Gamers Galaxy: Invitational Series Thailand 2022 concluded this past Saturday with BOOM Esports defending the title in a back-and-forth best-of-five grand finals against Polaris Esports.
This marked the second tournament put together by Gamers Galaxy this year, however, the Thailand Invitational featured Southeast Asia teams exclusively fighting for a share of the $150,000 prize pool.
For the majority of the participants, Gamers Galaxy: Invitational Series Thailand represented the last big regional battle before The International 11 qualifiers. Out of the eight invited teams, only BOOM Esports and Fnatic have their TI slots secured. This was also meant to be the first LAN where Fnatic could have played with the whole team after having to use three stand-ins at the Arlington Major, but Marc "Raven" Fausto fell ill after landing in Thailand and wasn’t feeling fit to compete. Fnatic dropped in the group stage, along with Team SMG, Talon Esports and Army Geniuses.
Gamers Galaxy: Invitational Series Thailand 2022 was played on an extremely tight schedule, and rather unique group stage format and tiebreak rules which sparked some controversy. The group stage was a brutal best-of-one gauntlet with the tiebreakers being solved by using time rating which took off guard both Talon and SMG, who got eliminated despite finishing the group stage at the same score as the top two teams in their respective groups.
Following the group stage debacle, the tournament headed into a single elimination bracket, BO3 semifinals, BO5 grand finals playoffs stage that was played throughout a single day. At the end of the entire marathon, Polaris, who have just been relegated to Division 2 in the DPC leagues, and BOOM Esports went head to head for all the marbles in Thailand.
BOOM Esports
vs
Polaris Esports
BOOM began the grand finals with a convincing victory landed in just 25 minutes courtesy of a push strategy with Chen, Beastmaster and Keeper of the Light. Nonetheless, Polaris managed to trade blows with BOOM, forcing a decisive game five, which they eventually lost to well-executed Mars-Snapfire-Invoker combos from BOOM Esports.
Gamers Galaxy: Invitational Series Thailand 2022 final standings
- 1st place:
BOOM Esports - $75,000 - 2nd place:
Polaris Esports - $30,000 - 3rd/ 4th place:
RSG, 
Execration - $13,000 - 5th/ 6th place:
Talon Esports, 
Team SMG - $6,000 - 7th/8th place:
Army Geniuses, 
Fnatic - $3,500
There is no rest for BOOM Esports in the next week as they now head to Malaysia to participate in the $400,000 tournament held by ESL Gaming in Genting Highlands at the Arena of Stars. ESL Malaysia is set to begin this coming Tuesday, August 23.
headline picture courtesy of BOOM Esports
