In just the first round of the new Swiss-format Group Stage, five games have already gone past 60 minutes.

The battle for the Aegis of Champions this year has finally begun. The International (TI) 2025, this year's Dota 2 world championship tournament, finally kicked off with Round 1 of its new Swiss-format Group Stage on Thursday (4 September). Tournament favourites Team Spirit and PARIVISION are off to a spectacular start by sweeping their first round matchups to get in good position to secure a direct berth to the Playoffs.

Dota 2 developer Valve introduced a new Swiss-format Group Stage this year, with the 16 participating teams competing in a five-round Swiss bracket with best-of-three matches. Teams will need to win four series in order to advance to the Playoffs while those that suffer four losses will be eliminated, with three teams advancing to the Playoffs and three others getting eliminated after the Group Stage. Teams will only face other squads that have the same record as them in each round.

The three teams that achieve 4-0 and 4-1 records after the Group Stage will be seeded directly to the Playoffs while the three squads that can only manage 0-4 and 1-4 standings will be eliminated. Meanwhile, the ten other teams with 3-2 and 2-3 records will have to fight it out in the Elimination Stage for the five remaining spots in the Playoffs.

The new format for this year's TI promised that every single match in the Group Stage mattered, and the action-packed first round has so far lived up to that promise. Of the 21 total games played in Round 1, five have already gone past the 60-minute mark, with game three of the match between Team Falcons and Team Nemesis notably lasting 70 minutes.

Spirit, PARIVISION start strong while Southeast Asia makes some noise

Eastern European juggernauts Spirit and PARIVISION are widely considered to be among the three biggest favourites to claim the Aegis of Champions this year, and both squads began their campaigns in TI 2025 with flawless performances in Round 1 of the Group Stage.

Spirit soundly swept North America's Wildcard, with Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk scoring a Rampage in his very first game of the tournament to seal a 70-minute win to kick off the series. Spirit then closed out the sweep in a 22-minute stomp in game two where they conceded just one death to their opponents.

Meanwhile, PARIVISION flexed their muscles versus HEROIC by outlasting their South American opponents in a 65-minute series opener behind an unexpected position 1 Tinker pick for Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov. PARIVISION then secured their first match victory of TI 2025 in a 35-minute game two.

Aside from Spirit and PARIVISION, the other big favourite this year is none other than defending champions Team Liquid. While Liquid defeated Southeast Asia's BOOM Esports in their opening match of TI 2025, it was far from a clean victory as the series went to three games. BOOM bounced back from a disheartening 63-minute loss in game one by dominating Liquid in 40 minutes in game two, showing that the tournament's underdog Southeast Asian squads were not easy opponents by any means. With that said, Liquid still secured the 2-1 series victory in 43 minutes in game three.

The other Southeast Asian squad in TI 2025, Nemesis, also gave a good account of themselves versus Falcons. After losing game one, the all-Filipino squad bounced back with a 44-minute win in game two to force the series to an unexpected decider. Game three was down to the wire all the way through 70 minutes of action, but Nemesis narrowly lost in the end as Ammar “ATF” Assaf essentially willed Falcons to victory.

Nigma pull off huge upset over BetBoom

Round 1 of the Group Stage has also produced the first big upset of the tournament so far. Fan-favourites Nigma Galaxy surprisingly took down Eastern European powerhouse BetBoom Team in a marathon of a series where the first two games went past the 60-minute mark and the third lasted 57 minutes.

Nigma took the first game of the series in 64 minutes behind Daniel Chan “Ghost” Kok Hong's Lone Druid, whose Spirit Bear almost singlehandedly secured the win. BetBoom then struck back by grinding down a stubborn Nigma defense in 63 minutes, only for another excellent performance from Ghost–this time on Troll Warlord–to secure the 2-1 upset for Nigma.

 As for the rest of the field, the results were within expectations. Chinese teams Team Tidebound and Xtreme Gaming secured victories over their European opponents in Natus Vincereand Aurora Gaming. The tournament's third Chinese representative in Yakutou Brothers, who came in as a last-minute replacement for Gaimin Gladiators, lost in three games to a Tundra Esports squad that have been forced to compete with a stand-in.

Here are all the results for Round 1 of TI 2025's Group Stage:

  • Aurora Gaming 0-2 Xtreme Gaming
  • Team Spirit 2-0 Wildcard
  • Team Falcons 2-1 Team Nemesis
  • Tundra Esports 2-1 Yakutou Brothers
  • PARIVISION 2-0 HEROIC
  • Team Liquid 2-1 BOOM Esports
  • BetBoom Team 1-2 Nigma Galaxy
  • Team Tidebound 2-1 Natus Vincere

With the results from Round 1, here are the matchups for Round 2:

1-0 matches:

  • Team Falcons vs Tundra Esports
  • Team Spirit vs Xtreme Gaming
  • PARIVISION vs Nigma Galaxy
  • Team Liquid vs Team Tidebound

0-1 matches:

  • Aurora Gaming vs Wildcard
  • Yakutou Brothers vs Team Nemesis
  • Natus Vincere vs HEROIC
  • BetBoom Team vs BOOM Esports

For more information on the biggest Dota 2 tournament of the year, check out GosuGamers' guide to this year's Dota 2 world championship tournament and TI 2025 tournament tracker.

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