Talon Esports fail to qualify for Bali Major

Talon Esports are in a dangerous position right now. They’re ranked fifth globally and have 1120 points, but their place at The International 2023 is not guaranteed. At least not yet. So ideally, they should have qualified for the upcoming Bali Major.

The fact that they finished fourth in the region in Tour 3 of Dota Pro Circuit 2023 means that they won’t compete in the last Major of the season. And let’s not forget that this team won Tour 2 and finished third at the Lima Major. At the Berlin Major they were seventh-eighth, which means they got some points there as well.

Diagnosing the problem

It’s very hard to tell why a team like Talon, whose roster is formidable and should, at least in theory, improve over time, goes from good to bad in a matter of months.

Some players in the community may ask: is Nuengnara “23savage” Teeramahanon burned out? Is he playing too many pubs? Or too few? This is important because he’s the carry and easily the strongest member of the team.

He’s the one who became the first player ever to reach 13.000 MMR. This happened six months ago. Since then, he’s been relatively stable but still dropped some points. However, in theory he’s still the same player he used to be not that long ago. So why isn’t he winning more matches?

The problem is most likely related to some of his teammates. Rafli “Mikoto” Rahman, as well as the team’s position 4 and position 5 players are not exactly superstars. Apart from 23savage, everyone on the roster is just another SEA player.

Meanwhile, the region got flooded with talent. Bleed Esports, who signed some really strong players in the last several months, are now the strongest competitor in SEA by a significant margin. In Tour 3, they defeated both Talon and Execration, and only lost against Blacklist International.

Talon’s strong rivals in Tour 3 were Execration, Bleed Esports, and BOOM Esports. The defeats against the first two of these teams are understandable. But for the third there’s no excuse. BOOM ended the Tour with a record of 2 W – 5 L, so Talon should have easily won against them.

We rarely see Talon losing two consecutive matches in SEA, but that’s exactly what happened in Tour 3. Hopefully, their points will be sufficient to grant them a direct invite to TI12. Otherwise they’re in trouble.

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