The day began with pageantry as Gabe welcomed everyone to The International. Teams were introduced, videos shown, and then there was lightning inside of Benaroya Hall.

Within the first 5 minutes of the opening game between Na’Vi and Orange, there were seven kills. From that explosive beginning, Orange went on to dominate Na’Vi in the first game, but that domination was short lived. Na’Vi came charging back and took two straight.

That sent Na’Vi into the final six and guaranteed prize money. Orange was sent down into the lower bracket where they faced Dignitas in a single game for elimination.

Dignitas earned that spot by beating wildcard entry RattleSnake. The game was a slow burn slug fest that had Dignitas pushing RS back on their heels mid game and leaving them never able to counter. With that loss, RattleSnake was out of the the tournament.

Orange didn’t take their earlier loss lightly and came back strong against Dignitas. The exciting match ended with Dignitas being overwhelmed by Orange led by Mushi. With that loss, Dignitas will watch the remainder of The International from the sideline. Orange will continue their International.

TongFu Vs Fnatic was the second upper bracket match. TongFu followed Orange’s lead and dominated Fnatic in the first game. While it briefly looked like Fnatic would be able to duplicate Na’Vi’s comeback in the second game, they lost it in the late game and TongFu was victorious. That moved them into the top 6 and a break until Friday.

Fnatic was sent into a single elimination match against LGD.int.

LGD.int won their first elimination game against Mouz. That game went quickly towards LGD.int and Mouz valiantly fought back but just wasn’t able to mount a counter attack.

With that loss, Mouz left the International

Fnatic vs LGD.int was the last regular game of the evening. Fnatic took early control of the match and never gave it up. LGD.int was eliminated and Fnatic moved on.

This means both of the losers of their upper bracket games were able to move on by defeating the winners of their lower bracket games.

Because 10 hours of Dota 2 is never enough, we ended the evening with an all-star match. Who won? We all won. What did we win? Awesome fun to watch Dota 2. Watch the replay, check our Instagram and Flickr feeds for a ton of photos.

Thanks to every person who bought a Compendium or who watches\plays Dota 2. Today exists because you made it exist. Thank you so much and we will see you tomorrow with the doors at Benaroya Hall opening at 11am and the show starting at 12 noon PST.