They’ve done it: Team Falcons are your International 2025 (TI14) champions. They persevered in a grueling five-game series against Xtreme Gaming, with both teams giving it their absolute best and putting on a riveting show for everyone in attendance and watching at home.
This is a full circle moment for this team in particular, who came in fourth place last year and struggled with consistency issues this season. And they did it playing their brand of clinical, disciplined Dota 2, with both brains and skill coalescing to form an unstoppable force.
Game 1 — XG come to play
The first game of the series was as explosive as anyone could have asked for, with both teams picking mid game-oriented heroes for their respective carry players. Wang “Ame” Chunyu went for Ursa, while Oliver “skiter” Lepko picked up the Sven. The way the drafts panned out made it look like Falcons were set up nicely for one of their patented laning phase plans, but XG actually managed to upset the balance in that regard.
Image credit: Valve
XG’s Mars/Hoodwink lane combo forced Andreas Franck “Cr1t-” Nielsen to swap lanes with Wu “Sneyking” Jingjun, which set him back immensely as he didn’t get his level 6 on Snapfire in a timely manner. This put a huge damper on Falcons‘ laning phase, as they weren’t really able to make plays with Mortimer Kisses (R) as early as they would have liked. This in turn gave XG a ton of space to get gold and levels, which then enabled them to take the fight to Falcons with the Ursa as the lynchpin.
Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak also didn’t do particularly well as Ember Spirit, and so there wasn’t really an anchor for Falcons to hold onto throughout most of the game. They crumbled through the mid game as a result, and were never really able to come up with answers to XG’s massive tempo. Advantage XG.
Game 2 — Falcons stabilize themselves
Now this is the Falcons I know. They went away from the Ember Spirit for Malr1ne and gave him his signature Primal Beast instead, which instantly resulted in much higher impact for the mid laner. He had a much, much better game this time, serving as the point man for Falcons in basically every gank and teamfight opportunity that came about. And to that end, they won the laning phase extremely handily, never letting their opponents establish any sort of foothold.
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XG had a horrible time of it in game 2. The Clinkz pick for Ame, which worked wonders in their upper bracket match against Tundra Esports at the start of the playoffs, didn’t look nearly as threatening this time around. Why? Because Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf Bristleback, that’s why. Don’t give this hero to Ammar. Yes, I know you also have to ban his Mars, but his Bristleback is just as scary.
It got so bad to the point where ATF bought a Blade Mail 38 minutes into the game seemingly just to flex on XG and the haters. In reality it was there as an insurance policy against some sort of last resort all-in type move from Ame — but also in reality, he didn’t even need it. There was nothing that the Chinese team could do to stop Falcons from taking all of their barracks, which meant that we were going to a third game with the series tied.
Game 3 — God Save the (Uncrowned) King
Realizing that they couldn’t allow Falcons to gain momentum in this series, XG changed things up in their draft after seeing their comfort heroes get target banned in game 3. Going for a heavy save backline composed of Bane and Shadow Demon, Zhang “XinQ” Zixing and Yap “xNova” Jian Wei were the driving forces for their gameplan.
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That gameplan was to enable Ame and Guo “Xm” Hongcheng, playing Sven and Shadow Fiend respectively, to just go dive in and go to town on Falcons’ heroes. If they ever got counter-initiated on by Malr1ne’s Beastmaster, no problem — just use Disruption (Q) or Nightmare (E) to prevent the rest of Falcons’ lineup from finishing them off.
This happened a few times in key moments, where it seemed possible for Falcons to get some important picks on the XG cores. But no, both XinQ and xNova were always ready to save their asses whenever they were in too deep. Falcons just couldn’t confirm any kills in the mid to late game as a result, which they really needed to because of skiter’s lukewarm start as Gyrocopter.
Game 4 — Drafting masterclass
With their backs now against the wall, Falcons had only one thing to do: dig deep into their back of drafting tricks. It started with picking Tusk for Sneyking, which I thought honestly was the biggest reason they won this game. Tusk was the perfect selection against Ame’s Sven and Lin “Xxs” Jing’s Magnus, as Walrus Punch! (R) is a debuff immunity-piercing disable that also deals a grip of damage.
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But it didn’t stop there. ATF, ever the unpredictable player, team captain, and drafter, last picked offlane Ursa. For himself.
This choice took me out of it watching the grand finals at 1am in the Philippines, but man did it work to perfection. On the back of Malr1ne’s signature Sand King, Andreas Franck “Cr1t-” Nielsen’s Hoodwink, and Sneyking’s Tusk, Falcons constricted XG’s side of the map so hard that ATF was able to farm to his heart’s content.
And when an Ursa gets ahead of a Sven in net worth, you know it’s bad news. Just like in game 2, there wasn’t anything that XG could do to prevent Falcons from simply going high ground and imposing their will. Game 5 it is, then.
Game 5 — The final choke job
With all the marbles on the line, both teams went into the drafting phase with a purpose. Both squads got pretty much everything they wanted out of the draft, which was reflected in the the fact that the game was practically dead even for the first 20 minutes.
That didn’t last very long, though, as XG would start unraveling gradually through the mid game. ATF’s Magnus was able to get key pickoffs with Horn Toss (D) and Skewer (E), which allowed Falcons to hold onto a significant gold lead for a long time.
And even when they found openings, XG failed to capitalize. Ame, known for choking in the grand finals of The International over and over again, made the decision to hold his Omnislash (R) as Juggernaut in order to save it for skiter’s second life as Medusa. But it backfired almost immediately, as it resulted in Falcons jumping on the opportunity to punish him.
There was another opening at around the 47 minute mark when Xxs got a critical double Echo Slam on Falcons’ supports, with Ame proceeding to use Omnislash on skiter. But even that wasn’t enough, because Outworld Staff exists to make Juggernaut’s life a living hell. With a quip and a flash, skiter simply banished himself for a second, and that was that.
The game went on for a while longer, but with skiter’s Medusa having so much gold, it was just a matter of time until Falcons took down all their barracks, and from there, it was just a simple task of not throwing it all away.
Cr1t- is finally an International champion after nine separate attempts. Sneyking and skiter have won two titles, and coach Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling is now the first person to ever see three different teams to a TI win. ATF and Malr1ne both carried the hell out of Falcons at this tournament, and now they can also bask in the glory as the two youngest members of the squad.
As for Xtreme Gaming and the rest of China, it’s yet another bitterly disappointing year. This now marks a decade since the last Chinese victory at The International, and this was the closest they could have gotten to breaking that streak. They’ll be back, I’m sure, but this was such a wasted opportunity — especially for Ame, the Uncrowned King.
Patrick has been playing Dota since the dawn of time, having started with the original custom game for WarCraft III. He primarily plays safe lane and solo mid, preferring to leave the glorious task of playing support to others.
