ran with it to tie things up.
In the final match, Heroic opened with Omni Knight but Aurora countered by taking heroes to build a Nullifer on, such as Void – a hero only picked up once before so far at TI2024. Heroic's last pick was a spicey Abaddon for Cedric “Davai Lama” Deckmyn, the first time for the hero at the event. But it was the Tusk on Aurora that became the main character. He helped to win a fight around 35 minutes in and then again about 10 minutes later when they just turned around everything in a bizarre ending of a very strange game.
Heroic coach Kaffs predicted a 2:0 series but it went a full three games and not the results they were hoping for. They will go home with a 9-12th place finish and $49,724 in their pockets.
Aurora will continue in the lower brackets with their next series on Friday, September 13th at 13:00 CEST.
The day will end with just one more elimination series:
BetBoom Team
vs
Team Falcons at 19:00 CEST
Afterwards, all remaining teams will head into a two-day break to refine and prepare for the main event portion of the finals weekend.
The International 2024 Playoffs
GosuGamers has The International 2024 covered with a comprehensive, one-stop guide to all things TI13 to keep you in the know.
Ten days of glorious Dota 2 action kicked off on Wednesday, September 4th with the Group Stage in Copenhagen, Denmark, and will continue through Sunday, September 15th. Sixteen began the journey, and only one will seize the Aegis of Champions and the lion's share of the $2+ MILLION prize pool.
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