DotA 2, The International 3 Thread

Now that it's just a couple weeks away I decided to open a thread where we can post news, updates, our predictions, what team we're cheering for and so on.
You can check TI3's main website here, you can see all the teams that are going to participate, which teams qualified from the west and the east, and which are the wildcard contenders.
Latest update is that the schedules are finally announced! And you can check it out here: Wish You Were Here
Or, to keep everything in the same place:

The International 3 Schedule

Group Stage:

Date	Time PST	Time EST	Time CEST
August 3	9am-10pm	12pm-1am	6pm-7am
August 4	9am-10pm	12pm-1am	6pm-7am
August 5	9am-2pm	12pm-5pm	6pm-11pm

Main Event

Date	Time PST	Time EST	Time CEST
August 7	12pm- 9~11pm	2pm- 11~1am	9pm- 6~8am
August 8	12pm- 9~11pm	2pm- 11~1am	9pm- 6~8am
August 9	12pm- 9~11pm	2pm- 11~1am	9pm- 6~8am
August 10	12pm- 7~11pm	2pm- 9~1am	9pm- 4~8am
August 11	12pm- 6~9pm	2pm- 8~11pm	9pm- 3~6am

Let me know if I messed up with the time zones.

Current Price Pool

Note: Will update when necessary!

Teams

[spoiler=][/spoiler]

[spoiler=Schedule announced! I'll update with est and cest times when possible!]
*Those are PST times[/spoiler]

My prediction is that is gonna be an awesome week! I'm a bit sad that I'll miss a couple matches here and there because of school but that gives me the chance to watch replays in client which should be a lot better. I'm sure all teams will give their best and can't cheer for just one, other than Quantic Gaming. I'd love to see them win the Wild Card.

What do you think about the price pool? Will it get even bigger now that it's just 2 weeks away?

I am completely certain that we'll reach the 2.6 million mark.
Personally cheering for Na'Vi.

Also i'm currently thinking of some cool things to do in this thread before/during the event.

Also i'm currently thinking of some cool things to do in this thread before/during the event.

Just let me know!

I'm so sad that EG didn't make it. I would have been cheering for the Western teams but they're stomping the Eastern ones so bad right now I almost feel like cheering for IG even though they were winner/runner up of the last 2.

My Na'Vi fanboy wants them to get into the finals and win, but I feel one of the Eastern teams will win just by going with the safest team.

I want Na'Vi to win, but they are not what they used to be

I would bet to Na'Vi since well, I don't know the others team at all.
And aren't the na'vi guys the champions from the last time?

I would bet to Na'Vi since well, I don't know the others team at all.
And aren't the na'vi guys the champions from the last time?

Na'vi won the first international and got second place last time

I think Na'vi can easily get top 4 with high chances of winning the whole thing. But who knows if what I've seen last month is all that relevant, maybe teams that have been on a slump start playing better then.
On that note, I'm curious how IG will do and what will Alliance play. Every time I watch them playing it feels the same to almost every other game they play.

I'll be rooting for Mouz. I expect Alliance to win, though. Top 4? Probably Alliance, Na'Vi, LGD.cn, and Liquid IMO. Maybe Orange or IG, haven't really watched Eastern scene recently.

I honestly just want Na'vi in the grand finals, them winning would just be a bonus.
The grand finals just need to be some fucking glorious games, if the games are good i'll be more than content.
I want to see the best of the best dota.

I'll be rooting for Mouz. I expect Alliance to win, though. Top 4? Probably Alliance, Na'Vi, LGD.cn, and Liquid IMO. Maybe Orange or IG, haven't really watched Eastern scene recently.

I think mouz has the potential to cause some upsets but I don't expect them to win.
I wouldn't put Liquid in the top 4. They're decent but they suffer from the NA curse of being horribly inconsistent.

I think mouz has the potential to cause some upsets but I don't expect them to win.
I wouldn't put Liquid in the top 4. They're decent but they suffer from the NA curse of being horribly inconsistent.

Wait really? I thought Team Liquid was one of the teams that play with a steady game style/meta, or do you mean they can rock hard one game and next game throw harder than a flying shot put?

Wait really? I thought Team Liquid was one of the teams that play with a steady game style/meta, or do you mean they can rock hard one game and next game throw harder than a flying shot put?

it's more that they have streaks where they do very well and streaks where they look completely outclassed. most teams have them but the NA teams seem to have them more than other teams.

Wait really? I thought Team Liquid was one of the teams that play with a steady game style/meta, or do you mean they can rock hard one game and next game throw harder than a flying shot put?

They make the same mistakes as every other team and loose every other game because of it. They play steady line ups/ item choices but their games sometimes are weird.

They're playing against EG right now and it's baffling.

I have to agree with the above, though Liquid is definitely the strongest NA team and the most consistent of the big 3 (EG, Liquid, Dignitas).

$2.6m goal was met

woo, immortal items

also there's a gigantic shitstorm because blizzard plans to (not sure if they still are) hold their wcs finals on the same weekend as ti3 finals.

good luck getting viewers, blizzard.

$2.6m goal was met

woo, immortal items

also there's a gigantic pomegranatestorm because blizzard plans to (not sure if they still are) hold their wcs finals on the same weekend as ti3 finals.

good luck getting viewers, blizzard.

still plan on doing it.
they made a statement on /r/starcraft about it, somehow managing to say absolutely nothing of substance while being defensive and trying to shame people who are annoyed about it. it's simultaneously baffling and hilarious.
the problems are going to be that a) twitch is going to crash and b) a lot of sc2 players are going to have to make a tough decision because a lot of them really want to watch TI3.
I guess once twitch crashes they won't have to make that decision anymore; there's no equivalent of Dota TV for Starcraft.
also it's a stupid as balls decision to hold all 3 on the same weekend regardless of what else is going on. Blizzard really fucked up.

I guess once twitch crashes they won't have to make that decision anymore; there's no equivalent of Dota TV for Starcraft.

iirc Twitch held up fine during season two finals and I highly doubt they've completely stopped adding servers since then.

iirc Twitch held up fine during season two finals and I highly doubt they've completely stopped adding servers since then.

it seems to have gotten worse since then actually. since own3d went kablooie, no one has really been competitive with twitch in terms of streaming. azubu.tv was a flop (due to the fact that the guy who owned azubu was shady as hell) and I don't think anyone else has really been a serious competitor.
the only real alternative is Youtube--which Valve has also apparently gotten on board. though youtube doesn't really do personal streams so twitch still has a corner on that particular market.
but the major problem is that there are going to be ~150k watching sc2 plus ~250k-300k watching TI3 which is more than world finals had last year (on twitch at least; the chinese stream made up a large amount of the final number). and twitch was barely holding up iirc.