If there was any doubt (there wasn’t) about PARIVISION running away with the title at DreamLeague Season 26, it has now been put to rest and then some. The juggernauts from Eastern Europe slaughtered the competition on their way to the grand finals, including their eventual opponents in the form of BetBoom Team.

DreamLeague Season 26 Grand Finals: PARIVISION Rout BetBoom

They massacred their EEU compatriots in the playoff bracket, winning five maps in total against them and sweeping them in both the upper bracket finals and the grand finals. Thus, this year’s ESL Pro Tour (EPT) concludes with them as the champions.

Game 1 — Hook, Line, and Sinker

Seemingly uninterested in allowing BetBoom to even play Dota right off the bat, PARIVISION brought their absolute a-game in the first map of this best-of-five series. They were also seemingly uninterested in any sort of a standard pick for Edgar “9Class” Naltakian, because PARIVISION went ahead and selected Pudge for this season’s most dynamic position 4 player.

It worked to perfection. You know how your teammates in ranked instalock Pudge thinking that they’re going to be the difference maker in the game on such a difficult hero, but instead they proceed to miss all their Meat Hook (Q) attempts all game? Yeah, 9Class was the direct opposite of that in game 1. His hooks were immaculate, and helped PARIVISION just dominate the laning phase and the mid game on their way to an extremely comfortable win.

By that I mean they won in less than 30 minutes. Just another display of flawless Dota from one of the best teams in the world right now, and with an unorthodox pick, to boot.

Game 2 — Experimental Cooking

Speaking of unorthodox picks, check the two main PARIVISION cores out in game 2: carry Mars and solo mid Drow Ranger. Yeah, I was just as baffled at this as you probably are right now, but hey, it’s not stupid if it works, right? And work well it did. The crux of the gameplan was simple: have Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov blink into BetBoom’s heroes with Arena of Mars (R) and the Blood Sport facet on, blocking vision to the outside world.

Volodymyr “No[o]ne” Minenko would then have free reign with Gust (W) and Multishot (E) from outside the arena, which would basically seal teamfights in PARIVISION’s favor. Their Undying pick for Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin was the insurance policy, keeping No[o]ne alive and causing even further chaos with Tombstone (W).

PARIVISION executed this really well, always going for anyone that could have put a stop to No[o]ne. Despite the unusual draft, they found a way to make it work. And honestly, this game was a foreshadowing of what would happen in the next one, because this team just doesn’t seem to have a weakness right now.

Game 3 — Bad Laning Phase? Who Cares?

It doesn’t matter what you throw at them or think you’ve figured out about them — PARIVISION will take your souls anyway, and that’s what they did to close out this series in utterly convincing fashion. Game 3 actually didn’t start out that great for them, at least relative to how things usually go for a team this good. BetBoom managed to keep it real even for most of the laning phase and the mid game, and for once it looked like they might have had a chance against PARIVISION.

The Magnus-Bane combination was working well for them at first, since it allowed them to just select a hero on PARIVISION’s side and guarantee a kill on them with Skewer (E) and Fiend’s Grip (R). Unfortunately, not even this potent combo was enough to stop PARIVISION, because despite the mediocre start for them in this game, they managed to outfarm and outscale BetBoom anyway.

Satanic didn’t care one iota about Danil “gpk” Skutin’s farmed Sniper, because Terrorblade doesn’t care one iota about Sniper’s physical damage output anyway. Without Sniper’s damage to help them in teamfights, BetBoom just got rolled over heading into the late game. They sniffed a bit of a chance to turn things around at the Roshan pit, but alas, Satanic just said “I’m the best carry in the world” and destroyed them regardless.

This result cements PARIVISION’s position at the top of the Dota 2 food chain right now, especially after their ESL One Raleigh and ESL One Bangkok wins. This team looks utterly unstoppable, and every facet of their gameplay just looks ironclad. They’ll be going into Riyadh Masters at the Esports World Cup (EWC) as the heavy favorites thanks to this win. Even though Tundra Esports skipped this tournament entirely, I’m not sure they could have stopped PARIVISION even had they attended.

Of course, carrying momentum over to EWC and then The International after that is easier said than done. It’s important for them to stay focused if they want to avoid a repeat of BLAST Slam 3, where they were bounced out very unceremoniously. This is where No[o]ne’s veteran experience will have to come into play, especially in terms of mentoring Satanic and 9Class as they face the bright lights of TI14.