The first day of The International was the day of the Chinese, as there appeared to be a strict divide between the eastern and western participants, with the former having a clear advantage. Specifically speaking, three Chinese teams have been leading the tournament with an iron grip. The first is Team DK , who have been the dominant team from the original DotA over this last year. The second is Invictus Gaming , which was originally two separate teams that merged- the acquisition of these players alone involved millions of dollars. The final of the three is LGD-Gaming cn, which has remained undefeated and unchallenged through The International.

Yesterday, the western players experienced a bitter taste of humility, as the Chinese, who have been invested to a minimal extent in Dota 2, fired out hard and fast in a manner full representative of their domination of the scene back home. Most notable of these upsets were Evil Geniuses and world champions Natus Vincere , who ended their first days near the bottom of their respective groups. While Team Zenith performed disappointingly, Counter Logic Gaming exceeded expectations and ended neck-and-neck with LGD.

Today proved to largely be a comeback for these slacking teams, however, as they managed to regain significant ground. EG, for instance, managed to claw their way to the middle of the whole spectrum, breaking even at a 6:6 record, defeating mousesports and Moscow Five in the process. Na'Vi mirrored this success by defeating Darer Entertainment and their arch-rivals mTw . The biggest breakthrough, however, was for Zenith, who ended yesterday at the bottom of both groups, but managed to win every match today. The same could not be said for CLG, however, as the Swedish giants lost every match, moving them from the top of the spectrum to the middle.

Continuing to amaze, LGD and iG proceeded to ravage the competition and remain unchallenged. Having handily defeated their arch-rivals from DK, along with EG and Zenith, the Europeans from CLG, aL and M5 were made short work of by LGD in unexpectedly short matches. Only mouz remains as an obstacle to LGD's undefeated spree leading up to the playoffs. Having been denied a mere round by EHOME , iG made short work of any doubts of the team's tenacity by taking out the Asian juggernauts TongFu Team and Orange eSports , along with Darer.