Get Ready For Group Stage

The Road to The International's Group Stage weekend officially starts this Thursday at 10am PST. Players have been arriving in Seattle all week, preparing themselves for what promises to be an exciting — and with Group Stage eliminations now on the table, especially tense — round of match-ups.

In this year's Group Stage format, four groups of five teams will play round-robin games over two days, with the bottom team in each group getting eliminated. Then, the second half of Group Stage begins, with head-to-head matches between the remaining 16 teams. Victory in these final matches determine placement for Playoffs weekend: The winning teams will enter Playoffs in the Upper Bracket, the losing teams in the Lower Bracket.

Here are this year's groups: