FISSURE Playground Belgrade: HEROIC Impress in the Group Stage

The penultimate day of the FISSURE Playground Belgrade group stage just finished, with a few teams now eliminated from the competition as a result of the Swiss system in these preliminary rounds. On a more positive note, a few others teams have already secured their playoff berths, and can now relax for a day before the bracket phase begins.

HEROIC in particular has been mighty impressive thus far, notching a perfect 4-0 record in maps for themselves against Team Falcons, Aurora Gaming, and Team Spirit. These guys look incredibly focused right now and seemingly determined to prove that their victory at PGL Wallachia Season 2 wasn’t just a fluke.

HEROIC Deeds

Honestly, I’d already seen them as strong favorites after they won the first game against Team Spirit, as they completely crushed the two-time International champions right off the bat. It took them nearly 50 minutes to put them away for good, but the kill score of 44-19 in HEROIC’s favor tells you all you need to know about how the game really went.

LATAM IN DA HOUSE pic.twitter.com/y2qlI5bOAf

— HEROIC Dota 2 (@heroicdota2) January 25, 2025

The second game was a bit more competitive, with both teams hanging around each other for a good 30 minutes or so. But a massive late game teamwipe for HEROIC, which also forced a buyback (which then resulted in a dieback) from Denis “Larl” Sigitov’s Storm Spirit, caused the net worth lead to swing heavily in the South American team’s favor. With such a huge advantage in hand, HEROIC just didn’t look back from there, and just built on their lead until Spirit could take no more.

Folded Hand

On the other side, it’s unfortunate that North American squad Wildcard were unable to make good on the slight promise they showed at the start of the group stage. They managed to beat Xtreme Gaming to put themselves on the board on Friday, but immediately regressed to where I expected them to be.

f&*( europe man pic.twitter.com/MLgeaRJRb8

— Wildcard (@Wildcard_GG) January 26, 2025

Subsequent losses to BetBoom Team, Falcons, and Tundra Esports later on in the group stage sealed their fate, and so they’ll be going home with $5,000. Still a halfway decent amount of money just for participating, I’d reckon, and they at least got some valuable tournament experience that they can build on from here. Hopefully we see them successfully qualify for other major LANs in the future.

Their NA compatriots in Shopify Rebellion have also been eliminated, which means that HEROIC is the only American representative left in the tournament. I expected a bit more from Shopify at Belgrade, like maybe at least a top 12 finish. But alas, they’ll have to go home with not much in their pockets either.

Six-Way Tiebreaker Incoming

So now we are left with six teams tied for sixth place right now, each one with a 2-2 match record. Along with Tundra and XG, AVULUS, Gaimin Gladiatiors, Talon Esports, Team Liquid will have to pull out their best Dota in order to survive the group stage. Three teams will be eliminated from the tournament after January 27th.

To Round 5 we fall. 🙁

The Falcons fly away into the Playoffs by coming out victorious in the third map, GGs to them. We'll see you tomorrow for the deciding matchup.#AgainstAllOdds | #GGcolosseum pic.twitter.com/uBcy9KwynR

— GG | Gaimin Gladiators ⚔️ (@GaiminGladiator) January 26, 2025

This is going to be a bloodbath to say the least. I personally expect Liquid, Tundra, and Gaimin to come out of this final day — but with the level of talent at play here, upsets are definitely possible. In that sense, AVULUS and Talon could very well advance to the playoffs as well, with the former enjoying a good amount of momentum right now thanks to their last two match wins against Shopify and Yakult Brothers.

And thus, the final fixtures of the group stage will be as follows: Talon vs. AVULUS, Liquid vs. XG, and Gaimin vs. Tundra. That last one is perhaps the most likely to produce three high-quality Dota games, so if you can only watch one series, definitely go for that one.