Tundra Esports Is The Champion of ESL One Fall 2021

Tundra Esports entered ESL One Fall 2021 as one of the 10 directly invited participants. Everyone knew that this team was good, but nobody knew just how good. This event clearly showed why OG almost failed to qualify for The International 10 because of this team.

ESL One Fall 2021 Results

ESL One Fall started well for Fata’s crew. Their group looked tough, with opponents like Virtus.pro, Spirit, and T1. But in the first 3 matches, Tundra got 3 victories. And keep in mind, the matches were Bo2! Thunder Predator, T1, and Spirit fell to the might of this squad that is seeking to pose serious challenges to Europe’s giants in the next season.

The 4^th match was against Virtus.pro. Based on the first 3 results, everyone expected to see a draw. But VP managed to win the derby and secured a perfect score: 10 W – 0 L. Tundra would finish 2^nd in the group with 8 W – 2 L. Spirit was third (6 W – 4 L) while T1 finished 4^th (4 W – 6 L). Initially, many analysts’ prediction was that Virtus.pro would win and T1 would be 2^nd. But the SEA team had difficulties adapting to the European opponents.

Playoffs

In the Playoffs of ESL One Fall, Tundra had an amazing run. First, they defeated beastcoast. This was not a big surprise given the South American’s team lack of significant international results during the season. But it was still surprising that the Europeans won without losing a single game, against a team that had defeated PSG.LGD in the Group Stage.

In the second match, Tundra encountered Virtus.pro again. This time, however, it found a way to with ease. Or perhaps the CIS crew simply shot itself in the foot by picking Omniknight plus Gyrocopter in both games. Tundra’s response was Nightstalker plus Luna. And it proved to be extremely effective against the strategy of their opponent.

The Grand Final was thrilling and needed 5 games to conclude. Tundra’s opponent was PSG.LGD. The Chinese squad had defeated 3 teams to get there: Spirit (2 – 1), T1 (2 – 1), and Virtus.pro (2 – 1). All 3 matches were tough, even though PSG.LGD took the lead each time.

In the final match of the tournament, it was Tundra that won game 1. PSG.LGD tried to play a fast-paced game by picking Spirit Breaker, Tiny, and Templar Assassin. But Tundra responded with perfect counters: Dark Seer, Pangolier, Shadow Demon, Monkey King, and Lifestealer.

In games 2 and 3, the Chinese squad was allowed to pick some overpowered patch heroes: Leshrac, Venge, Sven, KotL, and Lycan. And because of that, they succeeded both times. Tundra learned from its defeats and was careful to ban most of PSG.LGD’s favorite heroes in games 4 and 5. This resulted in two close battles that needed almost 50 minutes to conclude each time.

Eventually, Tundra won. But not without PSG.LGD’s help. For some reason, one of the team’s support decided that the 5^th game of the Grand Final was a good moment to pick Storm Spirit for himself and play mid. At first, it seemed to be working. But the later the game went, the more obvious it became that he was not a mid player.

 

Photo credit: Valve