The third day of competition in The International 7 group stages has drawn to a close and the competition in both groups remains very fierce. Each group still has teams in the bottom four with the potential to secure an upper bracket berth in the main event.
Group A
Group A's biggest story Friday may have been that Fnatic finally managed to win a second game, defeating iG.Vitality in the first game of the series. It was far from a perfect game, but it at least showed some glimpses of the Fnatic team fans hoped to see in Seattle. Fnatic has a lot on its shoulders going into the final day of competition. Not only does it have to win its series versus Evil Geniuses to earn a spot in the main event, which would be a massive upset, but Fnatic needs Infamous to lose as well. The rest of the competition remains close in Group A.
Apart from its 1-1 series against Fnatic, iG.V started to show signs of life. It managed to upset TNC for another series tie, putting iG.V in position to potentially secure a spot in the top of the group. In addition to winning 2-0 vs. Infamous, iG.V needs either TNC or EG to lose their final series.
Team Secret managed to take a game off EG thanks in large part to Pyo "MP" No-a and Maurice "KheZu" Gutmann making smart late-game decisions, but Secret still needs to sweep Liquid to secure any hope at finishing in the top four of Group A. The top spot in Group A has already been claimed by Team Liquid, and LGD Gaming is at No. 2. For the rest of the group, anything could happen on the final day.
Group B
Although it did secure a guaranteed upper bracket placement in Group B, LGD.Forever Young was finally defeated in an impressive upset by Digital Chaos. After taking Game 1 with relative ease, LFY chose to spice up its draft with a Pudge and Omniknight. Digital Chaos punished LFY quite heavily with a Drow Ranger lineup, but the real stars of the show were Abed Azel "Abed" Yusop and Lee "FoREV" Sang-don who combined for a total of 20 kills.
Digital Chaos has secured its way to at least the lower bracket in the main event, but with two more series to play on Day 4, there is still a chance for the squad to move into the upper bracket. At the bottom of Group B, Cloud9 finally managed to secure its second win in a back-and-forth 74-minute game against Execration, but Cloud9 can still be eliminated tomorrow when it faces up against Hellraisers and Digital Chaos.
The fourth and final day of group stages will be a major test for all the teams in the bottom of each group. Many of these teams have an opportunity to secure a spot in the upper bracket of the main event, but for the teams on the very bottom it will be a bitter fight for survival.