The International 12 Groups Match-up are out, and it’s looking spicy!

The International 12 (TI12) Group Stage match-ups are live and we got some interesting match-ups in Phase One, especially since many variables have changed since the TI12 Direct Invites were confirmed back in July.

Since its a single round robin stage at the start, everyone will get play everyone else in their group over the next two days. Hence, its only logical that we look at each group holistically.

Group A

Starting off with the first group, we have the fan favorite and recent Riyadh Masters 2023 Champion, Team Spirit. In this group, there are 9Pandas, Entity, Evil Geniuses and Team SMG, which is quite a balanced group in terms of region.

While Team Spirit is indisputably the most confident team to place top seeds, we can expect 9Pandas to follow closely behind. Sure, there’s the wildcard team, Team SMG, which features two European veteran players, Volodymyr “No[o]ne-” Minenko and Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov, to give even Spirit a run for their money. But until we get a glimpse of SMG in action, 9Pandas remain the likely top seeds alongside Team Spirit.

EG, the now South American powerhouse, hasn’t been at its best form since Bali Major, so we won’t count on them despite being one of the twelve TI12 direct invites. In fact, Entity, the recent TI12 Western European regional qualifier winner, seems like a more promising team to advance into Phase Two of the group stage.

Group B

Moving forward in Group B, we have one of the Big WEU Trio in action, Team Liquid, coming in as the top dog. Just as they defined themselves, Liquid’s second season can be sum up into one word, ‘second’. Placing second in all three Majors and also placing second in Riyadh Masters is a testament to their consistency. Especially with Michał “Nisha” Jankowski at the forefront.

Creeping just behind, we can expect Azure Ray or BetBoom Team to be on par when it comes to securing the other top-seed spot. Azure, the Chinese powerhouse, won the recent Asian Games 2023 and could rival even their regional rival, LGD Gaming. BetBoom, which is a team that always tends to fall off when it matters, is still a stacked squad of all-star players. Hence, we won’t count them out so lightly.

Everyone’s favorite North American team, Shopify Rebellion, which hasn’t been the talk of the town lately, is still the ex-EG squad that competed in various TI Championships and Majors. It wouldn’t be too surprising if Shopify turned out to be the better team of the other two to land top seeds since they are a team that has been together for a long time.

This leaves Thunder Awaken, the most unseasoned team in the group, and likely wouldn’t survive Phase One.

Read also: The International 2023: All Hosts & Broadcast Talent

Group C

Group C is where Gaimin Gladiators, the best-performing team among the Big WEU Trio, will be playing. On paper, this group seems to have the least challenging opponents for Gaimin, with only LGD Gaming and potentially beastcoast to give them a tougher time.

Besides that, Virtus.pro and nouns are essentially non-threats. Gaimin aside, expect a rough competition between nouns and VP not to be the last team in Group C. Considering this is arguably the most optimal match-up these regional-qualified teams can hope for. Compare this to being in Thunder Awaken’s shoes at Group B, and there’s a better opportunity to survive Phase One for the former.

Group D

Lastly, Tundra Esports, the returning TI Champions, will be in Group D, where they have familiar opponents, such as PSG Quest (formerly Quest Esports), Talon Esports and TeamSoloMid. Particularly, Talon, the Southeast Asian powerhouse, has recently gained momentum at Riyadh Masters by placing third and was dubbed the Gaimin Destroyers.

Considering how effective Gaimin was against its regional rivals, such as PSG Quest and Tundra themselves, surely they are keeping an eye out on Talon. Realistically, however, we can expect Talon and Quest to contest for the top seeds, while Tundra has one of the top seeds in the bag. TSM’s performance gap from the other three has been cripplingly blatant since their underwhelming participation in majors.

Even then, it would be difficult to bet on Keyd Stars, the South American regional-qualified team, to be able to contest with TSM.

Now, this is an early preview of what to expect the match-ups to pan out in the groups of the International 2023. And, more often than not, predictions don’t always go accordingly. Nevertheless, we can expect most of the promising staples to be in the Playoffs, as the last-placed teams to be eliminated are likely the regional-qualified teams.