BOOM Esports and NoPing e-sports put behind their sorrows of missing out on a spot at TI10 as they claimed the top spot in BTS Pro Series Season 8.
What’s the best remedy for a team that narrowly missed the mark for qualifying for TI10? Win a tournament, and make a statement that you are ready for the next season! That is exactly what BOOM Esports and NoPing e-sports did as they claimed the top prize in BTS Pro Series Season 8 Southeast Asia and Americas respectively. BOOM Esports take home a prize of $24,000 while NoPing e-sports claim $16,000 (the prize pools were $60,000 for SEA and $40,000 for Americas).
BOOM Esports versus Team SMG
BOOM Esports’ series against Team SMG went the distance. BOOM sent SMG to the lower bracket with a 2-1 win over them in the upper bracket finals, but SMG came back for a change at revenge and the title. Boom took a 2-0 lead, but SMG came back to level it 2-2. With the momentum in favor of SMG, the hard task fell to BOOM Esports to forget the game 3 and game 4, which is exactly what they did with a comfortable win in game 5.
BOOM Esports support Tims, who was one game away from making it to TI10 with TNC Predator and lost 2-3 to Fnatic after a reverse sweep, made sure it didn’t happen with him again.
Dota 2 patch 7.30d dropped just a day before the grand finals, and even though the patch didn’t have any major effect on the draft, what was slightly surprising was the fact that Weaver and Monkey King were picked repeatedly as supports. It will be interesting to see if that is something which is observed a lot at TI10 as well.
NoPing e-sports versus Infamous
For NoPing e-sports, the path was a lot easier. They dispatched off Infamous to the lower brackets 2-0. When Infamous came back to challenge them in the grand finals, they were met with the same fate, as NoPing made short work of them with a 3-0 win. Throughout the tournament, NoPing did not lose a single series in the group stages or playoffs, and were a notch above the rest.
The victories come as a respite for both, BOOM and NoPing. BOOM Esports finished third in the TI10 SEA qualfiers, losing 2-1 to TNC Predator. For NoPing e-sports, it is a much sadder story. The team were extremely close to clinching a direct invite to TI10 at the WePlay Kyiv AniMajor and were just a few right clicks of the throne away from securing it against Quincy Crew. But they lost the game and the following lower bracket series to be eliminated before securing any DPC points. In the TI10 SA qualifiers, NoPing were the favorites, but buckled under pressure, finishing fourth.
Both teams made roster changes after the TI10 qualfiers. BOOM Esports went from having a fully Indonesian roster to four Filipino players, with Erin Jasper “Yopaj” Ferrer, Timothy “Tims” Randrup and Rolen Andrei “skem” Gabriel Ong coming in as part of the new permanent roster. For NoPing Esports, William “hFn” Medeiros was replaced by Crhistian “Angel” Savina after their TI10 qualifier debacle. It seems that the changes to both rosters have paid off, and even though BTS Pro Series Season 8 did not feature any of the teams travelling to TI10, it is a an achievement and a good boost in confidence to take the plaudits in the last tournament before TI10. Come the new season, these two teams will be ones to watch out for in their regional DPC Leagues.
