Group A is where the action has been since the first day of TI11’s group stage. As the more stacked of the two groups, fans have witnessed Evil Geniuses rampaging start to the tournament, a surprising South American uprising, and two Chinese teams facing issues that have nothing to do with the game of Dota 2.
The biggest surprise of the group, outside of EG’s continued domination, is the rise of Hokori.
The third and final team to come out of SA, via regional qualifiers, Hokori has continued to shock the world after flying under the radar in a group stacked with powerhouses like PSG.LGD and OG.
Day three was the culmination of Hokori’s run, starting with a draw against OG and then turning into a sweep of Royal Never Give Up—though the Chinese team was trying to bounce back from emergency medical issues that forced them to give up a game against LGD earlier in the day. This included a majority of the organization present testing positive for COVID and a sudden but brief hospitalization for Somnus.
Regardless, Hokori played to their strengths, holding off Somnus’ superb Ember Spirit performance and Ghost’s in-your-face Bloodseeker for more than 42 minutes. With RNG failing to siege the high ground, Lumière on Shadow Fiend feasted on kaka’s Tiny. SF had a total of 24 kills and 13 of them belonged to Tiny.
In the second match between RNG and Hokori, Somnus was once again the designated space maker on his team as RNG had an Anti-Mage carefully farming in the backlines. Come late game, Hokori had access to more teamfight resources compared to RNG. From Tidehunter’s Ravage, to Pangolier’s roll, RNG couldn’t find an opening despite an admirable effort considering the sudden swap to isolation.
Hokori now hold the tiebreaker over RNG with one series left to claim a spot in the upper bracket playoffs. Meanwhile, EG is acting as NA’s sole beam of hope during this event, securing the first seed for the playoffs out of Group A after thrashing all but one team they have faced.
EG’s day three fixture featured a trio of series. BetBoom Team was first on EG’s list, and the series started with an Arteezy carry Pudge. With Nightfall dominating the offlane with Primal Beast, and Abed winning mid as Templar Assassin, EG had no shortage of damage as they won the first game in 39 minutes. In the second match, EG switched gears and pinned down BB in 17 minutes and 51 seconds, breaking the fastest match record in TI11.
EG would go on to lock in their top seed with a 2-0 win over RNG. EG kicked off the series with a Broodmother draft. Nightfall demolished RNG’s safe lane with the hero while Arteezy extended his lead on Shadow Fiend. From start to finish, EG played a rather one-sided match in the first battle scoring 29 kills while dropping 10.
In the second match, RNG lost control of the match from the beginning as the team conceded one too many kills during the laning stage. Though RNG won a couple of important teamfights during the mid game, EG kept its cool and wrapped up the match in 32 minutes.
PSG.LGD also had a strong third day, but it was tainted slightly due to being handed a penalty by Valve ahead of its first match.
With only one day left in the group stage, there are still 19 teams battling to secure their seeding in the upper bracket or avoid elimination near the bottom of the standings. And with only 15 games left, those playoff brackets are going to get locked in quickly.
