Image

Team Falcons Win ESL One Birmingham

fragster Radu M. 29. April 2024

ESL One Birmingham featured 12 of the world’s best Dota 2 teams. Many of them had at least a small chance of winning the tournament but the favorites were Team Falcons, Xtreme Gaming, Gamin Gladiators, and Team Liquid.

In the end, Falcons won without that many problems. Only one team managed to defeat them in the ten matches they played and that’s a clear indication that the rest of the season will likely belong to them. This includes Riyadh Masters and The International.

The teams that were supposed to contest Falcons at ESL One Birmingham either failed in the group stage and proved unable to win against them in a best-of-three. Only Tundra did, in the upper bracket semifinals. But they too would lose in the rematch from the lower bracket Final.

Somehow, BetBoom Team qualified for the Grand Final of the tournament, which gave Falcons a relatively easy last match, which they won 3 – 0. Sure, all three games lasted more than 40 minutes and in two of them BetBoom had a 7000 gold lead, but Falcons were just too good to beat.

Falcons’ Path to Victory

The MENA representative started the tournament with four consecutive draws in the group stage, against Team Liquid, BetBoom, G2.iG, and Shopify Rebellion. Their only victory came against Talon Esports, who were eliminated after the group stage.

In the playoffs, Tundra Esports defeated Falcons in the very first round, essentially ruining the chances of every other lower bracket team. The score was 2 – 1 and the games were very hard. Tundra eventually won thanks to the prowess of Pure~ and Topson, who played some of their best heroes in this match.

Falcons’ first lower bracket match was against Liquid. They lost game 1 but won the next two games using Dragon Knight as their main front-liner.

Their next opponent was OG. This time, Falcons picked Hoodwink three times and Venomancer twice. They won both of their Venomancer games, proving that they can win with some really unusual heroes for the current meta.

In the lower bracket Final, Tundra tried to repeat their upper bracket performance but Falcons were much better prepared this time. The games lasted 49 and 57 minutes respectively but in the end, thanks to heroes like Timbersaw and Sven, the MENA team won.

The Grand Final was one-sided, at least on the scoreboard. Falcons played very diverse strategies and drafts, picking some of their best heroes but mixing them in an unpredictable way.

Header: Team Falcons