Tundra Esports shut Team Yandex out of BLAST Slam 5 Chengdu grand finals
Patrick Bonifacio
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BLAST Slam is truly Tundra Esports’ territory now, as they just won BLAST Slam 5 Chengdu in utterly convincing fashion.
They wiped the floor with Team Yandex in just three games, showing extremely high level play and their penchant for winning BLAST Slam trophies left and right once more.
Game 1 — Cardiac Chengdu
What is it with BLAST Slam and games made of absolute cinema? The very first game of this grand final series had me and everyone else watching on the edge of their seats, as Yandex put up an incredible fight against Tundra despite being down almost the entire time. Tundra crushed Yandex in the laning phase with much better moves and classic high level decision making one would expect from a team like this.
Image credit: Man Lok Fung, BLAST
Their draft was also classic Tundra through and through. You’ve got Neta “33” Shapira on Axe, Matthew “Whitemon” Filemon on Jakiro, Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko on Ursa, and of course, Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov on his signature Invoker. To top it all off, Matthew “Ari” Walker also got his hands on Batrider.
The way Yandex completely fumbled their safe lane in the laning phase honestly neds to be studied. Carry Beastmaster has one of the best matchups against Axe in the early game, as he can simply zone Axe out with Call of the Wild Boar (W), and shrug off Battle Hunger (W) by sniping creeps with Wild Axes (Q). This put Yandex in a terrible position heading into the mid game, leading to a net worth lead of nearly 24,000 gold going Tundra’s way at the 32 minute mark.
By this point, it just felt like Tundra would simply outclass Yandex at every turn. Yandex did find one or two teamfight victories in between the mid game and the late game, but Tundra kept their advantage going past the 40 minute mark. The real “turning” point in this game came when they tried to take down the tier 3 tower at Yandex’s bottom lane, which was the last lane standing in the way of mega creeps for Tundra by this time.
They got way more than they bargained for. Although Tundra were able to take the tower and one of the barracks down, Yandex clutched out yet another unexpected teamfight win to repel their opponents’ advance. This was of course a very surprising outcome, but I’m sure I’m not the only one that thought all Tundra had to do was regroup and try again.
Incredibly, Yandex actually reversed the situation from here. Capitalizing on Tundra’s impatience and punishing their attempt to go all-in on the Radiant Ancient, Yandex kept their cool and picked their spots in the next teamfight impeccably. The target prioritization from watson in particular was just on point, focusing on bzm’s Invoker in the backline to help the rest of his team defend the objective.
Suddenly, Tundra were the ones on the back foot. Realizing that Tundra were short on buybacks, Yandex went for an all-in push of their own, and for the merest of moments, it looked like they would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Unfortunately, Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov made a huge error in judgment at the last second, getting himself caught as Puck after blinking in behind the Dire Ancient.
Without his control, Tundra were able to hold on just long enough for their cores to respawn and defend. With no gas left in the tank, Yandex had to begrudgingly surrender the first game — although they really made Tundra work for it.
Game 2 — Adjustments not quite enough
The second game was much closer between the two teams, at least when talking about the laning stage and the mid game. Yandex made the necessary adjustments in the draft to fix their lanes compared to the previous game, giving Night Stalker to Evgeniy “Noticed” Ignatenko while moving the Slardar that Noticed played in game 1 to the solo mid position for CHIRA_JUNIOR.
Image: Man Lok Fung, BLAST
With a much stronger laning phase now in hand, Yandex went to work righting the wrongs that they committed in the previous game. It also helped that watson had a hell of a time on his signature Terrorblade, farming up a storm and getting to his items at a breakneck pace. Read: Manta Style at 13 minutes, Hurricane Pike at 20, and Butterfly at 26 — all of which were there to help him beat Pure’s Ursa in a straight up fight.
Yandex kept things even through the first 30 or so minutes, taking small teamfight wins wherever they could while waiting for watson to come online. Unfortunately, it still proved inadequate, because Tundra decided to shift to a higher gear after this point. They outplayed Yandex with their superior positioning, shotcalling, and decision making — the very same aspects that helped them win three Slams in a row.
Another heartbreaking loss for Yandex, putting their backs firmly against the wall against one of the best teams in the world.
Game 3 — Phantom Lancer gets cooked straight out of China
Oh, Yandex — talk about overcooking the last pick of your draft. For some reason, they thought it was a good idea to take Phantom Lancer, now one of the worst carry heroes in the entire game, in a situation where they really needed to eke out a win in order to not get swept.
Instead of being some stroke of genius, though, the pick proved to be their demise. With oodles of area-of-effect damage over on the side of Tundra, this pick just wasn’t it. It didn’t help at all that they lost all their lanes as well like they did in the first game, and honestly, there really was just no window for Yandex at all in this one.
There was even a moment in the waning minutes of the mid game where watson got caught all alone, and it just took a single Omnislash (R) from Pure’s Juggernaut to take him out. Pure required mere seconds to erase watson from the map, which was just emblematic of how dire the situation was for Yandex.
That’s now four BLAST Slam titles in a row for Tundra — an absolutely unprecedented feat even though this tournament series is relatively new. There’s just something about the unforgiving format that brings the best out of this team, and they’ve proven that they just thrive in such a high-pressure environment.
As for Yandex, losing to Tundra here is definitely nothing to be ashamed of. They’ve got tons of room for improvement, of course, but getting to their first tier 1 grand final so soon is a very good sign with regards to their development this season. I look forward to what this roster can accomplish in the future.
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Patrick Bonifacio
Dota 2 writer
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.
