Comeback was the name of the game on the first day of the main event at ESL One Stockholm Major.
A lot of players have stepped for the first time on a Major stage this Friday in the Hovet Arena at the ESL One Stockholm Major and, unfortunately for some, one series in front of a live audience was all they got to experience.
BetBoom Team is one of those who used this tournament to expose three of their members for the first time to the LAN energy. Their arena debut was made against the much more used to the crowd hype, beastcoast, who despite being run at in a pretty hard manner, they still managed to keep their calm and make an incredible comeback.
beastcoast
vs
BetBoom Team
Playing their hearts out to join their regional counterparts, Thunder Awaken in the top 6 at the Stockholm Major, beastcoast were presented with an impossible situation in game one. BetBoom Team aligned a super fast paced, tower push oriented draft with Nature’s Prophet, Leshrac and Pugna, while also having extremely powerful tools for strong lanes and early team fights. Their Pugna-Undying support duo provided the sustain power to their Chaos Knight front liner and by the 17 minute they were already taking a first lane of barracks.
However, they got carried by excitement and a couple of deep dives in the enemy base allowed beastcoast to stay in the game for a little bit longer. But, despite finding the opening to even take a Roshan kill and attempt a counter attack on BetBoom’s mid lane, the gold and experience difference was setting them far too behind in terms of item progression and eventually they had to admit defeat.
The SA team returned to the stage for the second game prepared to deal with the early aggression and went for multiple auras with an Underlord and a Pugna duo, focused to get the Wrath Pact running quickly, while also having Héctor "K1" Rodríguez’s signature Wraith King with an Assault Cuirass to make the team fights even more hard for BetBoom to take.
They evened the series with well executed team fights and forced BetBoom to brawl with elimination on the line into more of a SA specialty fast paced lineup with a Batrider, Storm Spirit and Spirit Breaker. Nonetheless, BetBoom had the double Doom combo with Grimstroke on their side and an Ursa to be able to trade kills with beastcoast for almost 30 minutes.
beastcoast’s solution to end the back and forth game were a couple of Linken’s Spheres and a few Eul’s Scepters, which allowed them to put an end to the madness and advance into the top 6 at the Major.
Unfortunately for the SA Dota 2 fans, top 6 is all that beastcoast got in Stockholm as they closed the first day in the arena getting taken down 0-2 by Gaimin Gladiators.
Gaimin Gladiators
vsbeastcoast
Despite being at their very first LAN together, GG didn’t seem to get distracted at all by the live crowd. They first picked Enchantress in the first game of the series, along with Ember Spirit, by far two of their most comfortable heroes, and delivered the exact same clinical Dota that they displayed through the entire DPC season. Early lanning stage lead translated into a perfect mid game stage and flawless victory against beastcoast’s Batrider-Blooodseker combo.
Enchantress became first ban material in the second game, but Miroslav "BOOM" Bičan’s Ember Spirit made it through and paired with a Keeper of the Light, he became beastcoast’s nemesis.
Gaimin Gladiators versus beastcoast was the only series of the day to be decided with a quick 2-0, as in between the first and last series of the day, the Dota 2 fans in the Hovet Arena and those watching from home got to witness the new OG doing old OG things.
OG
vs
Fnatic
OG’s young guard are playing at their first ever major with the most accomplished veteran of the scene standing in. Sébastien "Ceb" Debs came back from retirement to help his organization in need after both team captain Mikhail "Misha" Agatov and coach, Evgenii "Chuvash" Makarov couldn’t to get their visa for Sweden. With Ceb learning to play position 5 through the group stage matches, the mixed results tossed OG in the lower bracket right from the start of the playoffs. However, all that they’ve learnt in the group stage was mastered by Ceb and put to perfect use in the playoffs.
After BOOM Esports got eliminated in the first lower bracket round by Ceb’s Windranger, Fnatic took their chances against it as well in their opening stage match. More so, they allowed Tommy "Taiga" Le to play his Enigma through the entire series, which cost them dearly.
The first game went into OG’s favor courtesy of a perfect laning stage from Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev on a 5-0 Juggernaut seven minutes into the game. From there on, Ceb’s spot on initiations and overall all perfect team fight coordination put Fnatic against the wall in a dominant fashion.
Fnatic struck back with a vengeance in game two, catching OG off-guard with a Medusa-Elder Titan combo and an offlane Earth Spirit from Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong, who acted as a direct counter to taiga’s Enigma. Despite playing Medusa line-up, Fnatic looked to fight from early stages, chocking OG on their side of the map and giving Marc Polo Luis "Raven" Fausto a free game.
Headed into the decisive game three, Fnatic tried to once again outpace OG, but this time around with a Keeper of the Light in the mid lane, an offlane Ember Spirit and a carry Chaos Knight. For the most part of the game they accomplished their task to perfection. By the 15 minute mark, they were leading 16 to 0 in kill score and OG had no place to hide on the map. However, the very slow comeback started at the 20 minute mark when OG managed to turn around a fight in the Dire triangle, finding a kill on the KotL and Ember. From there on, they managed to protect Yuragi’s Morphling and although they still gave countless kills to Fnatic, they were patiently waiting for a mistake to capitalize on.
Past the 40 minute mark, OG were fighting with Refresher Orbs on both Enigma and Tidehunter and managed to find key kills on Jabz’s Ember and Raven’s Chaos Knight to mount a full comeback. In pure OG fashion, they dragged the game up to the point where Fnatic’s BkBs had almost no value anymore so they could keep them controlled in the team fights and eventually eliminate them from the ESL One Major.
While OG victory on the first day in the arena pushes them top 6, for Gaimin Gladiators, the victory over beastcoast secures them a top 4 finish.
Day two of the Stockholm Major main event will bring three more series to the Hovet Arena stage.
OG will play against Thunder Awaken at 12:00 CET for a top 4 finish, followed by the upper bracket finals, Tundra Esports versus TSM FTX. The day will close with the lower bracket semifinals, Gaimin Gladiators pitted against the winner of OG vs TA.
headline picture courtesy of ESL One
