Team Spirit continue to shock everyone on the TI10 stage by reaching finals day with a clean 2-0 over Invictus Gaming and another Rampage.
TI10 is rapidly reaching the final act. Three teams are left in the battle for the Aegis, and while PSG.LGD are the first to have secured a spot into the grand finals, their county fellows from ViCi Gaming and Invictus Gaming have both fallen on the second to last day in the main event.
ViCi Gaming fell victim to iG in the opening series of the day, counting for a top four finish and $2,401,100 secured at the biggest tournament of the year. Although the former entered the match with an impressive 10-1 game record registered over iG through the second season of the regional league, i-League and AniMajor, they crumbled on the TI10 stage in front of Zhou "Emo" Yi Ember Spirit in game one and Storm Spirit in game two.
Despite making some crucial mistakes through the series, including slaying Roshan and forgetting the Aegis in the pit, iG were net superior in team-fights and focused on playing around Roshan timers to always have the upper hand in the important engagements.
However, moving into the lower bracket semifinals, iG’s coordination and discipline were all thrown up in the air by Team Spirit, who continued to deliver the upsets with clutch plays.
Team Spirit
vs
Invictus Gaming
Team Spirit and Invictus Gaming opened Day 1 of the main event of TI10 with a breathtaking series that although pushed the former in the lower bracket, also featured the first Rampage of this year’s playoffs, and overall only the fourth achieved on the main stage in the 10 years history of The International.
It was Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk who got the rampage on a Morphling with Double Damage who managed to outplay the entire iG team on day one, land the rampage and go straight for the throne after Team Spirit was playing from behind the whole game.
Today, playing with elimination on the line, Team Spirit came prepared to dismantle whoever stayed in their path to top three and in game one iG actually allowed them to have Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov’s Mars.
Paired with an Io and Bane in the support lines, Mars put iG in a defensive stance from early stages, and while iG were looking to play once again around the Rosh spawn timer with an Ursa, they were constantly countered by the Bane spells. A final battle in the Roshan pit around the 30 minute mark sent the series to a game two with team spirit taking the 1-0 lead.
Headed into the second game, iG drafted with a late-game scenario in mind, and hoped that they can outmaneuver Team Spirit with a support Weaver and a mid lane Lina, while the CIS team had already the counters to these two with Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov on Disruptor.
They also continued a personal challenge that they seem to have taken. Yatoro played his 12th game on the TI10 main stage with a 12th different carry hero. This time around he was drafted Draw Ranger and got bullied the entire laning stage by iG’s Weaver. As he needed time to recover, Spirit’s push timers with Dragon Knight in the front line were somewhat all messed up and iG were in full control of the game for the first 15 minutes.
Around the 17-minute mark they attempted a Roshan kill, but got contested by Spirit who utilized the radiant high ground to perfection to kite iG and take a successful fight. That single fight sparked their comeback and with Draw Ranger fully recovered, clutch plays from Miposhka and Collapse on Doom, Team Spirit were able to find the angles for a second Rampage for Yatoro, who now is the only player in TI history to have landed two rampages in two separate series on the main stage.
While iG will head home in the top four at TI10, Team Spirit will make an appearance on the finals day, when they will play against team Secret for a shot at making it into the grand finals.
TI10 Finals Day Schedule
- 10:00 EEST Team Secret
vsTeam Spirit - 13:00 EEST PSG.LGD vs TBD
TI10 Prize Pool
The final total for the TI10 prize pool has clocked in at $40,018,195 when the crowdfunding and Battle Pass purchases ended this past weekend. That is a 2401.14% increase from the original base amount of $1.6 million.
Only 25% of the sales contribute to the prize pool meaning that $153,672,780 has been spent on purchases by fans across the globe.
The previous year, The International 9 prize pool reached $34,330,068 ($32,730,068 added).
