Chinese teams made their mark early at The International 2025, grabbing statement wins to join PARIVISION in the frontline.

The first day of The International (TI) 2025’s Group Stage has wrapped up with exciting slate of matches and results. We’ve recapped the TI 2025 Group Stage Round 1–which delivered early upsets, a quick Rampage appearance, and impressive wins by the Southeast Asian underdogs. 

But Round 2 served even spicier results. Chinese teams had outlasted tournament favorites, with Xtreme Gaming defeating top contender, Team Spirit, and Team Tidebound taking down defending champions, Team Liquid. With these statement wins, both teams surged to the Top 3 of the standings, trailing just behind a flawless PARIVISION.

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.

This packed format means that every game carries weight–and that’s perhaps why we’ve already seen incredibly intense matches unfold on just the first day of the championship. Teams don’t seem to be holding back, with most series going to a third map, six of them already surpassing the 60-minute mark. Most notably, Helm of the Dominator, touted as the core of the TI meta, is already being spammed in nearly every game, even on unorthodox heroes. The do-or-die performances were apparent with every match. 

China roar into the lead as Xtreme and Tidebound grab statement victories

Xtreme Gaming were a hard team to read entering this tournament, with inconsistent results throughout the season. But they came out swinging at The International 2025’s Group Stage, claiming a strong early lead. 

The team had secured a solid 2-0 win in their Round 1 series, outlasting Eastern European powerhouse, Aurora Gaming. But the bigger fish came next, as Xtreme had to take on Team Spirit in Round 2. The two-time TI champions are intimidating, to say the least, especially as they recently won the high-profile Dota 2 competition at the Esports World Cup. But Xtreme was more than ready to clash.

The team took the first map against Spirit in 39 minutes, with their carry, Wang “Ame” Chunyu, posting a spotless 12/0/11 K/D/A on Alchemist. Team Spirit fought back in the next game, with Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk’s Templar Assassin snowballing to a deathless finish as well. But the decider match proved Xtreme’s ability to shut down the biggest favorites, drafting confidently and dictating the game with no hesitation. Ame played a risky Anti-Mage, unconventionally itemizing Helm of the Dominator with success. Interestingly, this hero-item combination has only been seen once before in LAN tournaments, according to Dota 2 statman Ben “Noxville” Steenhuisen.

Let’s take a moment to highlight Ame, who was a clear standout on the first day of the group stage. He delivered an almost flawless K/D/A, suffering only a single death across five matches, totaling 46/1/44. He is currently the best-performing player in terms of K/D/A and farming efficiency, racking up the highest GPM (gold per minute) and XPM (experience per minute).

Over in another series, Xtreme Gaming’s fellow regional brothers also pulled off a major upset. Team Tidebound had already gained an edge with a 2-1 victory against Natus Vincere in Round 1. But in Round 2, they were paired against the stronger defending champions, Team Liquid. The head-to-head matchup definitely favored Liquid, especially as they had recently defeated Tidebound in the FISSURE Universe Episode 6 tournament.

But TI 2025 tells a different story–at least on its first day. Tidebound convincingly outplayed Team Liquid to secure a 2-0 victory. That said, it's not as if Liquid were underperforming. They often led the laning stage and initiated strongly in every clash, but Tidebound played faster and executed better crowd control, ultimately shutting down Liquid in 42 minutes and 27 minutes in the next. Tidebound’s carry, Xuanang “Shiro” Guo, also notably finished the series with an impressive 16/1/22 total K/D/A.

PARIVISION lead the standings on Day 1 of TI 2025 Group Stage

Aside from the strong start by the Chinese teams, PARIVISION’s performance has also been impeccable. The team currently holds the top spot in the group stage ranking after first taking down Heroic and then defeating Nigma Galaxy in Round 2. In their second game against Nigma, PARIVISION notably flexed an offbeat Tinker carry on Satanic, who finished with a solid 11/2/11 score. However, it's worth noting that both their opponents have been on the weaker end of the field, so upcoming matches will better define their strength in the days ahead.

Team Falcons join PARIVISION, Tidebound, and Xtreme with a 2-0 win-loss record but sit just behind the Top 3 ranking after dropping an additional map. Nigma Galaxy, the fan favorites, have been performing decently–taking a surprise 2-0 win against BetBoom Team in Round 1, but losing a rough series against PARIVISION in Round 2. Other teams with a 1-1 win-loss score after Round 2 are Tundra Esports, Team Liquid, Team Spirit, Yakutou Brothers, BetBoom Team, NAVI, and Aurora Gaming.

Finally, the teams that had the roughest start to their TI 2025 journey are the tournament underdogs. Despite several map wins from SEA teams, Team Nemesis and BOOM Esports, both remain at a 0-2 overall score. However, worse results came from North America’s Wildcard and South America’s HEROIC, both of which failed to secure a single map and now sit at the bottom of the standings.

Here are the results for Round 2 of TI 2025's Group Stage:

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

With the results from Round 2, here are the matchups for Round 3:

2-0 matches:

  • Xtreme Gaming vs Team Falcons
  • PARIVISION vs Team Tidebound

1-1 matches:

  • Team Spirit vs Tundra Esports
  • Aurora Gaming vs Yakutou Brothers
  • Nigma Galaxy vs Team Liquid
  • NAVI vs BetBoom Team

0-2 matches:

  • Team Nemesis vs Wildcard
  • BOOM Esports vs HEROIC

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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