Last year, at The International 6, Fnatic — which largely consisted of Malaysians — was hot sh*t. While they didn’t actually win the big one, they made it through all the way to Lower Bracket Round 5 (kinda like the quarter finals, in simple terms), where they eventually lost to Digital Chaos. Since then, Fnatic has undergone a major roster shuffle, with the likes of Mushi, Miduan, DJ and 343 leaving. It looks like Fnatic is really feeling the effects of their departure, as the team got TRASHED in the first day of the group stage of The International 2017.
Chinese team LGD Gaming was poised to be one of the top contenders not just of the group stage, but of the entire tournament. And boy, did they show up. Their first match was against Fnatic, which they destroyed with relative ease. Fnatic stood no chance whatsoever. Fnatic then shifted their focus to Team Empire, which again, they beat fairly easily.
Another big team, Evil Geniuses had all eyes on them as well. For the longest time, their team was captained by a Dota 2 legend, Clinton Loomis AKA Fear. However, in September 2016, Fear announced his retirement from Dota 2, in terms of actually hitting buttons on a keyboard. He’s now Evil Geniuses’ coach. As most teams that aren’t from China, Evil Geniuses’ matches were extremely fun to watch. However, they failed to win a single match, drawing 1:1 against TnC, iG. Vitality and Team Liquid.
As far as individual performances go, it was Raven from TnC that stole the show. In TnC’s first win of the night Philipines’ Marc Polo “Raven” Luis Fausto’s Phantom Assassin went up 19:0 against Evil Geniuses.
https://youtu.be/4S-YQzxx6F8
Here’s how the group A table looks after day 1.
