Chinese teams take the lead on Day 2 of TI11 Group Stage

CN Dota, best Dota the say, and surely the three Chinese teams at The International 2022 (TI11) are determined to populate the playoffs upper bracket and make another historical run at the most important tournament of the year.

Despite being regarded as the main favourites at the title, PSG.LGD started the group play with sup bar results. After a loss and two draw scores, they returned for the second day of games completely refreshed and delivered a true stomp over OG to start the day with a clean 2-0.

OGvsPSG.LGD

PSG.LGD established their dominance by focusing on shutting down OG’s win condition heroes from early stage in both games. In game one they found the early pickoffs in OG’s side lanes and making sure that neither Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev’s Faceless Void nor Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf’s Razor would be able to carry the game. Despite OG trying to fight back and force PSG.LGD to a chaotic mid stage, the Chinese team was able to build a 15k lead by the 20-minute mark and close the game on the back of a team wipe.

In game two, PSG.LGD moved their attention to the mid lane, where Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov was looking to stir the pot with his signature Invoker, and OG found themselves quickly overwhelmed by a carry Nature’s Prophet and an offlane Death Prophet coming from the Chinese team.

The day continued with another 2-0 for PSG.LGD, who also took down Team Liquid to advance from 7th place in Group A to the top 3 at the end of Day 2.

At the same time, Royal Never Give Up kept the ball rolling and secured two more 2-0 victories, over Soniqs and Gaimin Gladiators, to end the day in first place in Group A.

In Group B, Team Aster tied their series with Entity, but scored two clean victories over TSM.FTX and beasctoast to top Group B.

Other than the Chinese teams finding important victories on Day 2, Fnatic have also salvaged a bit their group run with draw scores against Team Secret and Entity and a clean 2-0 over beastcoast. However, they are still in dire need of more wins for an upper bracket slot in the playoffs.

But the biggest comeback was made by Tundra Esports, who closed Day 1 in sixth place in Group B only to run over Team Secret and Talon Esports on Day 2 and surge to second place in Group B.

TI11 Group Stage Standings

There are two more days filled with matches for all the 20 teams fighting in the group stage. Day 3 will feature another set of 25 Bo2 series and it is set to begin at 10:00 SGT/04:00 CEST.