TI12 playoffs favorites

The International 12 has 16 teams left in the race. Eight of them, because they get to start in the upper bracket, have a significant advantage over the others. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any favorites in the lower bracket.

In fact, this might be the first TI when we see a lower bracket team complete the epic seven win streak that is required to win the Aegis of Champions.

Because of Valve’s new competitive format, which made a single best-of-three match more important than all of the group stage matches combined, both the upper bracket and the lower bracket are now filled with exceptional teams. This will give the audience a lot of exciting matches to watch right away.

Favorites from the upper bracket

Among the eight upper bracket teams, three are worth keeping an eye on: Team Spirit, Team Liquid, and LGD Gaming. The strongest of these three is probably Team Spirit. For them, it would be an amazing achievement to win The International for the 2^nd time.

They won it in 2021 and have been the strongest team in the world for the past three months, winning Riyadh Masters and DreamLeague S21.

Team Liquid, despite looking absolutely lost at DreamLeague S21, seem to have recovered completely. In the group stage of TI12, they won 7 games out of 8 and finished 1^st in group B. Last year, Liquid finished the competition in 3^rd place. This time, they have a good chance of winning it.

LGD Gaming are China’s greatest hope at this TI. We saw them winning 7 games in the group stage, but their group was the easiest of the four. Their next match against 9Pandas will be much tougher. Still, this team remains one of the favorites.

SEE YOU IN THE UPPER BRACKET PLAYOFFS! 💪 #LETSGOLIQUID #TI12 pic.twitter.com/vxxNDeW38W

— Team Liquid Dota (@teamliquiddota) October 14, 2023

Favorites from the lower bracket

In the lower bracket, we have Shopify Rebellion, Gaimin Gladiators, BetBoom Team, and Tundra Esports. All of these teams are likely to win their opening matches and should be regarded as strong enough to win the entire competition. Of course, they will start facing each other very soon, even if they survive the first few rounds.

The strongest team in the lower bracket, for now at least, seems to be Gladiators. It’s quite unfortunate that they lost their phase 2 match and ended up starting with a handicap, but they definitely have what it takes to win the tournament.

Header: Team Spirit