The International 2022 (TI11)’s Group Stage kicked off with a day’s worth of great action from some of the best teams in the world, as teams showcased new meta picks as well as new strategies. All teams from both groups played in Day One, but it was OG’s series against Evil Geniuses in Group A and Entity’s series against Team Spirit in Group B that stood out on Day 1.
While the two mentioned matches are considered as the main highlighted matches of Day 1, there were a lot of matches and highlights to keep up with in the first day of the group stage. So here is a full recap of what went down on Day One.
Group A
While EG had a fairly average Dota Pro Circuit season, it seemed like it had finally found its form as it added three series wins to its bag in Group A, which included wins over PSG.LGD and OG who had previously beaten them on multiple occasions throughout the season. While OG utilized its signature heroes such as Invoker, Mars and even Timbersaw during its match against EG, the North American team just dominated the series much to the surprise of everyone.
In addition, Artour “Arteezy” Babaev had a great day in the office as he secured a combined 50 kills and 58 assists from all three series he played today.
While many predicted PSG.LGD to be a heavy contender for this year’s TI, it seemed like the team might need to rethink its strategies after what looked like a rough day for the Chinese team.
Despite being one of the favored teams to win TI11, the loss against EG and its draws against Hokori & Soniqs has its fanbase worrying about the team’s form and mentality going forward. However, despite the news about the team’s scrim results PSG.LGD will look to bounce back in Day Two.
While most of the community predicted that Hokori would be eliminated fairly early from the group stage, the South American team managed to silence its doubters today after managing to draw against all of its opponents in its first ever appearance at The International.
Group B
Team Secret ended Day One as one of the four teams on top of Group B, alongside Team Spirit, Team Aster and Thunder Awaken with a 3-1 win-loss ratio. Despite its draw against South American team Thunder Awaken, the team managed to win against beastcoast 2-0.
Team Secret also ended the day with the shortest match played so far at The International 2022, ending its match against beastcoast at 19 minutes & 30 seconds.
On the other side of things, TSM & Tundra Esports ended their Day One of the Group Stage with two draws against their opponent and each other. While TSM won its first game against the Western Europe team, Tundra Esports struck back in Game Two as Leon “Nine” Kirilin’s Outworld Destroyer went on a dominating streak, ending the game with 10 kills while dying only once.
While both Fnatic & Talon started the day off well with a draw against Team Spirit & TSM respectively, both Southeast Asian teams struggled to win their last match of the day against Team Aster & Thunder Awaken respectively.
Joining Fnatic & Talon at the bottom of the group for today are beastcoast & Entity as the team went on to lose 0-2 against Team Secret & Team Spirit respectively after drawing against each other earlier today.
Day One of the Group Stage unveiled lots of interesting drafts and nail-biting games, as well as upsets from underdog teams. We will have more TI11 action tomorrow, as Day Two of the Group Stage will begin as early as 10:00 AM SGT. You can check out the schedule and results of all The International 2022 games with AFK Gaming’s event tracker below.