Not many people expected seeding at Dota 2’s biggest tournament to come down to graphic North America on North America violence.
Heading into the final handful of games in The International 10’s group stage, OG, T1, and Evil Geniuses were all nearly tied for the final two spots left in the Group B upper bracket. After T1 swept Thunder Predator and OG split their series with Invictus Gaming, Evil Geniuses needed to 2-0 Undying to force a tiebreaker.
Game one went according to plan, but Undying was unrelenting… and undying in game two.
Undying kept things within reach after EG snowballed them in game one, even with EG steamrolling them with kills in the early game. Right when it looked like EG might pull away, Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek trapped three members of EG in a Vacuum and Jonathan “Bryle” Santos De Guia went to work.
That swung the momentum of the game fully into Undying’s favor and would eventually end EG’s hopes of an upper bracket berth for the main event.
With that single win, OG and T1 both received a free spot in the upper bracket without the need for a tiebreaker. And because SabeRLight was the catalyst, his spicy interaction with Southeast Asian players earlier this year seemed to be forgiven.
With that series in the books, all three NA teams will be heading into TI10’s main event via the lower bracket, meaning they will be playing best-of-one contests and fighting for their tournament lives.
Quincy Crew did survive a close shave with elimination by beating SG esports early on during day four. Because they swept Elephant to end their run, they won’t be playing another NA team in the first round of the lower bracket. No thanks to the big dragon that made a brief appearance to combat Somnus’ super Sniper.
A full bracket for the main event will be released before the competition returns on Oct. 12.
