[Q6T46nT668w6i3m]

Many believe that it’s an exponential curve so there’s a substantial difference between the first and twentieth place teams.

[PeCaN]

Even if this is true, pain is one of the unpredictable teams that can take a game off anyone. They went 3-1 against Liquid at the Birmingham Major.

Actually, "weaker" (top 20) teams regularly do take games off better teams so I don't think there's much evidence for an exponential skill increase between teams.

[whymauri]

Looking historically at team ELO and how squads have gone on 27-series win streaks, this is probably right. Though I think the gap between "low-tier" TI teams and TI winners is getting much tighter. Group B at TI8 was so close the difference between upper-bracket and lower-bracket was 1 game for most of the teams.

[noxvilleza]

*Elo, not ELO :)

[whymauri]

lol, good catch. Gotta give Arpad his credit :)