This marks BetBoom Team’s first-ever tournament win as an organisation since entering the Dota 2 esports scene in April 2022.
BetBoom Team have claimed the championship of the inaugural Dota 2 BLAST Slam event after they defeated Tundra Esports, 3-1, in the grand finals on Sunday (December 1). With this victory, BetBoom claimed the grand prize of $400,000 out of the tournament’s $1 million prize pool, as well as their first-ever tournament win as an organisation after over two years of competing in Dota 2.
The BLAST Slam tournament series features a unique format that sets it apart from most other Dota 2 events. It starts with a round-robin Group Stage that determined the placement of teams in the ‘King of the Hill’-style Playoffs. The top performers in the Group Stage will be seeded directly to the Playoff semifinals, with every team ranked below them starting in the prior rounds of the Playoffs.
Both BetBoom and Tundra finished as the first seed of their respective groups, with BetBoom finishing with a 3-1 record in Group A while Tundra topped Group B with a clean 4-0 standing. BetBoom’s strong start was made more impressive by the fact that they had to play with their former mid laner Danil “gpk” Skutin as a stand-in for Gleb “kiyotaka” Ziryanov, who was unable to play in the tournament.
BetBoom and Tundra then had to wait three days before they got to play again, as PARIVISION and Xtreme Gaming survived the Playoff gauntlet to face them in the semifinals. The BetBoom-Tundra grand finals showdown was then set after the finalists swept PARIVISION and Xtreme Gaming, respectively.
BetBoom TeamvsTundra Esports
BetBoom started the grand finals strong by stomping Tundra in the 42-minute series opener behind excellent performances from Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko on Drow Ranger and Matvey “MieRo” Vasyunin on an offlane Magnus. Pure and MieRo finished with seven kills apiece to pace their team’s 25-9 kill lead in game one, with MieRo notably ending the game with zero deaths while Pure had two.
Tundra bounced back in game two by surviving BetBoom’s mid game timing to pull off a 46-minute late game win behind Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko’s Spectre. Artem “Lorenof” Melnick on Puck topped the kill board for Tundra with nine kills and 13 assists on four deaths while Neta “33” Shapira on Visage had eight kills and 22 assists on two deaths.
Pure on Alchemist and gpk on Pangolier then showed out in the decisive third game of the grand finals, as they spearheaded BetBoom’s mid game snowball to give the team a 2-1 series lead after an action-packed 56 minutes. Pure and gpk each had 11 kills and combined for 42 assists to fuel BetBoom’s 40-21 kill lead, with gpk notably recording just one death. Vitalie “Save-” Melnic also had an impressive showing on his Muerta and pitched in with nine kills and 19 assists against six deaths.
BetBoom decisively closed the grand finals out in game four, where they routed a Tundra squad that seemingly ran out of steam in 34 minutes – by far the shortest game of the entire series. Pure led the way on Morphling with eight kills and seven assists on just one death, while Save on Muerta again had a perfect six-kill, 17-assist performance.
