TI5: Group Stages Conclude

[Omnomnick]

Yesterday evening saw the conclusion of the Group Stages for The International 2015 after four days of extremely intense competition. Following a tie-breaker round between Empire and Virtus.Pro, the Upper and Lower Brackets are now confirmed for the Main Event, with rising stars like Wild Card winners CDEC Gaming joining tried and true fan favourites such as Evil Geniuses, Team Secret, and LGD Gaming in the Top 8. On the flip side, all teams which have previously won The International (with the exception of Alliance) are currently stuck in the Bottom 8, with a few returning champion players sitting comfortably in the Upper Bracket as part of their new teams. A list of all the Upper and Lower Bracket teams can be found below.

Upper Bracket:

Spoiler

LGD Gaming
Team Empire
CDEC Gaming
Cloud9
Evil Geniuses
compLexity
Team Secret
EHOME

Lower Bracket:

Spoiler

MVP.Phoenix
Newbee
VG
Na'Vi
Virtus.Pro
Fnatic
Invictus Gaming
MVP.Hot6

Teams in the Lower Bracket will start the Main Event on August 3rd with punishing Best of Ones to decide who is eliminated, while the Upper Bracket teams will compete in Best of Threes, with the Lower Bracket acting as an additional safety net should they lose one round.

If the past four days are anything to go off, The International 2015 could very well be the best and closely matched Dota 2 tournament to date, so make sure you don't miss a moment!

 

[Bad Asteroid]

The regions are so evenly balanced this year. A Korean team taking a game off of Team Secret, an American team topping their division, Chinese teams not dominating, both Russian teams finishing above Vici Gaming... It's also great to see a wildcard performing so well, CDEC was one game away from being first in their division. And CompLexity ranking third in group A, above Cloud 9? I don't even know what to think anymore.

Also: The prize pool is almost at 18 million dollars, with 6.5 million going to the winners. Crazy stuff.