Team Liquid wins The International 2024 with a perfect run for the Dota 2 history books

Under the Big Top of Cobenhagen’s Royal Arena, Team Liquid completed a dream that started in October 2019, a dominant 3-0 sweep of Gaimin Gladiators to win The International 2024. As a result, Liquid claims the Aegis of Champions and will have their names forever inscribed upon Dota 2’s ultimate symbol of victory. 

It was a perfect run for Liquid at TI13, with William "Blitz" Lee and his boys going 9-0 through the playoffs, something that has never happened prior to today. Along with the Aegis, Liquid takes home $1,153,268 in prizing. 

After running through Xtreme Gaming and Cloud9, Liquid and Gaimin met in the upper bracket finals, setting the stage for a trend dating back to when their current iterations formed prior to the 2023 season. 

While this stage was bigger than all that came before it, the two Western European juggernauts clashed in five other grand finals since January 2023—with Gaimin winning all five meetings. In that same span, Gaimin held a 62.5 percent winrate in all games against Liquid, including knocking Liquid out of TI12 last year in fifth place. Most recently, Gaimin bested Liquid to win Riyadh Masters 2024 in July. But at TI, something shifted in Liquid’s approach toward their bracket demon, and after a 2-0 win in the upper bracket finals, other players noticed it too. 

In an interview with Noxville on bo3, Team Zero’s Remus "ponlo" Goh noted that Liquid had the most depth to their game out of any team, especially when it comes to drafting. 

Throughout the event, Liquid consistently out-drafted their opponents before stomping them into the ground. From Boxi saves to miCKe plays, nothing Gaimin could muster phased Liquid’s relentless push across the map. 

This win made Neta "33" Shapira just the 10th player to ever win two TIs, the remainder of Liquid’s roster reached the apex of competitive Dota after years of struggling and falling just short. 

Michał "Nisha" Jankowski spent four years climbing slowly up the rankings with Team Secret, capping out alongside Clement "Puppey" Ivanov’s last legendary “scripted” run with a second-place finish at TI11 before jumping ship to Liquid. But the real story lies in Liquid’s core: Michael "miCKe" Vu, Samuel "Boxi" Svahn, and Aydin "Insania" Sarkohi.

Having played against each other back in Heroes of Newerth, the trio eventually joined forces on Alliance in November 2017, climbing the ranks and eventually qualifying for their first TI in 2019. After that run, they joined Liquid, alongside Blitz, in October 2019 and have slowly grown into one of the most dominant cores in Dota. 

Since teaming up, miCKe, Boxi, and Insania have combined to play the most professional Dota games of any three players in history. Prior to the TI13 grand finals, the trio had played 1,352 games together with 756 wins and a 55.92 percent winrate. The next closest group of three is the former Liquid core of Ivan "MinD_ContRoL" Ivanov, Maroun "GH" Merhej, and Kuro "KuroKy" Takhasomi at 1,119 games. 

Along with being the first perfect playoff run in TI history, according to the broadcast, Liquid joins OG and Team Spirit as the only organizations to win multiple TIs and is now the first org to claim two TI wins with completely different rosters. Depending on how you look at it, this was also the first major tournament miCKe, Boxi, Insania, and Blitz have ever won together. 

As for Gaimin, this marks their second straight year finishing as runners-up at TI following a strong season. They fell just short after putting together a strong comeback against Tundra Esports in the lower bracket finals that featured arguably the best match of the entire event. 

Thanks for reading! I am going to have a bigger breakdown of TI as a whole up later this week once I can get some numbers finalized, including viewership metric comparisons and the seeming lack of fanfare for this year’s event. 

If that, or any of my other work interests you, please consider subscribing to the blog and checking out my other links! It really helps me out, and there is plenty more coming soon. 

As a fun additional fact, this is also the first time a Chinese team has not been present in the top four at a TI, while it is the third time three Western European teams have made it that far.

If you haven’t followed this Liquid team over the last several years, I also highly recommend giving the Boxi mini-documentary from last year a watch. It will help put some things into perspective.