Dota 2’s newest superteam has hit the ground running.
Saudi esports sponsor Falcons entered Dota 2 with a bang in 2023, and its championship at BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 means the investment is already paying off. While the organization’s CS2 team isn’t doing too hot, its Dota 2 superteam won its second tournament with aplomb. Falcons tore through the upper bracket to claim the $400,000 prize ending with a decisive 3-0 over Team Liquid.
Even with the insane pedigree of Falcons’ players, it’s rare for a new team to immediately start winning championships in Dota 2. The team’s success is more than just the sum of its parts. Here are three reasons why Falcons won BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 over Team Spirit, Liquid, Azure Ray, and other top favorites.
Three reasons why Falcons dominated BetBoom Dacha Dubai
1. Building around ATF
ATF may have deferred the team’s captaincy over to Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu, but make no mistake. The offlaner extraordinaire is still the central point of the team. While most top Dota 2 teams are built around a core duo, Falcons’ entire play style revolves around ATF’s ability to completely take over a game from Position 3.
In the BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 playoffs, ATF played Timbersaw, Mars, Underlord, Tidehunter, and Kunkka. Traditional Blink-stunners are on the menu, but Falcons clearly prefer him on a hero that can both start and end fights while dishing out a ton of damage.
The stats tell the story. Even considering his boost from winning the event, ATF’s 4.97 KDA outranks nearly all other carries and mid, let alone offlaners.
He consistently puts up Danil "gpk" Skutin-level stats from a lower-priority role while also kneecapping the enemy carry. Falcons’ willingness to let ATF be ATF may be a lesson learned from his time at PSG Quest as opposed to Nigma Galaxy and OG.
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2. Falcons demonstrated draft dominance at Dacha Dubai
ATF’s status as the offlane boogeyman also ties into the second reason why Falcons cruised to the $500,000 prize at BetBoom Dacha Dubai. The team effectively drafts on easy mode. In the grand finals, nine of Liquid’s ten bans were explicitly for ATF. BetBoom used seven of ten in the semifinals to no avail. Falcons almost always respond by just first-picking whatever Position 3 is left.
The result is that Falcons always gets prime picks for every other role. Weaver, Puck, Chen, Pangolier, Crystal Maiden, Alchemist, Mirana, literally any hero that anyone else wants is on the table. This also means Falcons can dash away enemy specialist mids and puddle supports without a second thought. Falcons is literally playing a completely different draft game than their opponents, and it's clearly paying dividends.
3. Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak’s mid debut rivals Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi
While it's easy to gawk at ATF’s stats, it would be remiss to overlook Malr1ne’s. He boasted the highest KDA (6.51) and GPM (606) of any mid at Dacha Dubai with 11 different heroes. Falcons' mid also had the lowest deaths of all players at BetBoom Dacha Dubai without an anime profile pic.
Malr1ne isn’t content letting his teammates steal the show either, putting up a 15-1-7 Razor performance against Azure Ray and going 7-0-19 on Dragon Knight to secure the trophy. The numbers don’t lie, and they prove the kid is a beast.
Malr1ne’s story is eerily similar to Miracle-’s. Both mids earned a reputation as a top pub star before starting their pro careers on less-established teams. It was Nemiga for Malr1ne and Balkan Bears for Miracle-.
However, once called up to the big leagues in Falcons and OG, they both won a massive championship at just their second big event. Comparisons to Miracle- shouldn’t be handed out lightly, but Marl1ne’s quick ascent is too similar to ignore.
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