TI8 Day One: The Invasion of the Wraith King

The International’s meta has always been unpredictable, and that’s one of its beauties. All of our analysis, predictions about the most played heroes, the players picking the most different heroes, etc. can all come to nothing.

Pieliedie wins TI8’s First Blood

TI8 kicked off with a round of 2-game series from Group A teams, and there weren’t many surprises yet. Perhaps no one, including Fnatic players, would have guessed that this year’s TI First Blood winner would be Johan “pieliedie” Åström, a player known for his sacrifices that earned him the nickname “diediedie” “.

pieliedie claims the FIRST BLOOD of The International 2018 taking down Defending Champion Captain Kuroky. #TI8

— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) August 15, 2018

Most Picked Hero

The most chosen hero so far is Wraith King when he appeared in all 8 drafts, including 7 picks and 1 ban. Another surprise was that in all 7 picks, Wraith King went offlane. Wraith King’s ban was in the opening match of Team Liquid and Fnatic. The defending champion TI used the last ban to ban WK.

Team Liquid only got 1 kill in the whole match

The opening match of TI in Vancouver, Canada was a confrontation between TI7 champions Team Liquid and Fnatic. The first game went according to everyone’s predictions. Fnatic played explosively early in the game, controlling Liquid throughout the early stages. They counter MATUMBAMAN’s Broodmother with Tiny and Io. However, despite the SEA representative having an extremely good start, Liquid was able to slowly regain the game despite being 8K gold lead thanks to the perfect coordination of Earth Shaker in the hands of GH and Pugna of MinD_ContRoL.

Fnatic might have thrown the first game as usual, but in game 2 they surprised everyone with the perfect implementation of an offensive strategy centered around Clinkz in the mid lane. In the entire 31-minute match, Team Liquid only managed to get a single kill in the 3rd minute. Since then, Fnatic has destroyed the defending champions to end the game with a 37K gold advantage.

“Let me tell you, kids, about the time I didn’t die at TI against @TeamLiquid.” – @PieLieDieDota.

We take Game 2 with 39 kills to 1! 1-1 in our opening game!

See you later against @Team_VGJ. #TI8 pic.twitter.com/3tUmOBOGVn

— FNATIC (@FNATIC) August 15, 2018

EG is the only team to win 2-0

After the first series of Group A ended, Evil Geniuses were the only team to win 2-0. The NA team met VGJ.Thunder and drafted Alchemist mid lane in game 1 with Clinkz for Arteezy. They were dragged into the late game by the Chinese representative, but EG’s picks still helped them win. Game 2 lasted only 25 minutes when VGJ.Thunder was outplayed by the core duo of Evil Geniuses.

Thanks to this 2-0 victory, EG is ranked at the top of Group A and the Chinese team is temporarily at the bottom of the group.

In case you miss a match at The International 2018 , PGL got your back with #highlights. @EvilGeniuses won the series against @Team_VGJ thunder.

Watch the highlights https://t.co/0fgfYt1SWc

— PGL (@pglesports) August 15, 2018

The first day of competition isn’t over yet and 15 series will take place on Twitch.tv streams.

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