We are getting closer to the end of this year's Dota 2 The International, in which a total of eight teams remain in the fight for the main prize.
The good performances of the underdogs and the dominance of the CIS region have marked the course of the main stage of The International so far. Eastern Europe is led by title favorite and 2021 champion Team Spirit, who have dropped just one game so far in the tournament.
As the Virtus players themselves stated, it was the quality of Team Spirit that motivated the rest of the region and gave them the opportunity to play against the best in regional competitions, which significantly affected the play of other teams. This was shown by Virtus who, after losing at the start of the play-off in a duel against Team Spirit, managed to defeat the unpleasant Entity, who previously knocked out last year's champions Tundra Esports in one of the biggest surprises of the tournament.
The third representative of the CIS region BetBoom Team triumphed twice through the lower barrage, first they knocked out Keyd Stars and then Talon Esports. Unfortunately for CIS fans, they will have to be without one of their representatives after the next round of matches as Virtus.pro and BetBoom meet in the third round of the fight for survival.
The other half of the lower barrage consists of nouns and Gaimin Gladiators. Nouns lost to Azure Ray at the start of the playoffs, but then they managed to defeat TSM, while GG started from the lower barrage, where they defeated Evil Geniuses first, and then 9Pandas.
In the fight for the finals of the winner's barrage, which will produce the first finalist of TI 2023, we will see Team Spirit and Team Liquid, that is, LGD Gaming and Azure Ray. Liquid will have a difficult task to stop the machine called Spirit, while the Chinese derby will bring us the answer to the question of who is currently the most prepared team of the once leading Dota 2 power.
After a short break, The International 2023 returns on October 27th, and two days later we will get new The International champions.
