The International 2018 (Results Overview)

Many analysts and Esports personalities consider the latest The Dota 2 International 2018 as one of the best ever. There were many equally-matched teams, powerful comebacks, amazing victories, bitter frustrations, and sweet tears of happiness. The tournament was so filled with emotions that even big film studios might think about shooting a TI8 movie!

It became known even in spring that Valve moved the tournament from much-loved Seattle to a new city and even to a new country. Many Dota 2 players and fans liked Vancouver very much. The city has good infrastructure, so it’s totally ready to host such big events. Viewers at Rogers Arena created an excellent atmosphere and feverishly cheered for their favorite teams.

The next tournament of this series, The International 2019, will be held in Shanghai, China.

The International 2018 prize poll reached a new record this year and was $25,532,177. This surpasses the sum from the previous year almost by $1M. 18 world best teams fought for their slice of the money pie and the cherished Aegis of The Immortals from the 15th to 25th of August.

The Group Stage

The teams were divided into two groups. On August 15-18, they fought out who will leave the tournament and who will proceed to the main event. The best four teams from each group continued the tournament in the upper Dota 2 TI8 bracket of the Playoff. Teams in 5-8th places proceeded to the lower bracket. The 9th-placed teams finished TI8 at this stage.

According to our predictions for TI8, two losing teams on the Group Stage are Brazilian guys from Paing Gaming and Chinese from Invictus Gaming. Our guesses turned out to be correct, and both teams finished last in their groups.

The leaders in the groups were:

• Team Liquid in the Group A;
• VGJ.Storm in the Group B.

There were tiebreakers in both groups:

• Group A – IG and Winstrike fought for a place in the playoffs;
• Group B – OG, Team Secret, and Newbee were deciding who will play in the upper bracket and who will proceed to the low one.

The final Dota 2 results of the Group Stage TI8 are:

The Playoff Matches

The Main Event of The International 2018 took place on August 20-25. Rogers Arena was filled with thousands of fans, who came from all over the world. Gabe Newell greeted everyone with his signature phrase:

Welcome to The International Dota 2 2018

The battle between two favorites, Virtus.pro and PSG.LGD, became the most significant event on the first day of the Playoffs. Before the tournament started, bookmakers put the Russian team in first place, and the Chinese in third.

The match finished with a convincing victory PSG.LGD with the score 2:0. In the next match with the other contender for victory, Team Liquid, they played with the same confidence and end up prevailing by the same score. PSG.LGD pushed both opponents to the losing bracket.

The game OG vs Evil Geniuses became one of the most dramatic matches of the whole tournament. Former teammates from the previously strongest roster on the planet (OG), met each other in the semifinal of the upper bracket.

Captains of these two teams, Johan N0tail Sundstein and Tal Fly Aizik, were best friends and experienced victories and defeats in the team OG for three years. Their paths diverged a bit earlier the main tournament. Fly and S4 moved to the new team – EG.

Notail and the team OG remained without two players. With no long thinking, OG took their former team member Anathan ana Pham and a young player with good MMR, Topias Topson Taavitsainen. Despite their ambiguous performance in the Group Stage, OG proceeded to the upper bracket, and that was an excellent result for such a roster.

Also, they got a chance to take revenge on the former players, so the team became one of top three teams on the tournament.

The match was intense to the max – there were three maps with continuous fights all over the place. That was Dota 2 of the highest level, with the momentum ebbing and flowing. On the decisive third map, Syed SumaiL Hassan made 31(!) kills and beat the record, set in 2012 and repeated in 2015.

Despite this and the advantage of 20,000, EG couldn’t stand the power of their opponents and lost. The game was finished with the score 2:1 in favor of OG. For all its existence, OG won four of five classic Major Valve tournaments, but couldn’t play well at The Internationals. They were favorites at TI6 and TI7 but finished in 9-12th and 7-8th places respectively.

The roster for Dota 2 The International 2018 was formed two months before the tournament, so OG were rather outsiders here. Still, thanks to the victory over EG, the team managed to reach the top-three level on the main tournament of the year. And of course, OG continued the way to the highest Dota 2 glory.

The handshake of Johan N0tail Sundstein and Tal Fly Aizik proved the level of emotions in this game. Probably, Tal will remember the sight of Johan for a long time…

While viewers were watching everything happening in the upper bracket of the TI8 Playoff, the teams in the lower one were battling against each other as if their lives were depending on it.

