The International 2015 Day 1: thoughts on LGD and Empire

Here's the schedule for the main event on day 1 (you can find the complete schedule here) 

The first series delivered.

It went 3 game in what many thought would be a 2-0 LGD victory. Empire was outplayed and out-drafted in game three, but their extremely aggressive play style caught LGD off gaurd. Empire received a direct invite to TI this year and these games delivered. Yoky played next level in games 1 and 2. Unfortunately, in game 3 a tension existed between a Magnus Reverse Polarity (RP) and the team of LGD. They never gave away more position than they had to, thus curbing Empire's offlaners potential to bring Empire back into game three. Game two saw Silent ball out of control on the Antimage (AM) and take on the entire LGD team in the Radiant safe lane toward the end of the game. At one point I think he was hitting for 500+ damage with empower and battlefurry; it was impressive to say the least. Game 1 was the most back and forth. Yoky's strut his stuff on Axe and it seemed that Empire was in striking distance of a win, however Silent's and Resolut1on's aggressive blinks seemingly cost them getting a set Rax at a pivotal point in the game.

LGD played a good series. Xiao8 really baited Empire into a poor strategy in the deciding game 3. Empire picked the Phantom Lancer (PL) third pick and LGD immediately picked Ember Spirit giving them Gyro and Ember to deal with the illusion spawning  Maybe's performace in the midlane was dominant every game. One comentator compared Maybe to Sumail's performance from DAC. I don't have as much to say about LGD as Empire because they just played such solid DOTA. Their patience paid off in game 1 when they were facing down potentially lost Rax. They didn't lose their cool after a demoralizing loss to an Antimage game 2.

LDG deserved the win with their play. They will face CDEC gaming in the upper bracket for their next series. If Xiao8 can continue his restraint and brilliance, they should be able to defeat a Chinese team who plans on making a deep run from the Wildcard slot.