It’s just a few days until the Road to the The International 2024 kicks off, and all the teams have safely arrived (except one missing player who we’ll touch on later). While there’ll be a deeper dive into every team in an upcoming article, let’s first look at the Group Stage draw.

There are four groups, with each team playing a two-game series against each other team in the group. There are tiebreaker matches possible in some situations - more likely than last year, and even a minor upset can completely change the trajectory of multiple teams.

Group A: 1win, Gaimin Gladiators, HEROIC, Xtreme Gaming 

Group B: Cloud9, G2 x iG, Talon Esports, Tundra Esports 

Group C: BetBoom Team, nouns, Team Falcons, Team Zero

Group D: Aurora, beastcoast, Team Liquid, Team Spirit

My first observation is that the groups are geographically divvied up quite well. Assuming you consider Team Falcons as a Western European team (not a MENA team as they are considered in the EFG circuit), there’s a nice split – although Cloud9 and Tundra are in the same group and are both Western European teams they both have some Eastern European players. Where possible, having this well-mixed group composition is nice because it reduces matchups common in regional qualifiers. 

Next I’d like to look at some Glicko 2 ratings of the teams. These are values derived from mathematical models designed to quantify the skill of teams - similar to how Elo ratings are commonly used in chess. These are based on all their pro matches played ever, but more recent results are added last and quickly drown out the older data. This is really the only data we have to go on, since scrim results are not readily available nor reliable – behind the scenes teams get a lot closer in skill in the few weeks preparing for The International.

Group A has, on average, the most skilled teams with both Xtreme Gaming and Gaimin Gladiators (both top 4 by Glicko ratings) being together. HEROIC is also the highest rated low-seed of any group.

Group B has Tundra (rated 5th overall) as their top seed however they will also be playing the event with a stand-in so their true underlying skill is probably slightly lower. This is probably great news for a team like G2 x iG who would love to upset them and come top 2 in Group B (being able to dodge the tough Xtreme/Gaimin pairing). Note that none of the teams in Group B were direct invites.

Group C has Team Falcons, one of the favourites to win the event, along with BetBoom who were also direct invites. Team Zero’s rating is possibly a bit undervalued simply because they haven’t played as many professional matches so there is higher uncertainty of their skill.

Group D is the final group with two-time TI champions, Team Spirit, as their top seed. Their low seed is beastcoast, the lowest rated team of the TI competitors.

With these Glicko ratings, some data on recent results of team matchups, and some mathematical simulation - we can also model how likely each team’s outcome is in each group. 

This highlights some potentially interesting (and very possible!) scenarios.

It seems very likely there’ll be some tiebreaker matches. Group A is the most likely (52%) with a fight for first and possibly second. Group B is quite similar (49%) but this could be even higher if Tundra are closer in skill to Cloud9 given their substitution. Group C is the least likely (37%) because of the high variance in the group making first and fourth so likely to be Falcons & Zero. Group D (44%) is lower because of beastcoast’s low rating, but there could be a scramble if Spirit are upset by anyone or if Aurora/Liquid is close.

Over the prior iterations of The International, on average 2.75 Chinese teams have placed in the Top Six. The lowest number of Chinese teams in the Top 6 is 1, happening just once before - in 2018 (LGD came 3rd). It seems likely that we see a repeat of that this year (with just Xtreme being rated in the top 6) or possibly even more dire if, for the first time, no Chinese teams make it.

In 2017, The Americas was split into North and South America with their own qualifiers for The International. Since then there've been 7 instances that teams from North or South America have placed Top Eight, and 16 instances that they've placed 13th or worse. The stats suggest that record won't be drastically improved this year - there seems to be a very clear stratification for the top 6-10 teams, although it’s possible that nouns or HEROIC could go on a streak.

And finally - what are the chances we see a player or coach lifting the Aegis for a second time? This seems actually quite likely this year - six teams are eligible including Team Spirit (all of them, and their coach Silent), Falcons (skiter, Sneyking, and Aui_2000), BetBoom Team (TORONTOTOKYO), Team Liquid (33), Team Zero (their coach bLink), and Tundra Esports (Topson and Saksa). Based on simulation data these teams win approximately 55% of the time.

Overall I consider the groups relatively well balanced but I am a bit surprised that Group B has no direct invites and also no top 4 rated teams. I’d have swapped Gaimin Gladiators and Tundra Esports, but I admit it’s not a huge deal. This format of The International isn’t that great compared to some of the ones in the past - simply because it relies heavily on the groups being quite fairly allocated, but if there’s one thing that The International always delivers it’s fantastic Dota and huge upsets.