Team Falcons made a lower bracket comeback to sweep BetBoom Team in the grand finals of ESL One Birmingham 2024.
Comeback was the name of the game for Team Falcons through nearly the entire ESL One Birmingham tournament. They started shaky in the groups, having to enter the competition without practice and with Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan standing in at the last minute. Falcons’ mid laner, Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak arrived in the UK only on the second day of the tournament and the team’s first clean victory came only on the last day of the groups.
They salvaged their tournament run in a tiebreaker series and secured an upper bracket playoffs start. However, Falcons lost their playoff opener to Tundra Esports and from there on they had to fight with survival on the line through the rest of the bracket.
“I am ready to play eight games today,” said Falcons’ carry player Oliver "skiter" Lepko at the beginning of the finals day in Birmingham, but he got to play only five.
Falcons ran over Tundra Esports in the lower bracket finals to join BetBoom Team in the best-of-five grand finals. However, the first two games of the final act started in an explosive manner for the Eastern European outfit.
A grand final where the kill score is misleading
BetBoom Team came prepared with a fast-paced Dota in mind. In the first game, they had a mid lane Keeper of the Light, an offlane Visage and a carry Bloodseeker with Enchantress and Tiny in the support lines. The draft was meant to take Falcons by storm, deny them any chance at a good laning stage and choke them in the base extremely fast. For the most part of the game that was exactly what happened. However, amidst the entire bloodbath on the map, two of the Falcons heroes kept their farm steady, avoiding getting involved in the madness.
Past the 30 minute mark when all seemed lost for Falcons, a mid lane engagement took BetBoom by surprise as Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf had Satanic in his inventory and was able to deliver the clutch turnaround moment for his team. Falcons went on turning the game on its head and took the win within the next 10 minutes while still being led in the kill score 24 to 17 by BetBoom Team.
Interestingly enough, pretty much the same happened in the second game as well. BetBoom Team returned to their computers for game two with the same idea of playing fast. They kept KotL, but switched all the other heroes. By the 29 minute mark, they had over 7K gold advantage and were leading Falcons with 19 to 2 in kills. Nonetheless, close to the 30 minute mark, a high ground defence would change the course of the game.
It was Malr1ne who became the ultimate raid boss on his mid lane Primal Beast in the second game, while Skiter was dishing an enormous amount of damage on his Sven.
“How do you un-tilt after something like this” was the panel asking themselves during the break between game two and three. The answer seems to be “you don’t”, as BetBoom Team were unrecognisable in the third and final game of the series.
ESL One Birmingham 2024 represents the third tournament victory claimed by Team Falcons this year, and the fourth grand finals that they fought in, and it’s only the end of April. For BetBoom, this was the second grand finals lost in 2024, interestingly enough, both times falling short of a championship title at the hands of Team Falcons.
ESL One Birmingham 2024 prize pool distribution
- 1st place $300,000/ 6,400 EPT Points
Team Falcons - 2nd place $175,000/ 4,800 EPT Points
BetBoom Team - 3rd place $120,000/ 4,000 EPT Points
Tundra Esports - 4th place $85,000/ 3,200 EPT Points
OG - 5th-6th place $57,500/ 2,240 EPT Points
Team Liquid / 
G2 x iG - 7th-8th place $47,500/ 1,040 EPT Points
Xtreme Gaming / 
Heroic - 9th-10th place $30,000/ 560 EPT Points
Team Spirit /
Talon Esports - 11th-12th place $25,000/ 280 EPT Points
Gaimin Gladiators/
Shopify Rebellion
