LGD Gaming and Azure Ray swept their matches on Friday to set up an upper-bracket semifinal matchup next week as the playoff phase of The International 2023 opened in Seattle.

Team Liquid also won in a sweep and will meet Friday’s other victorious side, Team Spirit, in the other upper-bracket semifinal.

LGD downed 9Pandas 2-0, and Azure Ray followed by blanking nouns 2-0.

In the day’s earlier matches, Liquid knocked off Talon Esports 2-0, and Spirit rallied past Virtus.pro 2-1.

Friday’s losing teams drop down to the lower bracket in the double-elimination tournament and will compete again Saturday or Sunday.

The Dota tournament annually has the largest prize pool in sports, with the amount rising throughout the competition based on in-game sales to the public. The prize pool for last year’s International began at $1.6 million but wound up at $18.9 million, with Tundra Esports claiming the $8.5 million first prize.

This year’s prize pool started at $1.6 million and is currently at $3.07 million.

The double-elimination playoffs will run over the course of the next two weekends in Seattle. All matches will remain best-of-three until the grand final, which will be best-of-five.

LGD and 9Pandas went 65 minutes on their first map before LGD emerged victorious on green. They stayed on green for the second map and won again, this time in 36 minutes. Guo “shiro” Xuanang of China led the winners with a kills/deaths/assists ratio of 11.5/3.0/13.0, and teammate and countryman Li “niu” Kongbo recorded a 10.0/2.5/13.0. Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev finished at 7.0/5.5/1.5 for the all-Russian 9Pandas squad.

Azure Ray played on green in the first map won in 31 minutes, but had a harder time of it on the second map. They needed 48 minutes to prevail, this time on red. Yang “chalice” Shenyi of the all-Chinese lineup scored a 12.0/2.5/12.5 KDA ratio for the winners, while Nicolas “Gunnar” Lopez of the U.S. registered a 6.0/4.0/5.0 for nouns.

Team Liquid won their first map in 40 minutes while playing on red, then switched to green and claimed the second map in 43 minutes. Ludwig “zai” Wahlberg of Sweden led the winners with a KDA ratio of 8.5/1.5/14.5. Teammate Michal “Nisha” Jankowski of Poland was next at 7.5/3.5/15.0. Talon was paced by Rafli “Mikoto” Fathur Rahman of Indonesia at 4.5/3.0/7.5.

Virtus.pro took their first map on green in 33 minutes, but Spirit evened the match with a 60-minute win on green and won the deciding map in 47 minutes on red. Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk of Ukraine registered a 10.7/3.3/8.3 KDA ratio for Spirit, while Ilya “squad1x” Kuvaldin of Russia finished at 9.0/3.3/10.0 for Virtus.pro.

Playoff action continues Saturday with four lower-bracket matches:
Round 1:
–Shopify Rebellion vs. TSM
–Evil Geniuses vs. Gaimin Gladiators
Round 2:
–Shopify Rebellion-TSM winner vs. nouns
–Evil Geniuses-Gaimin Gladiators winner vs. 9Pandas

–Field Level Media