I don’t think the bobsled would be quite as entertaining to watch if this is the case.

How are your predictions going? Mine are going ok with only two wrong, but I’m not as confident in putting XG to win currently.

I wasn’t all that confident in the brood pick, but Satanic made it look very strong late game. XG really needed to hit an earlier timing. Looking forward to seeing PV in the semis!

I also like the trend toward offlane save hero with centaur, phoenix or undying being picked up. I might have to try that sort of play style myself.

So far today it looks like there have been some of the fastest games of the tournament. I was expecting the games to be more closer and more competitive than the groups. Maybe nerves and pressure are having more of an impact than I thought.

Nigma games feel much more tense, because you are waiting for them to throw at some point. Nice to see they are breaking this pattern on their first game. Mainstage Nigma does always seem to perform better!

I do love Ghost’s story of first playing in SEA, then China and now EU/MENA. Shows just how international the pro scene has become. And how much players can benefit from being multilingual.

Sumail was a joy to watch back on his storm spirit again. He may have been around for a while, but you have to remember he is still fairly young. Winning TI at 16 was bonkers.

I was assuming that the best games would be at the end of the group stage and the first few rounds would be stomps, but I was very wrong. Super hyped for the rest of the tourney if this is how things start!

Ghost is looking pretty strong at the moment. Maybe it is just the 4 protect 1 kinda thing they often do, but the rest of the team just doesn’t quite look as hot.

I would’ve preferred to see GG play, but I’m sure Yakutou can put on a performance too.

Hopefully having more Chinese teams gives the scene over there a. it of a boost after it has dropped off for a while.

Looks really smooth and very impressive you managed to create it being a non-developer!

Alternatively, ‘Shutdown’ (with a capital), when refering to the 2015 grime track by Skepta.

DM brewmaster also seemed make so many funny plays. It just shows how strong they are when teamfighting and overall cohesion for those mistakes not to matter in the end.

Defo rooting for them when I watch the finals back!

I don’t think I’m your guy haha. I do not have a ravioli bowl unfortunately.

There are two pits, but just one rosh. He commutes between each pit on the day/night cycle and tosses anyone in his way, getting angrier the more heroes he tosses.

Ended up queuing oblivious to the patch yesterday, and the whole squad got quite confused that the dire side felt slightly different. Seems they are trying to compensate for the win rate diff.

I loved it. I think it is a great progression from the battle passes which personally felt far more grindy and exploitative.

I really like the detail the put in to all of the little art works and sprites, and the minigames. You can tell it has taken more time with likely less profit than the battle pass system.

My only qualm is that because I wanted to follow the story, I wanted to complete an act in one go cos otherwise I will just forget. That meant I was just hording tokens for ages and not really participated until the last week.

Very exciting. It has been too long since we’ve had some dota to watch. It’ll be interesting to see how Nigma and Secret do against div 1 teams.

I think that the decision to not give a lifetime ban was correct because it would set a double standard. What about mind_control who explicitly said that Hitler should have killed the Russian population? I realise this example was not in an official match but in my opinion is 10x worse. Also, Pure’s incident I believe can be placed into the category of ‘edgy meme’ (and one being assumedly a whole lot more normalised from the country he is from and media he consumes). Anyway the bottom line is that I think a lifetime ban should not be received for stupidity.

The cheating judgement came straight from the tournement organisers just parroted by spectators. I feel this is a correct decision, but the fact he was even allowed to do it in the first place should be a mitigating factor. When doing exams on conputers you get blocked from accessing what you shouldn’t so why the TO didn’t do something similar is questionable.