Xtreme, Cloud9, Liquid, Aurora win The International seeding deciders

A backlit keyboard is part of the gear online video game streamer Jordan Woodruff uses in his Gilbert home.

Jordan Woodruff

Xtreme Gaming and Cloud9 earned top seeds at The International by winning their respective seeding deciders on Friday in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Xtreme Gaming swept Talon Esports 2-0 and Cloud9 did the same to 1w Team to earn the A1 and B1 seeds in the playoff bracket. They’ll be joined by Team Liquid, who beat BetBoom Team 2-1, and Aurora, who outlasted Team Zero 2-1, in the upper-bracket quarterfinals.

Liquid will face Xtreme and Aurora will play Cloud9 in the upper bracket. First, four more seeding deciders are scheduled for Saturday.

Sixteen teams entered the seeding deciders following the group stage earlier this week. They were broken into eight decider matches to determine their starting position in the double-elimination playoff bracket.

The winners will begin the main event in the upper bracket, and the losing sides will start out in the lower bracket. All matches are best-of-three until the grand final, which is best-of-five.

The champions will earn 45 percent of the prize pool, which began with a base of $1.6 million and will increase based on sales within the game.

On Friday, Xtreme took down Talon in 35 minutes on red and 51 1/2 minutes on green. Zhao “XinQ” Zixing of China averaged a 9.0-2.5-14.5 kills-deaths-assists ratio over the two maps for Xtreme.

Cloud9 defeated 1w Team in 39 minutes and 37 minutes, both on green. Volodymyr “Noone-” Minenko of Ukraine put up a 10.0-1.0-12.0 average K-D-A for Cloud9.

Team Liquid sandwiched wins of 48 minutes and 43 minutes on red around a 23-minute loss on green to BetBoom. The do-or-die third map saw Sweden’s Michael “miCKe” Vu post 14 kills, seven assists and no deaths.

Aurora beat Team Zero in 41 minutes on green, fell in 48 minutes on red and came back to earn a 62-minute victory on green. Worawit “Q” Mekchai of Thailand put up an 11-5-22 K-D-A ratio on the third map to guide Aurora.

Four seeding deciders remain on Saturday:

–Team Falcons vs. beastcoast

–Tundra Esports vs. HEROIC

–Team Spirit vs. nouns

–Gaimin Gladiators vs. G2 x iG

The International 2024 prize pool

1. $1,099,940 (45 percent)

2. $342,208 (14 percent)

3. $219,948 (9 percent)

4. $146,632 (6 percent)

5-6. $85,552 (3.5 percent)

7-8. $61,080 (2.5 percent)