The International 12 group B favorites

TI12 starts this Thursday with numerous exciting matches. In group B, which features five of the 20 teams, six of them will be played.

This group is arguably the strongest of the four, so the favorites are harder to predict. But we can take a look at each of them. In particular, Thunder Awaken seems to be destined for elimination. This underdog is simply not at the level of the other four competitors.

Group B teams and favorites

Here are the five teams who will compete in group B of The International 12:

• Team Liquid
• BetBoom Team
• Shopify Rebellion
• Azure Ray
• Thunder Awaken

Thunder Awaken qualified for The International 2023 by placing 2^nd in the regional qualifier. So they weren’t even the winners of that tournament. And let’s not forget that Evil Geniuses and beastcoast did not even play in it.

This makes Thunder an order of magnitude weaker than the other four teams, which is why their chances of escaping elimination are almost zero. But what about the remaining participants?

All of them are strong. However, because Team Liquid had an abysmal performance at DreamLeague S21 while Azure Ray looked very strong in the Chinese qualifier for TI12, it’s not easy to say who’s better.

Azure Ray Seattle #TI12 #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/51n9fJncCK

— AR.Eveileb.Chalice👑 #TI12 (@TheEveileb) October 10, 2023

Meanwhile, Shopify Rebellion finished DreamLeague S21 in 2^nd place, and BetBoom Team have a very capable roster. Some would say that all of their players are in the top five in the world in their respective roles.

Sadly for BetBoom, they seem to always find a way to get eliminated early. At The International 2023, this will be hard to achieve because Thunder are simply too weak. But I wouldn’t put them higher than 4^th in group B.

Maybe if they start the group with a victory, then they should be taken more seriously. But in the beginning, it’s safer to assume that they will not have a good tournament.

One of the biggest questions in this group has to do with Liquid. They played poorly in recent months but we shouldn’t ignore the spectacular results they obtained this year: five Grand Finals (all lost) and two DPC Tour victories. The fact that IceFrog decided to change the patch again just one week ahead of TI12 will likely give them an edge.

For Shopify Rebellion, things looked great at their most recent event. But it might have been because of the meta, which changed completely. We’ll see what Artour “Arteezy” Babaev can do on the new patch.

Header: Valve