Team Yandex, Aurora Gaming round out BLAST Slam VII Playoff teams

Team Yandex and Aurora Gaming survived the Last Chance Qualifier to become the last two teams to qualify for the BLAST Slam VII Playoffs.

Eastern European Dota 2 powerhouses Team Yandex and Aurora Gaming became the final two teams to qualify for the Playoffs of BLAST Slam VII after they survived the tournament's Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) on Sunday (31 May).

Yandex and Aurora now join LGD Gaming, PARIVISION, BetBoom Team, and Team Falcons in the Playoffs, which will be hosted from 4 to 7 June in the BLAST Studio in Copenhagen, Denmark. Meanwhile, Team Spirit, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, and OG have been eliminated from the tournament.

BLAST Slam VII

Type: Online (Group Stage), Offline (Playoffs)
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark (Playoffs)
Venue: BLAST Studio (Playoffs)
Schedule: 26 May - 7 Jun, 2026
Participating teams: 12
Prize pool: US$1 million
Organiser: BLAST

Yandex, Aurora survive BLAST Slam VII Last Chance Qualifier

BLAST Slam VII kicked off with a 12-team round-robin Group Stage that saw four teams qualify for the Playoffs, six advance to the LCQ, and two get eliminated early. LGD unexpectedly finished as the top seed of the Group Stage to lead the pack of Playoff-qualified teams, which also include PARIVISION, BetBoom, and Falcons.

Meanwhile, Xtreme Gaming and GLYPH, the bottom two teams of the Group Stage, were eliminated early.

That left the final two spots in the BLAST Slam VII Playoffs up for grabs between the fifth to 10th seeds of the Group Stage, namely and in order of seeding: Yandex, Liquid, Aurora, Spirit, OG, and Tundra. As the fifth and sixth seeds, Yandex and Liquid started in the second round of the LCQ. They faced the winners of the first round, which featured Spirit taking on OG and Aurora facing Tundra.

The first team to make it out of the first round of the LCQ was Spirit, who made short work of OG in a 2-0 sweep that totaled just 67 minutes of play. Spirit carry Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk notably logged 19 kills and assists apiece against just one death on Tiny and Drow Ranger to lead his team to the second round.

The other first round matchup saw Aurora knock out Tundra, the champions of BLAST Slam IV and BLAST Slam V, in a 2-1 reverse sweep. Tundra opened the series with a comfortable 47 minute win before Aurora forced the series to a deciding game three with a 35-minute rout. Aurora then ground out a 52-minute win in the decider to advance to the second round. Rafli Fathur “Mikoto” Rahman on Windranger led the way for Aurora in game three with 12 kills and 18 assists on three deaths with Windranger while Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko on Shadow Fiend added 11 kills and four assists against two deaths.

In the second round, Yandex utterly dominated Spirit to secure the first of two Playoff spots up for grabs in the LCQ.

Game one saw Alimzhan “Watson” Islambekov on Templar Assassin and Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov on Invoker show out in the 53-minute series opener with 14 kills apiece and a combined 41 assists against five deaths between the two of them. Yandex then punched their ticket to the Playoffs with a 40-minute rout in game two behind CHIRA_JUNIOR on Nature's Prophet and Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin on Axe, who logged 13 kills apiece and combined for 33 assists against five total deaths.

Meanwhile, Aurora became the sole team outside the Top 6 seeds of the Group Stage to make the Playoffs after they swept Liquid in the second round.

Aurora opened the series with a 50-minute win sparked by big performances by all three of their core players. Chung “Ws`” Wei Shen on Axe led the way with 13 kills and 19 assists on eight deaths, Nightfall on Windranger added 11 kills and 15 assists on two deaths, while MIkoto on Puck had 10 kills and 21 assists on three deaths. Aurora then stomped Liquid in a 33-minute game two to become the last team to advance to the Playoffs. Ws once again showed out on Axe with 19 kills and eight assists against four deaths while Nightfall on Phantom Lancer added a clean 10 kills and 19 assists.

The BLAST Slam VII Playoff picture

After a short pause in competition to allow the Playoff-qualified teams to make their way to Copenhagen, BLAST Slam VII will resume with its double-elimination Playoffs on 4 June. The Playoffs will kick off in the upper bracket quarterfinals, where Falcons will take on Yandex while BetBoom will face Aurora. The winners of the upper bracket quarterfinals will then advance to the upper bracket semifinals, where LGD and PARIVISION await, while the losers will drop to the lower bracket.

All matches in the BLAST Slam VII Playoffs will be a best-of-three except for the grand finals, which will be a full best-of-five series. Here are the opening matchups for the BLAST Slam VII Playoffs:

Upper bracket quarterfinals:

Team Falcons vs Team Yandex
BetBoom Team vs Aurora Gaming

Upper bracket semifinals:

LGD Gaming vs winner of Team Falcons vs Team Yandex
PARIVISION vs winner of BetBoom Team vs Aurora Gaming

The remaining six teams in the BLAST Slam VII Playoffs will be fighting for the lion's share of the tournament's US$1 million prize pool. The champions will walk away with the grand prize of US$400,000, split between US$300,000 for the players and US$100,000 for their organisation.

BLAST Slam VII is notably the last Tier 1 tournament before the two biggest events of the 2025-2026 Dota 2 competitive season: the Dota 2 event at the Esports World Cup 2026 in July and The International 2026, this year's iteration of Dota 2's annual world championship tournament, in August.