Spirit one step away from elimination, Xtreme early in playoffs, results of the group stage TI 2025
The final day of the group stage The International 2025 has concluded. Xtreme Gaming, BetBoom Team and Team Tidebound were the first to secure their place in the playoffs. BOOM Esports and Natus Vincere have left the tournament. The remaining teams will play against each other in the Elimination Round: teams with a 3-2 record will play against teams with a 2-3 record for the right to advance to the playoffs.
The day opened with a confrontation between two of the strongest Chinese teams. On the first map, Ame and XinQ particularly stood out. The first calmly but confidently farmed throughout the game, chose the right build through Satanic, and destroyed opponents on their own base, while the second constantly created space and rotated to mid, also countering Primal Beast, effectively taking him out of the game after the third death. The second map was a bit more challenging, Team Tidebound proved to be a strong opponent, but it turned out that Xtreme Gaming can win even when everything is not perfect with the main core and playmaker of the team — Ame.
"In China, very old players play, and they know one truth that young players have forgotten. The truth is that strength and sweat should be saved for the main tournament of the year, and Xtreme Gaming is the only team that really saved their strength and didn't sweat much throughout the season. Everyone thought they were fools, but they were just chilling, discussing. The International came, and they are fresh, energetic, and it shows. They seem to love Dota more than anyone else at this tournament" — commented Misha on the reasons for the unexpected success of teams from the Chinese region.
Team Spirit, on the other hand, showed a very lackluster game today. Two games in a row were lost by them without a chance. And if PARIVISION is a fairly strong opponent: here is Satanic with his prepared Broodmother, and 9Class, who collected the meta Helm of the Dominator on Monkey King and terrorized the entire map on Slark, then the loss to Dragons to their former teammates from Aurora was quite annoying.
Many viewers and commentators noticed that Team Spirit not only had a drop in individual form but also in drafts. Collapse played in this match on Enigma and Undying, heroes not typical for him.
"From this moment, I am the dominator" — commented Magomed Khalilov on the situation.
Such a series of failures is a worrying sign. It is worth remembering The International 11, where summoners and the broken item at that time, Wraith Pact, entered the meta. Then Collapse also couldn't adapt to the meta, and Team Spirit failed. However, it seems that now the problem is even deeper: there is miscommunication, the team is struggling with defeats, and no longer feels confident on the map. In any case, tomorrow we will find out if the good old Team Spirit will return: they have a match against Team Falcons for elimination!
Today there was another bright CIS derby: BetBoom Team defeated PARIVISION in a match for a place in the playoffs. After the game, the manager of BetBoom Team recorded a video showing how happy the guys were with the victory. One of the players even broke a keyboard in emotions.
"Losing such games 2-1 all year, just to... HERE!" — concluded Lukawa after the match.
The International 2025 takes place from September 4 to 14 in Hamburg, Germany. At the moment, the prize pool of the tournament is 2.78 million dollars.