A rivalry in the making: Team Falcons and Tundra Esports

headline photo credits: Valve

Team Falcons secured a grand finals appearance once again and it’s a déjà vu.

Team Falcons are one of the very few teams that kept their roster intact after The International 2024 (TI13). In the previous season, they took home six tournament trophies and headed into TI as the main favourites. However, great success comes with a lot of attention being drawn onto you, and at the pinnacle Dota 2 tournament of the year they came in fourth place after losing twice to Tundra Esports.

Interestingly enough, Tundra Esports were the ones to drop them to the lower bracket at TI, and a few days later, the same Tundra sent them packing in the lower bracket semifinals. But while Falcons stood strong and entered the new season in the exact same formula, Tundra, who finished third last month in Copenhagen, are now with a completely new trio core.

Tundra’s TI11 offlane duo is reunited. Martin "Saksa" Sazdov ended his one-year hiatus just before TI13 and is now once again sharing the lane with Neta "33" Shapira, who returned to Tundra after winning TI13 with Team Liquid and became the first player to have won The International with two different organisations.

Should we mention that Falcons have three of Tundra’s TI11 champions as well? If somehow it slipped your mind, Oliver "skiter" Lepko, Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu and coach Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling lifted the Aegis of Champions above their heads under the Tundra Esports banner, along with 33 and Saksa in Singapore at TI11.

credits: Valve

Team Falcons’ redemption arc

BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024 is already the second LAN in the new season for both Tundra and Falcons. Two weeks ago they were both playing at PGL Wallachia Season 2, but they never got to play against each other in Bucharest. However, they both made it to the top 3. Tundra made an almost full lower bracket run to reach the finals days, while Falcons got into the grand finals from the upper bracket series.

What do they have in common? They have both been humbled by Heroic.

Heroic are not at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024, so today Falcons have a big chance at exacting full revenge on Tundra for what happened at TI13. Falcons have already defeated Tundra once in Belgrade and sent them to the lower bracket finals at the end of a thrilling upper bracket finals series.

Now it’s up for Tundra to win today against BetBoom Team in the lower bracket finals and book another battle with Falcons, this time with a championship title at stake.

Although we are just at the beginning of the new season, Team Falcons and Tundra Esports are definitely developing a rivalry that might get us watching them duel for supremacy until next year’s TI, just like Gaimin Gladiators and Team Liquid did last year.