Redemption for 23savage, Talon advance to top 4 at Riyadh Masters

Talon Esports, and most importantly Nuengnara "23savage" Teeramahanon, seem to have put behind them the early celebration incident that cost them a possible place in the upper bracket finals.

23savage kept the headlines and became a hot topic on social media platforms a couple of days ago when he lost focus during the final moments of a game against Team Liquid in the upper bracket semifinals and lost the game altogether for his team by celebrating the victory too early.

Read more: Craziest day of Dota 2 at the Riyadh Masters leads to last moment wins in both UB semifinals

Following the heartbreaking defeat, Talon were pushed to the lower bracket and are now forced to fight with survival on the line moving forward in the tournament. Luckily they had a day off during which they must have done everything possible to shake off what happened versus Liquid. The sole SEA team left in the battle in Riyadh returned to the stage this Saturday, July 29 for a series against 9pandas.

Heading into the battle, Talon were holding a 5-0 victory streak vs 9Pandas through the year, and watching them clash one more time, it looked like the former had truly figured out their adversaries in the tiniest details.

Talon Esportsvs9Pandas

In both games of the bo3 series, 23savage got to wreak havoc on the map from early stages, despite 9Pandas looking for all sorts of counters for him. In the first game, 9Pandas tried to counter his Medusa with Invoker, the same way they successfully did versus Team Aster. However, Talon played pretty aggressively from the laning stage and transitioned to a five man Dota very fast to make sure they can take the lead.

With their backs against the wall, 9Pandas took Medusa for themselves in the second game and once again looked for big team fights combos, but their plans were countered with a Juggernaut from Talon, a Diffusal Blade Ember Spirit and plenty of team fight control.

Talon Esports will return to the stage later today, at 18:05 CEST for a battle for a top 3 finish at Riyadh Masters. Their adversaries are already waiting and are none other than Gaimin Gladiators, who have literally won all the tier-one tournaments so far this year. Riyadh Masters 2023 marks the first time when Gaimin Gladiators are forced to a lower bracket run in a LAN set-up and remains to be seen if Talon can stop their utter dominance.

Riyadh Masters 2023 prize pool distribution:

1st place: $5,000,000 TBD
2nd place: $2,500,000 TBD
3rd place: $1,700,000 TBD
4th place: $1,200,000 TBD
5th-6th place: $800,000 BetBoom Team / 9Pandas
7th-8th place: $500,000 Quest Esports / Team Aster
9th-12th place: $300,000 PSG.LGD / Tundra Esports / Evil Geniuses / Team Secret
13th-14th place: $200,000 OG / TSM
15th-16th place: $100,000 Shopify Rebellion / Xtreme Gaming
17th-18th place: $50,000 beastcoast / Entity
19th-20th place: $50,000 Execration / Virtus.pro