Team Liquid has won The International 13 Dota 2 tournament, beating Gaimin Gladiators 3-0 in the grand final to become world champions.
Team Liquid was one of the favourite teams heading into the tournament, but a history of losing Grand Finals, especially when up against Gaimin Gladiators, led many people to consider them underdogs heading into the grand final. However, a dominant win in the final put to rest any doubts, proving they are the best Dota 2 team in the world.
The win means that the Team Liquid organisation has now won the International twice, but this is the first time this roster has won the biggest tournament in the world of Dota 2. However, Neta “33” Shapira does become one of the few players to have won The International twice, having previously won the 2022 event with Tundra Esports.
For winning TI, Liquid not only gets to lift the Aegis of Champions, but also takes home over $1.1 million, with Gaimin Gladiators only receiving just over $350,000 for second place.
Throughout the tournament Team Liquid was one of the most dominant teams. They only lost to defending champions Team Spirit in the group stage, but after that they went on an impressive upper bracket run, taking down multiple other teams that many thought had a shot at winning the tournament, including Xtreme Gaming, Cloud9 and Gaimin Gladiators.
Once the final rolled around it was Liquid who got off to a fast start despite Gaimin coming in with the hot hand having beaten Tundra Esports in the lower bracket final earlier in the day. Liquid took two fairly simple wins in the opening two games, relying on the combo of Nature’s Prophet, Shadow Demon and Tusk. While Liquid were forced onto slightly different heroes in game three it made little difference, with another impressive win from them where Gaimin Gladiators had little chance to turn things around.
The final may not have lived up to the epic expectations, but Liquid winning in such dominant fashion is one of the most satisfying endings possible, with a team that is beloved by fans finally breaking their finals curse on the biggest stage of them all. This win will go down as one of the most loved in Dota history.
While the action in game was epic throughout the tournament, there was a lot of other news coming out of The International. For the first time Deadlock gameplay was shown on a Valve broadcast, and a brand new Dota 2 hero called Kez was revealed, with the latter expected to launch within the next few weeks.
