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The International 2023, the premier Dota 2 event of the year, is about to begin. The start of the World Championship will be given in the group stage, where the 20 best teams in the world are divided into 4 groups of 5 teams each.
According to standard practice, the group stage matches will be played in parallel, in stages. In one of the first fights of the day we will see a clash between BB Team and Thunder Awaken.
Let's find out which team will be stronger in this confrontation and whether it will be found at all. Will one of the sides manage to get a clean win in the Bo2 match, which will greatly improve their position in the group stage.
Let's go.
BB Team Form
Let's start the match against BB Team, as they are nominally the stronger side. And I agree: BB Team are very peppy and often perform well at stages like this due to the strong individual level of the players.
In the first season of the regional league, BB Team made it to the top 1, very confidently running over their main opponents Spirit and HR. However, this success was quickly overshadowed by their performance at Lima Major 2023, where BB failed to make it out of the group.
A few inconclusive events later, BB Team began play in the second division of the DPC. This time the situation changed dramatically, from top 1 to top 3, but on the international stage everything was stable: another failure to get out of the group at the Major e.
The third season of DPC was held under the slogan "it's time to get back", but somehow it didn't work out, something didn't go well and in the end - TOP-2. Again, kind of significant, but if we compare Western and Eastern Europe, TOP-2 in the first case is much more prestigious than BB's achievement.
- BB Team line-up: Nightfall, gpk, Pure, Save, TORONTOTOKYO.
BB Team's moment of glory was DreamLeague Season 20. Having got to the tournament quite by chance (they replaced Execration), the Eastern European residents managed to make it to the grand final of the tournament, where they beat Gladiators, but eventually lost with the score 2-3.
After a solid group stage at The Bali Major 2023 with a 4-2-2 from BB, Eastern European Resident made it to the top set of play-offs. There the team outplayed Tundra Esports, but due to a tournament rules violation that result was cancelled. As a result, Bali Major 2023 ended for BB Team in the top 12.
After the last Major tournament of the season BB Team attended a number of other events. Among them is the Riyadh Masters 2023. At the biggest commercial tournament of the season, BB Team made it to the top 6, which is pretty good.
In addition to the Riyadh Masters 2023 BB Team also made an appearance at the BB Dacha. The tournament from the main sponsor BB Club finished without having started: BB Team failed to get out of the group and as a result finished in the top 8.
In the group stage of DreamLeague Season 21 BB Team played in Group B. They managed to take the 2nd place, passing only Team Spirit.
As a result, BB Team had a very good performance at DL S21, which was the last tournament before The International 2023. They managed to reach the top 3 of the championship, losing in the match for the grand finals to Shopify Rebellion (1-2).
Most popular BB Team characters
The most used BB Team character remains Storm Spirit (5 matches, 60% wins). The team also plays with Primal Beast and Pugna at position 4, and both heroes have 4 matches and 100% wins each. In spades was Enchantress (4 matches, 25% wins), Beastmaster (4 games, 0% wins).
Thunder Awaken Form.
We continue our match breakdown by analysing Thunder Awaken's match form. In this match they are playing second best, and all because of a much weaker season and overall poor performance.
In the first season Thunder Awaken played worse than expected. Then the club took only 3 maps out of 7, which did not allow them to rise above the top 5.
However, in the case of Thunder Awaken this result is not bad. The team kept their place in the top division, which is already great.
Further, they improved their performance. In the second cycle of DPC 2023: SA Upper Division Thunder Awaken climbed to the third place, Ledgeiv only the main competitors for the victory in general - beastcoast and Evil Geniuses. In fact, now they are close to repeating the result.
- Thunder Awaken roster: Knight, SLATEM$, ILICH, n1ght, Mjz .
In addition to the DPC ranking ecosystem, the team has played outside of its format but local tournaments in the 1XPLORE LATAM series, where they won twice, but the main focus is still on the league.
At DPC 2023: SA Division 1 Tour 3 Thunder Awaken Thunder Awaken made it to the top 3, which was not enough to advance to Bali Major 2023.
After the third round, DPC won 1XPLORE LATAM #4, EPL World Series: America Season 5, and Phygital Gamers 2023 Season 2.
Thunder Awaken's opening match was against Balrogs. The warm-up was successful as Thunder Awaken shut out Balrogs 2-0.
In the match to advance to the finals of The International 2023 - South America, Thunder Awaken played against Keyd Stars. Being the favourite of the encounter, Thunder lost rather unexpectedly, thus distancing themselves from the promised pre-Long Sogpeg qualifying slot for The International 2023.
Thunder Awaken played against Qhali in the semi-finals of the lower grid. In that match, TA should have had no trouble in dealing with their vis-a-vis, but they had to struggle and it turned into a full-fledged Bo3.
After losing to Keyd Stars in the match to qualify for The International 2023, Thunder Awaken cameback in the bottom set and, not without problems, but made it here.
Thunder Awaken's most popular characters
The most frequent guest in Thunder Awaken picks is Crystal Maiden. The character has appeared 15 times, while having a winrate of 60%.
Besides CM honours Dawnbreaker (11 games, 81% win rate), Zeus (9 games, 44% win rate), Marci (9 games, 33% win rate), Nyx Assassin (8 games, 62% win rate).
History of head-to-head meetings
Previously, the teams have not played each other in head-to-head matches. This match is the debut match for the sides.
Predicted match Thunder Awaken - BB Team at The International 2023
It's hard to think of a better Long Convergence for BB Team. Thunder Awaken is a very comfortable opponent to start the group stage with a clean win.
Considering BB Team's experience playing at title tournaments this year, as well as their high level of individual performance, they should easily close 2-0. I don't see any other options yet.
Bottom line: BB Team wins.
