Talon Esports end Gaimin Gladiators' reign of terror to secure top 3 at the Riyadh Masters

Gaiming Gladiators won all five premier Dota 2 tournaments of the 2022-2023 season until the Riyadh Masters. Talon Esports have put an end to their run.

When Gaimin Gladiators came back from a 25000 net worth deficit in the final game of their elimination series against Tundra Esports, it seemed like nothing would be able to stop the three time back-to-back Major champions. But their amazing run has come to an end, courtesy of the Southeast Asian powerhouse, Talon Esports.

There were questions on how bruised Talon’s mentality would be after their unexpected last minute loss to Team Liquid in a base race in the upper bracket semi-finals. But they exorcised their ghosts to beat 9Pandas 2-0 at the start of the day and then came back after a few hours to defeat Gaimin Gladiators 2-1 in the lower bracket semi-finals.
 

Gaimin GladiatorsvsTalon Esports

The series had some amazing Dota 2 on display in all three games. Talon Esports did what no team had the guts to do in the playoffs, which is leave the Leshrac-Io combination open for Gaimin in the first two games. In game 1, they made short work of it with a Terrorblade Eye of Skadi and an Ember Spirit that could go and hunt the supports on the backline. Gaimin put up a fight, but Talon’s cores of TB, Ember and Razor proved to be too strong.

In game 2, Gaimin pulled out an unexpected Bristleback pick against Talon’s early TB pickup. With the Io, Leshrac and BB, GG’s death ball lineup didn’t give Talon’s heroes the time to come online. Talon’s Puck did try to delay the game a lot with wave cutting shenanigans, but it only delayed the inevitable.

It all came down to game 3. Talon picked their position 1 and 2 heroes in the first two picks with Snapfire and Monkey King, although Snapfire was a flex pick and could have gone anywhere. The Monkey King was a response to GG’s Underlord pick, with whom they were undefeated for a long time. With multiple carries being banned, GG were cornered into picking a Morphling, which didn’t look too strong, especially in front of a Dark Seer and Elder Titan. Even though Talon led heavily in kills, the game was relatively even till the 40th minute mark, until a Roshan fight changed everything.

After that fight, Talon got two sets of racks and the writing was pretty much on the wall. Talon took the throne, putting an end to one of the most impressive runs in pro Dota 2.

Talon can breathe easy, knowing that they still secured top 3 after letting victory slip away two days ago. They now have a chance to get revenge on Team Liquid in the lower bracket final, and the winner gets to take on Team Spirit in the grand final of the Riyadh Masters in a best-of-5 contest. The three teams remaining all represent three different regions – SEA, WEU and EEU. It has been a while since that has happened, and it just makes the final day of the tournament all the more interesting.

As for Gaimin Gladiators, they should be proud of what they have achieved this season, and the team gets to take a well deserved break before The International 2023 (TI12). On a parting note, here’s a video on how they adjusted to their roster change at the start of this season.