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The International 2022 Dark Horses

After the first day of The International 2022, we can more accurately assess the strength of the teams relative... Radu M. | 15. October 2022

After the first day of The International 2022, we can more accurately assess the strength of the teams relative to each other. And the results are very surprising.

Ahead of the tournament, everyone expected PSG.LGD to be the strongest team in the race. But so far, they haven’t looked good at all. And it wasn’t just one team that bested them once or twice. In their first three matches, they won two games and lost four!

The worst performance was registered by BetBoom Team, who lost all of their first six games. They did indeed face strong opponents, but they should have won at least one game.

The dark horses of TI11

The competitor that impressed us the most was Evil Geniuses. Nobody knows what Tal “Fly” Aizik and his crew have done for the last few months, but their performance on day one of The International 11 was the best EG performance we’ve seen since The International 5.

Evil Geniuses not only won their first six games of the tournament. They won them against three of the best teams in the race: PSG.LGD, OG, and Soniqs. And on top of that, they absolutely humiliated them in some of the games.

In one of the games against PSG.LGD, EG had a 10K networth lead by minute 15 and the score was 19-0 in their favor. Something similar happened in one of the games against OG. Their playstyle was flawless in every way in the first 15-20 minutes of their games and their opponents simply didn’t know what to do to defend themselves.

It seems that Fly has found the optimal way to play Dota 2 on this patch and his strategies look so strong that it’s hard not to suspect that his team has had access to the OpenAI software these past few months. Either that or Fly has been analyzing every single top team in the game and has learned some incredibly effective lessons.

Just by looking at how EG played on day one, it’s clear that they are more than one step ahead of everybody else. If the Grand Final would take place tomorrow, EG would win with ease regardless of who their opponent might be.

Two other potential dark horses are Team Secret and Royal Never Give Up. Both of them could have been counted among the favorites ahead of the tournament, but many were not sure about their chances. Now we know for sure that they are well-prepared and capable of winning. But they’re still much weaker than Evil Geniuses, at least for now.

Header: Evil Geniuses