Falcons Eliminate Liquid and OG at ESL One Birmingham

Team Falcons started ESL One Birmingham as the main favorite. After Xtreme Gaming lost multiple matches in the group stage and made it abundantly clear that they were not in good shape, everyone expected Falcons to beat everyone who stood in their path.

But that’s not what happened. In the group stage, the MENA team started with four consecutive draws and won group A only after the last round of matches and a tiebreaker for 1^st – 3^rd place. Their final record was 6 W – 4 L or a 60% win rate.

In the playoffs, Tundra Esports caught them off-guard, first with Luna and then with Morphling. The match needed three games to conclude and every one of them lasted 40+ minutes. In the end, Tundra won, thanks in part to Topson and Pure~’s amazing performance. However, they couldn’t repeat this performance in the upper bracket Final and lost against BetBoom Team.

For Falcons, the lower bracket run began much earlier.

WE ARE COMING FOR THE TROPHY. 🦅#FalconsAreHere #RoadToRiyadh pic.twitter.com/tXcEBuFwXe

— Falcons Esports (@FalconsEsport) April 27, 2024

Falcons vs. Liquid: 2 – 1

This was a much-anticipated match in which Liquid won game 1 using Luna and Io, two heroes that proved to be very hard to stop. The battle was over after just 33 minutes. Falcons had an almost 7000 gold lead at the 17-minute mark but ended up losing because of two major tactical errors that got them killed.

In games 2 and 3, however, they played much better and perfectly countered Liquid’s strategy. For some reason, Insania’s team picked Kunkka three times in a row, as well as Luna (twice), and Keeper of the Light (twice). This made them a bit predictable.

To be fair, Falcons also picked Dragon Knight three times and Shadow Demon twice, but their map movements and team fight decisions were much better in the last two games than Liquid’s.

Falcons vs. OG: 2 – 1

OG had defeated G2.iG, who in turn had beaten Xtreme Gaming. So it was clear that the match would be hard to win for Falcons. All three games lasted nearly 50 minutes, which is an indication that both teams had a pretty good idea of what they needed to do to not lose.

Falcons picked Hoodwink three times, Venomancer twice, and Doom twice. OG’s preferred heroes were Shadow Demon (twice), Mirana (twice), and Tiny (twice). Sadly for them, they lost both of their Mirana matches and will likely avoid this hero in the future, at least against Falcons.

Header: Team Falcons