The International 10 Group Stage Preview

The groups of The International 10 have finally been announced and the matches look really tough for everyone. Two of the 18 competitors will be eliminated after the Group Stage and their prize winnings will be at least $500,000 less than what they would have earned otherwise. The battle to avoid elimination is just as fierce as the one for the top 4 spots that guarantee a start in the Upper Bracket of the Playoffs.

The International 10 Group Stage Details

The Group Stage off The International 10 will be held online between October 7^th – 10^th. These 4 competitive days are going to decide a lot about the event, simply because the top 4 teams from each group receive 2 tournament lives instead of 1 and they also avoid the stressful Bo1 elimination matches from Lower Bracket Round 1.

The 18 teams will be divided into 2 groups of 9 and the matches are Bo2. The competitive format is the usual one: round-robin. This means that each competitor will have the opportunity to play 2 games against each of the other 8 teams. For spectators, this is not the ideal format because you end up missing most of the games (unless you have 2 large monitors and can follow 4 games in parallel). But for the teams, it’s the best format imaginable.

If a competitor is naturally weak against another competitor because of how its playstyle works against its opponent’s, the Bo2 round-robin format guarantees that its fate will not be decided by that alone.

The Two Groups

The two groups of TI10 are the following:

Group A

• Alliance
• Evil Geniuses
• Invictus Gaming
• OG
• T1
• Team Aster
• Team Undying
• Thunder Predator
• pro

In Group A, the battle for elimination will take place between Thunder Predator, Undying, and Alliance. By far, the weakest of these 3 is Thunder Predator. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see what happens when the matches begin, but every statistic indicates that TP has zero chance of surviving at this level.

The favorites to occupy the top 4 positions are Evil Geniuses, Virtus.pro, OG, and T1. The last 2 of these 4 have had difficulties in the weeks and months that preceded the tournament, so it’s not entirely clear that they’re much stronger than the 5 underdogs. But the first two are for certain much better than all of them.

If everything goes according to plan, EG should win, followed by VP. But we must not forget about the Chinese teams. Both Aster and Invictus Gaming may turn out to be formidable competitors, even though, at least in Aster’s case, the fact that the entire team is suffering from Covid is likely to lead to poor results.

Group B

• beastcoast
• Elephant
• Fnatic
• LGD
• Quincy Crew
• SG esports
• Team Secret
• Team Spirit
• Vici Gaming

Group B of The International 10 looks even stronger than Group A. The battle for elimination will take place between SG esports, Fnatic, and beastcoast. Team Spirit is also among the teams that risk losing a lot of games and end up struggling to survive. On paper, SG esports should be the one who gets eliminated at the end of this stage.

The 4 favorites in this group are PSG.LGD, Team Secret, Quincy Crew, and Vici Gaming. All of these teams have exceptional rosters and vast experience at this competitive level. If they manage to stay calm and just play their usual game, they shouldn’t fail to secure a spot in the Upper Bracket of the Playoffs.

 

Photo credit: Valve