posted by Smyke,
The second day of The International 2018 is set and done. All 18 teams have played at least eight games - we can finally see a tendency for how the group stage might play out. Who will be on top in the end? Will it really be North America with two teams? Here are four reasons why you should watch Day Two if you haven't yet.


Resolut1on, the real TI king



For years the Dota 2 scene concentrated on the teams' performances at TI. That has shifted over the last two to three years due to the new Major Championships and the Dota 2 Pro Circuit. However, it seems like one player didn't get the notification for that.



Roman 'Resolut1on' Fominok is one of the best carry players in the Dota 2 scene right now. Since 2014 he attended every The International event. While the first appearances with Team Empire didn't end that well, he had his breakthrough moment with Digital Chaos* at The International 2016. It was the first time he wasn't part of a CIS squad, but of a European-NA mix. They were able to make it into the Grand Finals of TI.

Last year he was a stand-in for Team Empire. Again, he managed to eliminate Evil Geniuses from the tournament. After Day Two of this year's The International, Resolut1on is in first place of Group B with his team Forward Gaming - they only lost one game so far. One reason for this is the Ukrainian midlaner who has the highest KDA in the tournament: with a KDA of 10.69, he's the only player in the double digits. Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev is in second place with an 8.1 KDA.

Over 80 minutes of pure Dota 2 action



On the first day of The International 2018, Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao and his teammates already delivered us a first highlight by stomping Team Liquid in the most dominant way TI has ever seen - they won with a kill score of 39 to 1.



On Day Two they ensured another highlight, but this time it was the ultimate back and forth which ended in a devastating loss for Fnatic. However, it took Mineski 81 minutes and 52 seconds to force the 'gg' call. Around half of that time it actually looked like Fnatic could finish off the Southeast Asians.

At the 40 minute mark Fnatic were more than 20,000 gold ahead of their opponents, but some questionable fights in the enemy's base brought Mineski back into the game. Abed 'Abed' Yusop and his teammates were able to tie the series in the end, but with one less mistake, they could have been in second place in Group B.

TNC is SEA's real pride



If we check out Group B, we get our biggest surprise of Day Two: TNC Predator jumped to the second place and even surpassed TI favourites Virtus.pro.

While TNC's record on Day One was 2-2, they are at 6-4 now thanks to a win against Vici Gaming. They beat OpTic Gaming and tied the series against Virtus.pro and paiN Gaming*. All season long people only talked about Mineski and Fnatic being in good shape while TNC didn't really show their potential in the DPC. At TI8, they are the highest placed team from Southeast Asia right now. Can they surprise us again?



Meanwhile a Chinese team came back from the dead - Vici Gaming had a rough Day One since they lost both of their series. On the second day of the group stage Lu 'Fenrir' Chao and his teammates looked way better.

They won the series against Newbee and tied with Team Serenity and Team Secret. The Chinese rewarded themselves by jumping up four ranks. No other team was able to make such a progress on Day Two.

Your Priestess has arrived!



On Day One Wraith King had the lead when it comes to the most played heroes. He got picked in 20 games. On Day Two, he managed to make 12 additional appearances. However, he is not the most picked hero of TI8 anymore - Mirana and Vengeful Spirit surpassed him. While Mirana wasn't even in the top five after the first day, teams realized her potential on Thursday.

Especially her winrate is impressive: she won 69.70% of her games. Only a few heroes have a better rating - one of these is Enchantress.

She got picked 13 times so far and has a winrate of 76.92%. Although she didn't get picked as often as other heroes, she is a constant concern for any team. That is why she got banned in 62 games which makes her first place in picks and bans together with Weaver. The balance between his pick rate and ban rate is a bit more evened up. He got picked 30 times and banned 45 times.

Who do you think can improve on Day Three?



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Photo credit: Valve

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