posted by Smyke,
We saw GabeN, two favourites clash for the top six and four teams get emotionally crushed and kicked out of The International 2018. The first day of the Main Stage already delivered.

Fnatic doesn’t make it to round two



Fnatic had such a good start to the tournament. After Day Two of the group stage the Southeast Asian team was in second place in Group A. It seemed like Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao could finally experience a good TI again. However, Fnatic had some tough losses afterwards that knocked them down into the Lower Bracket where they faced Team Serenity.



The Chinese team had a tough group stage as well but drew the right lessons from these matches to improve for the Main Stage. Although Fnatic got the heroes they wanted, they didn’t get the expected lead in the early game. In fact, Team Serenity was ahead of Fnatic by the 20 minute mark. Especially XinQ on Necrophos had a good game until that point.

Fnatic didn’t find the opportunity to stop the Necrophos and got too stressed about it. EE and his teammates lost the important team fights and therefore the game as well as their chances to win the Aegis this year.

Winstrike beats TI Grand Finalists



The biggest surprise of the day was CIS' pride Winstrike. The Eastern Europeans barely made it into the playoffs at all by beating Invictus Gaming in the tiebreakers. However, iG was not the only Chinese team that would fall to Bogdan 'Iceberg' Vasilenko and his teammates.

TI7 Grand Finalists Newbee won’t be fighting for another Aegis. After 55 minutes in the Lower Bracket against Winstrike, Song 'Sccc' Chun and his teammates suffered a crushing defeat. Last year's finalists already have to pack their bags to fly home and evaluate their flaws for the next season.




They’ll be joined by TNC Predator from the Philippines and the Chinese team VGJ.Thunder on their trip home. Thunder lost to their fellow countrymen Vici Gaming. Marc Polo Luis 'Raven' Fausto and co. tried their best to make another TI Lower Bracket run happen, but Mineski proved why they are the best of what the SEA region had to offer for most of the season. They’re the only team from their region left in the tournament.

Liquid vs. LGD fight for the top three



While four teams have to go home after the first day of the Main Stage, two teams are already one step closer to the TI title – Team Liquid and PSG.LGD both won their Upper Bracket matches.

Team Liquid started this stage of the tournament by facing OpTic Gaming. The North Americans around Peter 'ppd' Dager surprisingly made it into the Upper Bracket which is already a huge success. However, Liquid demonstrated once more why they could be the first team to win the Aegis twice in a row.




Meanwhile, PSG.LGD is China’s hope and they’re doing pretty good so far. The highlight game of the day was the battle between the Chinese and Virtus.pro – two of the top three teams from the very first Dota Pro Circuit battled for the next round.

While a lot of people predicted a tough best-of-three series, LGD was able to win it in two games in a quite dominant fashion. As the only Chinese team in the Upper Bracket, LGD keep the Chinese fans' hopes alive for their country to win the next even-numbered TI.

What was your highlight of Day One of the Main Stage?



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Photo credit: Twitter - Dota 2

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