Gaimin Gladiators are the DreamLeague Season 19 Champions

^{Image: Gaimin Gladiators}

Gaimin Gladiators followed up their Lima Major victory with a win in DreamLeague Season 19, defeating Team Liquid in the grand finals once again.

Ever since the acquisition of Quinn “Quinn” Callahan, Gaimin Gladiators have been going from strength to strength. They won the first DPC Major of the year – the Lima Major – and now continue their victory march with a first place finish in DreamLeague Season 19. The Western European outfit beat their regional rivals Team Liquid 3-2 in the grand finals to win $300,000 and get a direct invite to the Riyadh Masters.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. Playing their first set of games on Dota 2 patch 7.33, Team Liquid made short work of them with a 2-0 win in the upper bracket final. Gaimin Gladiators had to beat Shopify Rebellion 2-0 in the lower bracket final to come up and exact revenge on Team Liquid.
 

Team LiquidvsGaimin Gladiators

Gaimin Gladiators won the first and third games of the series, which went on for 52 minutes and 57 minutes respectively. As opposed to that, Team Liquid’s wins in the second (36 minutes) and fourth games (28 minutes) were a lot quicker. Liquid made GG work for the wins. Game 3 was perhaps the closest of the lot.

But in the final game, Team Liquid could not push the Lima Major champions to the limit. Liquid’s lineup needed to play faster and set the tempo, but they were on the back foot right from the laning stage. Not only did GG have good lanes, but they also managed to get both the first set of Wisdom Runes, and press all the right buttons to grow their advantage. The game took 41 minutes to end, but the writing was on the wall well before that.

Team Liquid have to settle for a second place finish and $175,000. This is their second successive defeat to Gaimin Gladiators in the grand finals of a premier tournament after the Lima Major. For that series, they did not have Samuel “Boxi” Svahn as he had a medical emergency. This time though, they were defeated fair and square with a full roster.

Team Liquid and Gaimin Gladiators have been extremely dominant in the 2022-2023 Dota 2 season. Dota 2 patch 7.33 is in its nascent stages and teams are still in the process of finding its secrets. The top 4 DreamLeague Season 19 teams are the only ones from the Berlin Major to have played official games on the new patch. As these two teams head to the Berlin Major in their backyards, there will be a bullseye on their backs, and the other teams will be devising ways to take them down by exploiting the new meta evolving around patch 7.33.