The first day of what promises to be the most gruelling four days that Dota 2 players will ever face began at midnight and only concluded at noon with Arrow Gaming and LGD playing the last match of the day. With each team facing all the others at least once during the Round Robin competition the schedule is jam packed without providing the players much time for rest. Day one saw most of the teams play four games, with several playing a total of five matches over the last 12 hours.
Cloud9 took the lead of the overall standings with a commanding 4 – 1 record throughout the day. Their only defeat came at the hands of German team Mousesports. A considerable upset to Cloud9’s near perfect first day; especially as Mousesports themselves could only manage a single win and have dropped into the bottom eight.
Wild card slot Team Liquid continued their good run by wining three matches against TeamDK, NewBee and Evil Geniuses. The matchups may have favoured Liquid on all accounts, but it is still impressive as Liquid had to reach this stage through the phase one playoff. The Americans’ only loss of the day came during their first match against Na’ Vi.US.
Malaysian teams did not fare as well with Titan eSports going 2 – 2 with wins against Empire and Alliance. Neither are particularly impressive teams at the moment, and it was mostly expected that Titan would take the wins. Top teams Cloud9 and ViCi proved to be greater challenges than our players could handle, although they put up a good showing and are still in the running to qualify for the next playoff phase.
Arrow Gaming finished day one at the bottom of the table with no wins and five losses. The result is not entirely unexpected as they faced extremely difficult pairings against Cloud9, iG, Alliance, Evil Geniuses, and LGD. Arrow is currently sitting at the bottom of the 16 team field and face a considerable mountain to climb if they intend to make it to the knockout stage.
Day two begins at midnight tonight, with Titan eSports having to meet Na’ Vi, iG and Evil Geniuses. Arrow Gaming will have a slightly easier time in their attempt to lift themselves off the bottom with only an in form Team Liquid as their toughest opponent. Both Malaysian teams will also meet each other in the fourth round of matches tonight.
The International Dota 2 Championship 2014 is being streamed both in-game from Dota 2 and over Twitch.
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