PARIVISION among 4 teams to start 2-0 at The International

PARIVISION, Team Tidebound, Xtreme Gaming and Team Falcons opened The International 2025 with a pair of victories Thursday in Hamburg, Germany.

TI 14 kicked off its first two rounds Thursday, and those four 2-0 clubs are now one win away from advancing directly to the playoff stage. They'll face off in a pair of Round 3 matches Friday.

Sixteen teams are competing in the prestigious Dota 2 event -- eight invitees and eight teams from regional qualifiers. The group stage employs a Swiss system format in which all matches are best-of-three. The top three teams will head straight to the playoffs, while the fourth through 13th teams will move to a special elimination round to determine the other five playoff teams.

The playoffs will be a double-elimination bracket. All matches are best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final Sept. 14.

The tournament's base prize pool is worth $1.6 million, and it will grow as 30 percent of all supporter bundle sales will be added to the pot. The current pool is more than $2.4 million.

Thursday, PARIVISION beat HEROIC and Nigma Galaxy by 2-0 scores. They prevailed in 66 minutes on red and 35 minutes against HEROIC, then took down Nigma Galaxy in 41 minutes on green and 56 minutes on red in a matchup of 1-0 sides.

Team Tidebound went the distance to defeat Natus Vincere in their opener, sandwiching a 36-minute win on red and a 45-minute triumph on green around NaVi's 32-minute win on red. In Round 2, Tidebound swept Team Liquid in 43 minutes on green and 27 minutes on red.

Xtreme Gaming blanked Aurora (44 minutes and 39 minutes, both on green) before outlasting Team Spirit 2-1. Xtreme prevailed in 40 minutes on green, fell in 36 minutes on red and rebounded for a 40-minute victory on red.

Finally, Team Falcons pulled out consecutive 2-1 wins over Team Nemesis and Tundra Esports. Against Nemesis, Falcons prevailed in 37 minutes and lost the next round in 44 minutes before a 70-minute deciding win, playing on red each time. Falcons then defeated Tundra in 31 minutes on green and lost in 36 minutes on red before earning a 38-minute decision on green.

Four teams lost both their matches. Team Nemesis, Wildcard, BOOM Esports and HEROIC face elimination in their Round 3 fixtures.

Friday's schedule is as follows:

2-0 matches

--Xtreme Gaming vs. Team Falcons

--PARIVISION vs. Team Tidebound

1-1 matches

--Team Spirit vs. Tundra Esports

--Aurora Gaming vs. Yakutou Brothers

--Nigma Galaxy vs. Team Liquid

--Natus Vincere vs. BetBoom Team

0-2 matches

--Team Nemesis vs. Wildcard

--BOOM Esports vs. HEROIC

--Field Level Media