Azure Ray flip the narrative; ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 champions

Azure Ray turned everything around to reverse sweep their way to the championship win at ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023. 

The Grand Finals of ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 was a rematch of the upper bracket finals between Azure Ray and Gaimin Gladiators.

At that time, GG tore through AR in what seemed to be child's play for the dominant EU team. In a swift and decisive 2:0 stomp, GG had claimed the first slot in the Grand Finals. 

• Read Another season, another Gaimin Gladiators grand finals; ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023

Gaimin Gladiators has been the team to beat all season long. Their lowest LAN performance was taking second at The International 2023. 

Read that again. 

With aggressive, beautiful, perfect Dota Gaimin Gladiators tried to cap off their tremendous 2023 season and start the new year with a bang. But it never popped off. 

Just as Gaimin Gladiators were soaring high, Azure Ray came to knock the wind out of their sails and flip the narrative. With their backs against the wall, AR came back with a vengeance and seized the moment, stole the spotlight, the trophy, and the title right out from under them. 

In a reverse sweep, Azure Ray gave fans around the world the gift of thrilling Dota 2 to end the 2023 year. 

Gaimin GladiatorsvsAzure Ray 2:3

After being destroyed in the first game, Gaimin Gladiators served it up to Azure Ray again in the second game. Whatever adjustments AR made from the first game with a more creative draft, didn't do what they hoped in game 2. The laning stage went ok but from the 5-15 minute transition mark things just went horribly wrong and they could never recover from it. 

For the potentially last game of the series GG went with a Slardar in mid but what seemed to be their most prominent strategy was courier hunting, which threw a monkey wrench in the early game for AR and any good start seemed to be immediately thwarted. However, AR was the one that was outmaneuvering and locking down the early game in a convincing manner. A convincing manner led to annihilating GG in quite a turnaround of the series. Playing around Guo "Xm" Hongcheng and his flawless performance on Storm Spirit, AR showed some life in these grand finals and ultimately ended up being the turning point for them. 

The fourth game was the follow-up game that AR was hoping for even with GG having the midlane Pango. With a Dagon 5 on Zhao "XinQ" Zixing, itemization across the board for Azure Ray, and plays made by XM, they rolled over GG to push the series to the distance with five games. 

In the deciding game, Azure Ray picked up a very bold choice with OD, and Gaimin Gladiators took a BeastMaster as their last picks. Momentum was on the side of AR and it proved to be a force to be reckoned with. A bad pickoff/initiation attempt by GG about 16 minutes in turned out to be a huge team fight in favor of AR. With a scary scaling lineup and momentum already fueling the early game, GG was in serious trouble. 

Azure Ray was able to claim the victory and title in style for China. 

ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 Playoffs

Playoffs 

• Playoffs - December 15 - December 17, 2023
  • Double-elimination bracket
  • All matches except Grand Final are Bo3
  • Grand Final is Bo5

ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 Prize Pool 

$1,000,000 Prize Pool and 19,980 EPT Points are spread among the participants as seen below:

• 1st place  $300,000/ 4,800 EPT Points  Azure Ray
• 2nd place $175,000/ 3,600 EPT Points Gaimin Gladiators 
• 3rd place $120,000/ 3,000 EPT Points Team Liquid
• 4th place $85,000/ 2,400 EPT Points BetBoom Team
• 5th-6th place $57,500/ 1,680 EPT Points Team Falcons/ G2.iG
• 7th-8th place $47,500/ 780 EPT Points Team Secret/ Tundra Esports
• 9th-10th place $30,000/ 420 EPT Points Blacklist Rivalry/ LGD Gaming
• 11th-12th place $25,000/ 210 EPT Points Wawitas Sagazes/ 9Pandas