Team Falcons exact violent revenge against Team Spirit, win FISSURE Universe Episode 6 grand final

The final tier 1 Dota 2 tournament before The International 2025 (TI14) is now complete, with Team Falcons taking the top prize at FISSURE Universe Episode 6.

They did this by crushing rivals Team Spirit three games to none, and I could tell that this was a grudge match like no other for the Western European squad.

Game 1 — Trolls get the last word

The first game in the series proved to be very interesting off the bat, and by that I mean the drafting phase. Spirit picked Slardar for Marat “Mirele” Gazetdinov in the middle lane, which was a curve ball that I definitely did not expect in this match. He did end up losing the 1v1 against Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak’s Sand King, which didn’t help Spirit’s case as Falcons would proceed to win the early macro game.

Falcons’ net worth lead got up to nearly 7,000 gold at the 22 minute mark, which set them up nicely for the rest of the mid game. This was, however, when Team Spirit turned on Team Spirit mode, which is to say that they almost immediately won a teamfight that caused Falcons to drop their entire gold lead and the game to get instantly equalized.

Both teams would trade the lead over the next 15 or so minutes, with Spirit holding on despite the setbacks they experienced in the laning phase. Unfortunately for them, they would later realize that they could not contend with Oliver “skiter” Lepko’s very farmed Troll Warlord. With both a Black King Bar and Linken’s Sphere in tow, skiter just shrugged off all of Spirit’s attempts to control him during the late game, making it just a matter of pressing Battle Trance (R) at the right time for him to run Spirit over.

Spirit tapped out just before the 50 minute mark, handing the early advantage in the series to Falcons.

Game 2 — Don’t forget about ATF

Game 2 looked close for a long while, as both teams were more or less dead even for the first 20 minutes. Falcons held a very small advantage during this time, until they broke the game open with Malr1ne’s Nature’s Prophet and how he was able to just impose his will on the map with Teleportation (W).

Ganking as much as he did led to 14 kills and no deaths at all for Malr1ne, which in the waning minutes of the mid game allowed Falcons to gradually increase their net worth lead over Spirit. And while normally this is when Spirit would pull something out of their sleeves, this time it wasn’t to be. Falcons is one of the best late game teams in Dota 2, along with Spirit — and this time Falcons was better.

Taking fights on their terms with Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf’s signature Mars, Falcons simply picked Spirit apart in the late game. Wu “Sneyking” Jingjun’s Pugna also deserved a lot of praise in this game, as his support play was a huge key in securing the win after such a long stalemate.

Game 3 — The falcon slays the dragon

If the second game looked close at the start, game 3 was the exact opposite. This was Team Falcons at their absolute finest — a vintage performance through and through with every member of the team firing on all cylinders. Even with Yatoro being allowed to play Morphling, Falcons just ran them over after the laning phase, thanks in no small part to ATF’s signature Bristleback.

With such a strong midgame timing in their draft, their Bristleback-based strategy worked to perfection. Morphling of course needs a lot of time to come online, and that time was something Falcons were just unwilling to give to a team like Spirit who can make the most unlikely comebacks in dire situations.

Not bad at all for a hero that’s been more or less ignored in the current metagame, but this is ATF we’re talking about. He’s probably the best Bristleback player of all time just in terms of statistics at the professional level, and it really showed in this game in particular. It almost seems like the meta doesn’t matter at all to Ammar, as he will find ways to make off-beat hero selections work. He’s just him, as many of us well know at this point.

So this is sweet, sweet revenge for Falcons against Spirit, whom they lost to in much the same fashion in the grand final match of the Esports World Cup (EWC) just over a month ago. I’m sure they’re overjoyed to have gotten back to their old form, and to have put away the very squad that prevented them from taking home the trophy in Riyadh.

This result also ends Spirit’s insane 10-series winning streak, which began when they beat Talon Esports 2-0 at EWC. But despite their loss here, Spirit are still one of the top three teams in the world, so I’m certain they’ll be back with a vengeance at TI4 in just two weeks.