BLAST Slam 6 Malta last chance playoff: HEROIC and GL do it for the Americas

The final chances for two teams in particular at BLAST Slam 6 Malta have come and gone, with HEROIC and GamerLegion getting the best of it at the end of two separate best-of-three series.

On one hand, HEROIC faced up against a team that only managed to win one game throughout their entire campaign at this tournament. On the other, GamerLegion made good on their momentum over the last four days, by eliminating a top tier Western European club.

REKONIX shut out completely

Although HEROIC didn’t put in a positive win-loss record coming out of the group stage, this result was no less expected. They simply outclassed REKONIX at every turn in their last chance playoff series, showing no mercy to the team that almost every single one of their games in the preliminaries. The all-Indonesian squad therefore exit BLAST Slam 6 Malta with an unenviable 1-13 record in games.

The first game of the series actually made me think that there might be some potential for the matchup to be more competitive than it ended up being. Despite winning the laning phase, HEROIC took a few significant deaths at the hands of REKONIX in the mid game, which allowed them to stay ahead by about 3,000 gold or so between 20 and 30 minutes in.

Things swung back in HEROIC’s favor thereafter, after a decisive teamfight resulted in a teamwipe in their favor in exchange for Adrián “Wisper” Dobles’ Pudge. They would then build on this turnaround for the rest of the game, but in typical HEROIC fashion, they just had to make this game so much harder than it had to be.

Someone @ Dotawtf pic.twitter.com/lRGBhpinW2

— BLAST Slam (@BLASTDota) February 6, 2026

How? By giving away the Aegis of the Immortal in the river, for some reason. As they were finishing up their Roshan attempt, the big man on campus decided that now was the time to walk out of the bottom pit in order to make his way to the top one. With practically no health left, REKONIX pounced on the chance to steal the Aegis this way, which made me physically facepalm and groan audibly past midnight here in the Philippines.

Thankfully, Santiago “TaiLung” Agüero Gustavo was here to save the day despite the random setback. He put the four anchors on his team on his back with his mid Beastmaster, and just carried them to victory from there. Determined to not drop this game against the worst team in the tournament, TaiLung flexed his pubstar muscle and showed everyone that HEROIC signing him was the right move.

the butcher pic.twitter.com/VRHuv2zgTo

— HEROIC Dota 2 (@heroicdota2) February 6, 2026

HEROIC would close out the series in the second game, and this time it was a much more solid performance without any real brain-neutral moments to be found. TaiLung might not have had nearly the same impact this game as he did in game 1, but Wisper was there to pick up the slack this time around. Wisper’s Pudge is freaking scary, and teams really should start considering banning it out more against HEROIC.

The job’s not quite done for the South Americans, as they’ll have one hell of a task ahead of them going up against Tundra Esports in the play-ins.

They Are GamerLegion

Talk about a feel good story. North American squad GamerLegion just put the rest of the field at BLAST Slam 6 on notice, by eliminating a much more heavily favored team in MOUZ in three games. And despite it taking all three maps for them to put MOUZ away, this series wasn’t as close as that would otherwise make you believe.

The first game was all GamerLegion all the way through. With the awful drafting decisions on the side of MOUZ where they picked support Windranger and carry Muerta into a first pick Shadow Demon, the North American squad happily took the alley-oop that their opponents lobbed up to them this game. Add a bizarre offlane Tiny pick in there too, and what did MOUZ get? GamerLegion winning every single lane, that’s what. And for once, a North American team didn’t just throw it all away later in the game.

Luke “Yamsun” Wang and Francis “RCY” Fundemera had themselves a whale of a time as Kez and Shadow Fiend respectively, both playing the kind of game that every core player dreams of. MOUZ just couldn’t muster up any sort of a response, tapping out in less than 45 minutes.

🤠 'MURICA'S LAST HOPE 🤠 pic.twitter.com/NeiXPREIW6

— BLAST Slam (@BLASTDota) February 6, 2026

Game 2 was GamerLegion’s turn to draft poorly, with the Yamsun Clinkz pick not really working out the way they’d hoped. His performance on the hero left a lot to be desired, and it was very clear that GamerLegion just fell into the trap of picking what’s popular in the metagame rather than going for heroes they actually know how to play.

This is when MOUZ were supposed to turn the series around, but RCY had absolutely none of it. Recognizing that MOUZ forgot to ban his Storm Spirit out of respect, GamerLegion picked it at the #18 spot to show their opponents what happens when they let the Storm Spirit through. RCY was every bit the NA pubstar that he’s hyped up to be in this game, and this was even after going through a very rough time in the laning phase.

'FCK YEA 🔫🤠🍔 pic.twitter.com/aOEy0MZdoG

— BLAST Slam (@BLASTDota) February 6, 2026

Once again, MOUZ were left scratching their heads at what to do against RCY’s onslaught. Yamsun also took advantage of their tentativeness in this game with his carry Omniknight, putting in 17 kills of his own to add to RCY’s 16. Left with nowhere to run and hide, MOUZ were forced to accept defeat in less than 40 minutes. GamerLegion will move on into the play-ins as a result, where they will face Team Liquid for a chance to attend the LAN portion of this tournament.

I really don’t understand what has happened to MOUZ all of a sudden. They have not been anywhere near their PGL Wallachia Season 6 form as of late, and it doesn’t look like their slide into mediocrity will end any time soon. Definitely not a great look for a team that has much bigger aspirations than bombing out of BLAST Slam 6.