Newbee, the finalist of The International 2017, left the competition after losing to the dark horse of this tournament, the team Winstrike. Another sensation was the defeat of Fnatic, one of the contenders for victory. The team of EternalEnvy lost to the Team Serenity and left the tournament in 13th-16th places.

The list of top six teams consists of the tournament’s favorites, and only OG was a bit of surprise. Despite their unbelievable season, Virtus.pro couldn’t demonstrate their best game at TI8, and after the defeat by EG, the team left the tournament, taking 5th-6th place.

It seems like Team Secret always misses something, and The International 2018 wasn’t an exception. The team of Clement Puppey Ivanov took 5th-6th place after losing to Team Liquid.

Evil Geniuses and the winners of TI7, Team Liquid, fought in the match for proceeding to the final of winners in the low bracket. The first round the battle continued 64 minutes. Most of this time, the former champions were defending and trying to stop attacks by EG. On the second map, everything was completed much faster, and just in 34 minutes, EG defeated the opponent. Team Liquid left the tournament in 4th place.

Matches of the low bracket weren’t so intensive as in the upper one, and many of them were finished with the score 2:0. Did you like those games? Did you like the Dota 2 items, used by teams?

OG brought the most powerful action to the whole tournament – and not only with the game against EG but also against seemingly unbeatable PSG.LGD. The Chinese guys were preparing for this tournament as no one else. It looked like after the victory over VP and Team Liquid no opponents can stop them. But OG thought differently…

On the first map, they left the Chinese no chance. Sébastien 7ckngMad Debs with Enchantress was giving no rest to opponents and participated in 35 kills during the match. The second map brought hope to PSG.LGD with their active pick. The primary intrigue was on the third map.

During the whole round, the Chinese had an advantage, and the European team tried to catch up with them or just not to lose in some situations. At the hottest moment, on the 55th minute, the advantage of OG was more than 16,000 of gold, so they decided to ruin the Ancient.

Despite the fact that they took only the barracks on the middle, OG made a successful buyback, won in this particular fight, killed all the characters of LGD, rushed to the Ancient of the opponents and finished the game. Thanks to this, OG proceeded to the Grand Final and demonstrated to the whole world – PSG.LGD can be defeated!

The defeat in the final of the upper bracket hadn’t demoralized PSG.LGD, so they defeated EG and also proceeded to the Grand Final. The Chinese were obviously set for revenge, but OG weren’t such easy opponents. Teams played on all five maps in the Grand Final. The last time, this happened was in the Gold Grand Final of TI3.

LGD were pushing from the very beginning of the first round, but in some incomprehensible way, OG could come back to the game each time, so the first round went to the European team. The next two rounds were with domination of the Chinese team and finished with its victory. Still, OG tried to fight and definitely didn’t want to give up.

The character of these guys was manifested on the map, which they just couldn’t lose. The forth map of this game can truly be considered as the best at The International. The teams took advantage back from each other three times. As a result, the Chinese team got much more gold, but in incredible fights, OG used everything possible each time and took this map.

At the beginning of the fifth map, it became obvious that everything fell apart for PSG.LGD – the game didn’t go in the way they planned from the beginning. Despite the starting advantage of the Chinese, the kings of comebacks, OG, won the map.

The European team OG became the winner of The International 2018. They took the longest route to victory, starting from the open qualifiers. They survived two players leaving, and they played lots of wonderful matches on the edge of losing.

There was the conflict of Notail and Fly in the team, Ana leaving professional Dota and then his incredible return, the first Lan for Topson, and the compelled move of 7ckngMad from the position of a trainer to an Offlaner.

Powerful fights and continual comebacks were marvelled at in matches where other teams would rather give up. OG were absolutely phenomenal at this tournament!

With taking first place, OG earned $11,234,158. For the second place PSG.LGD earned $4,085,148.

The final division of the prize money is shown in this picture:

Beside the tournament matches, Valve presented two new heroes:

• Grimstroke – he is already available in the game.
• Mars – he will be added this winter.

Soon, we expect to see cosmetic items for new heroes, which you definitely will be able to buy and sell on DMarket, along with other Dota 2 items.

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