I know what you’re thinking: I’ve been glazing OG’s performance throughout PGL Wallachia Season 6, and this is just the latest in that regard. Well, you better get used to it, because out of everyone else in the playoffs, they’re certainly still the weakest team on paper compared to their European opponents.
It is therefore with some joy that I confirm that OG will be finishing in the top 6 at the very least in Bucharest, thanks to their defeat of BetBoom Team in three games today.
OG opened the first game up with an offlane Abaddon pick for Nikko “Force” Bilocura, which isn’t really something that teams tend to do in the modern day. Abaddon is much more of a carry pick these days, and I just sat in front of my monitor in disbelief after they picked him at the 23 spot. And considering that they already had a mid pick in Storm Spirit and a carry pick in Beastmaster, there really wasn’t any sort of misdirection play to be seen here.
Anyway, things went poorly for OG for most of the 48 minute contest. BetBoom enjoyed a gold lead worth 5,000 at just 15 minutes in, which grew to more than 7,500 past the 20 minute mark. I will commend OG for playing the map well enough to stay afloat, and there was even a teamfight where they took down four BetBoom heroes without losing any of their own. This was in large part due to Erin Jasper “Yopaj” Ferrer’s heroics as Storm Spirit, particularly with the Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade to Electric Vortex (W).
For a while, the comeback seemed on. There was now a chance for OG to turn this game around, especially since most of their deaths from this point on were on Andrei “skem” Ong’s support Gyrocopter. But unfortunately for them, this was when John “Natsumi-” Vargas decided to make some poor decisions as the aforementioned Beastmaster.
For some reason, he thought that jumping Ilya “Kiritych” Ulyanov’s very farmed carry Marci first was a good idea. Kiritych simply shrugged off every attempt at using Primal Roar (R), and would just fight back with Unleash (R) after the stun fell off. With that many throws from the carry position, there was just no saving the game for OG — and so it was just a matter of time before they had to tap out.
Okay, I’m starting to really see now why MOUZ went out of their way to acquire Force early last year. To me, this guy might as well be the second coming of Daryl “iceiceice” Koh. His Mars play in the second game made all the difference for OG, and just in the nick of time too given that their backs were already against the wall at this point.
The sheer control he provided with Mars’ entire kit was very reminiscent of Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov, and I could have sworn Force was channeling both of them at the same time the way he was playing. Clutch Spears of Mars (Q), damage from God’s Rebuke (W), teamfight setups with Arena of Blood (R) — you name it, Force was ready to unleash it.
The result? OG dominated the midgame and beyond, their net worth lead ballooning way out of BetBoom’s reach by the 25 minute mark. In fact, BetBoom looked utterly helpless against Force’s onslaught; they basically didn’t even get to play much Dota 2 in this game. It just goes to show how Mars can be utterly devastating in the right hands, those being Force’s hands.
On a side note, I’m not sure what BetBoom were thinking picking a mid Jakiro in this game. They picked the hero first at the 8 spot, leading me to believe it was just another standard support Jakiro pick, then they threw a total curveball by giving it to Danil “gpk” Skutin. He did win his lane against Yopaj’s Shadow Fiend, but I feel like other mids would have been able to do the same thing without crippling the position in the late game.
Ah well, onto the next game for BetBoom, right?
Well, I guess BetBoom were never truly interested in winning this series, because there is no way that they were at all serious about victory if they were content to give Mars over to OG. And that’s exactly what they did in the draft of the third game. I’m sure you can imagine how it went, but in case you can’t, I’ll spell it out for you: they got punished. Hard.
Anatsumi
Yopson
Nik
Timax
Skemtail pic.twitter.com/8AQFGnrja9— OG (@OGesports) November 20, 2025
Force and Timothy “TIMS” Randrup won their offlane matchup, and it was just curtains for BetBoom from there. With his 12 minute Blink Dagger timing, Force just imposed his will on BetBoom like he did in the second game, and once again the Eastern European squad found themselves with no answers to his control.
Natsumi- certainly enjoyed the freedom that he had during teamfights thanks to Force, as he finished 12-3 as Nature’s Prophet and with 43 and a half thousand points of hero damage to his name by the end of the game. It’s almost crazy to say now, but there is now a distinct possibility that OG could make it all the way to the podium, or even the grand finals at PGL Wallachia Season 6.
They do have another tough matchup coming tomorrow before that, though. Team Liquid are looking much, much better than they did at BLAST Slam 4, so I really don’t want to jump the gun here. OG are making it look easy right now, but there’s still some real killers out there in the upper bracket.
The rest of the upper bracket went more or less the way I expected it to, with PARIVISION beating MOUZ two games to one and Team Spirit brushing HEROIC aside in two.
Tundra Esports losing to Liquid wasn’t quite on my bingo card, though, given that Tundra recently won BLAST Slam 4 against the defending International champions Team Falcons. That said, Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov seems to be regressing in terms of his skill and confidence right now, and it definitely showed in this series.
That said, they are still better on paper compared to BetBoom, whom they’ll be facing in the elimination match tomorrow. I’m thinking that series will go the distance with Tundra coming out on top, but if bzm doesn’t perform well, they might have a hard time surviving this match.
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