The fierce battle in the round of The International 8 event is underway. On the first day (8/20), a big match has taken place between Virtus.pro and PSG.LGD which ended with the victory of Chinese team over the representatives of Russia.
Other champions and defending champion Liquid, won easily from OpTic, the opponents they chose themselves in the upper bracket round.
Upper Bracket Recap
Liquid only takes an hour to send OpTic to the lower bracket, IO-Tiny combos from OpTic are not strong enough against the trio core Alchemist, Clinkz, Wraith King from Liquid. PPD and Zai become feeder for Liquid core, even PPD is only able to buy shoes and magic stick for 28 minutes.
The more fierce match certainly belongs to PSG.LGD and Virtus.pro. PSG.LGD is confident enough to face VP which is quite tight in the group phase. Although still securing the upper bracket, there is a history indicating VP is not superior in TI8. The thing that concerns PSG.LGD is the solid laning and drafting phase of VP.
As revealed by xNova, the support of PSG.LGD is that the team and VP have the same weakness, namely the not so good laning phase. Luckily PSG.LGD excellent played a positioning thanks to fy leadership. While the strength of VP is solely because the ability of each player defeats the skills of other players, regardless of the strategy or draft they choose.
The same thing was revealed by Chalice, the offlaner. Drafting from VP is not very good, tends to be normal. They only play raw skills and that makes VP look scary. Chalice prefers Liquid as the most solid team of all aspects. Evidently in the match, PSG.LGD finally wiped out VP from upper bracket with certainty.
Lower Bracket Recap
A story of emotion must occur because the lower bracket expels four participants from the main event in order to win the winner to the next round. Fnatic who was quite stubborn in the group stage was surprisingly slaughtered quite a bit. However, it was expected that Fnatic would appear quite proud and underestimate Serenity team which, in fact, could force a draw from Secret and VP, something that Fnatic himself might not be able to do.
Serenity even still has the opportunity to pass on the next party against OpTic Gaming which in a mental situation is not good. The have lost the defeat of Liquid, but PPD certainly doesn’t like its big name as a legendary captain being humiliated continuously. The advantage of Serenity as a new team will be homework for PPD to guess their style of play.
Following the return of other SEA representatives, TNC’s who killed each other with Mineski finally gave up and gave tickets to lower bracket R2 for their rivals. Unfortunately their defeat occurred due to carelessness in maintaining excellence. Mineski’s calm succeeded in surrounding the objective efforts of the TNC with sweet outcome. Equipped with Silencer’s Global Silence for Mineski, the Abnormal TNC can’t perform skills while NaNa with Shadow Fiend kills the TNC line from behind. Wiped out, Mineski mustered a final push to end the story of TNC at 8th International at 13-16. But can they get away while the next wait is Virtus.pro? The fate of the representative of SEA seems to be gone early.
The events predicted by Esports.ID that Newbee will be terminated by Winstrike are true. Even though it was slow, but Iceberg and his friends began to find the best game. Indeed, Newbee is less convincing to be a champion contender even to finish in the middle to top rankings. However, teams with greater winning intentions will last longer in TI8.
Finally there are two brothers Vici Gaming and VGJ. Thunder. VG is more outstanding despite finishing below the VGJ rank. second in the group stage answers public expectations with a dominant game. VGJ deficiencies. Seconds in hero flexibility are proven to make it difficult for them so they don’t have a decisive card against stronger opponents.
Sylar with his Terrorblade despite leading Networth could not resist attack of Lina and Arc Warden equipped with Orchid and Hex. Finally, DDC’s dream of achieving TI Champion must run fall apart and must try again with a team that feels obliged to be stronger and mature in the coming year.
Tonight (21/8) the upper bracket between EG vs Secret and OG vs VGJ.Storm will take place, followed by the second round lower bracket match up. What surprises might happen tonight?
