Dota 2 news » Phase Two – Day One is Over

Today we was our first look at all 16 teams. In this phase, each team will play one game against every other team. No one game will decide anyone’s tournament, no single loss will sink their hopes, and no single win will guarantee their success.

Instead it will be the cumulative effect of all 15 games they play across four days. What record will a team need to be in the top eight and move on? We didn’t find that out today. Instead, we found out how evenly matched the teams are. That no team was able to get through this first day unscathed.

Some came close, but it was that kind of day. Cloud 9 looked unstoppable until Mouz handed them their first loss. That also happened to be Mouz first victory to bring them up to 1-3. Undefeated Newbee looked to be rolling along until wild card team Liquid – who started the day with a quick 15 minute loss to Na’vi.us – ended Newbee’s run with a long hard fought victory.

As Liquid celebrated their success, they were told they had 5 minutes until their next game, they asked simply – “We just had a 75 minute game, can we have 10 minutes?” Sure but no more, there was no time to relax today. There are 15 teams to play.