The International 8 has been explosive and highly competitive throughout the four days of group stage. Teams have now advanced to the playoff stage and will participate in at the main event. On Monday, 16 teams will participate at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada. The Aegis of Immortality was raised last year by North American Team Liquid and the teams will have a shot to raise it for themselves along with a prize of 11 million dollars. Unfortunately, Invictus Gaming and paiN Gaming have been eliminated from the tournament, but will still take home a hefty 61,710 dollars each for just qualifying.

Other than the removal of those two teams, the clashes between the teams have mostly gone to expectation. Team Liquid 2-0’d VGJ.Thunder and Evil Geniuses did the same to Fnatic. Mineski has been looking bad recently and got handedly defeated by PSG.LGD 0-2. The oddball game was OG tying against Winstrike and managing a upper middle position in the score ranks. Winstrike threw the game against OG and forced a tiebreaker vs Invictus Gaming. The series would determine which team would be eliminated from The International 8.

iG and Winstrike had an intense first game as iG started strong with Xxs was going to carry the game. Winstrike remained headstrong and took the lead back on four separate occasions and closed out the game. Iceberg’s play on Necrophos and the death timer from Aghanim’s Scepter Reaper’s Scythe caused death timers to be long enough for Winstrike to close it out. Game 2 was one-sided as iG could not teamfight properly and Winstrike took the win and eliminated iG from TI8.

Group B proved to be more competitive. Virtus.pro took the second spot in the upper bracket on the as they swept Vici Gaming. The sweep forced Team Serenity into an elimination match against paiN Gaming. Team Serenity easily took the 2 games and eliminated paiN. OpTic Gaming managed to surge at the right moment to finish in the upper bracket with a 4 game win streak on Saturday. A three way tie breaker single round robin was formed between OpTic, NewBee and Team Secret. At the end of all the action, OpTic and Secret finished in the upper bracket and Newbee will move to the lower bracket and be in higher risk of elimination. To catch the beginning of the main event at The International 8, tune in on Monday 10AM PDT on Twitch!