Crazy draft game three of Spirit vs XG, let's see how this plays out.
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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The AM draft is working. God help us all.
That said, XG is playing very well and Spirit is not looking in good form. The micro from Yatoro was crazy though.
Helm of the Dominator is the new Wraith Pact. God help us even harder.
Remove it mid-tournament. If it's really that bad, it'd be the right thing to do.
I support it, and think they possibly should have with Wraith Pact. But it's not gonna happen, so just strap in and suffer.
Awesome series between Nigma and BBT.
spoiler
Extremely happy to see Nigma come out so strong. They should have stomped BB in game 2, but they absolutely crushed them in game 3. Would love to see them go far in the tournament. Seeing how much Kuro has persisted after all these years, I'm cheering for them as hard as I can.
As someone who has watched TI from the very start it's fun to see some of the old school names and characters of the scene still competing in some form. I was always rooting for Puppey and it still makes me a bit sad that he'll never get his second Aegis.
Ghost is looking pretty strong at the moment. Maybe it is just the 4 protect 1 kinda thing they often do, but the rest of the team just doesn't quite look as hot.
Ghost did look very good. It was great to see him play with so much confidence. And it would really be great for the SEA scene to see one of their own go deep into the tournament.
Also happy to see Sumail still going strong. His initiations were amazing. TI5 was 10 years ago at this point, it's good to see him still playing great Dota.
I do love Ghost's story of first playing in SEA, then China and now EU/MENA. Shows just how international the pro scene has become. And how much players can benefit from being multilingual.
Sumail was a joy to watch back on his storm spirit again. He may have been around for a while, but you have to remember he is still fairly young. Winning TI at 16 was bonkers.
I was assuming that the best games would be at the end of the group stage and the first few rounds would be stomps, but I was very wrong. Super hyped for the rest of the tourney if this is how things start!
For once the traditional "change up the format year-on-year for no reason" has paid off, as this new group stage format is miles better and has produced several banger series from day one.