Now that Tundra Esports have been eliminated from FISSURE Playground Episode 4, the path is clear for other teams to make it to the end. After taking down Gaimin Gladiators 2-1 in the upper bracket finals, BetBoom Team have made it to their first grand finals of the year.
BetBoom came into these playoffs by the skin of their teeth after dropping maps against BOOM Esports, Team Liquid, M80 and Aurora Gaming but that was, apparently, enough. Since then, things have really kicked up a notch. After taking out Team Spirit and Team Tidebound in convincing 2-0s, it was time to face GG.
Ringmaster Makes The Difference
Despite being in Captain’s Mode for some time now, I really haven’t seen all that much Ringmaster in recent tournaments. In Save’s hands though, this hero is something else. It seemed to me that BetBoom knew they were in for a tough time in game 3 after Gaimin last picked Quinn’s Huskar. But if you can’t beat him with one hero, may as well try with two.
After leaving Dark Seer to his own devices in the offlane, Ringmaster joined forces with Dragon Knight in the mid lane to repeatedly kill off Quinn in the laning phase and slow his farm so much that it ended up being one of his worst ever performances on this hero. Sure, Dark Seer had a tough time on his own as well but he had so much more space to recover that it didn’t end up mattering all that much.
Something different for Dota
Dota’s laning stage is pretty much set in stone most of the time. Teams very rarely vary from the 2-1-2 lane structure so this was kind of a treat to watch. It’s a lot of fun to watch teams pull off something different to keep their opponents on their toes. The occasional rotation from a support to mid is hardly unheard of but Jakiro just wasn’t able to leave Abaddon alone in the lane for long enough to repeatedly protect the Huskar.
Gaimin Gladiators aren’t out of FISSURE Playground Episode 4 just yet though, they’ll still have a chance to take down the winner of Falcons vs. Tidebound, which is next up on the stream. Regardless, it’s not going to be easy but it’s certainly nice to have a bit of a change of scenery in pro Dota after so many Tundra-centric finals. I can’t say I’m surprised, while Crystallis is a solid carry, having to replace dyrachyo when the team had built so much synergy was never going to be easy.
