TI 2024 Seeding Decider: Team Falcons survive close call with beastcoast to make upper bracket

Image: Dota 2 TI Flickr

While Team Falcons still made the upper bracket as expected, beastcoast sure made them work for it.

Western European Dota 2 juggernauts Team Falcons earned a spot in the upper bracket of The International 2024 (TI 2024) Playoffs after they took down South America's beastcoast in their best-of-three Decider Match.

Falcons were arguably the biggest favourites to claim this year's Aegis of Champions after a dominant run throughout the 2024 season that saw them win five of the eight tournaments they competed in, even finishing in the Top 3 of the ones they didn't end up winning.

With that said, they didn't have the best of starts in TI 2024. In their opening match of the Group Stage, Falcons were forced to a 1-1 draw by Chinese upstarts Team Zero. However, Falcons still managed to hit their stride and claim the top seed of Group C by getting their revenge over Zero in the group's top seed tiebreaker.

Meanwhile, beastcoast didn't have the most eye-popping performance this season. While they did manage to win a couple of local South American tournaments, they didn't make a lot of noise in the few international events they qualified for. Beastcoast's woes continued into TI 2024, where they settled for the fourth seed of Group D after failing to win a single game in the Group Stage.

By virtue of being the top seed of Group C, Falcons earned the choice to pick between the third and fourth-placed teams from Group D for their Seeding Decider matchup. According to Andreas “Cr1t-” Nielsen, the team made their choice via a coin toss and referenced how South American teams eliminated him and Evil Geniuses back in TI 2022.

While many expected this would be an easy win for Falcons, perhaps Cr1t was right to be wary of South American teams regardless of their Group Stage record. And while beastcoast certainly must've given Cr1t quite the scare after game one, Falcons still emerged victorious to secure their spot in the upper bracket.

Team Falconsvsbeastcoast

Game one saw beastcoast take the fight to Falcons with a draft anchored by Medusa for Yheremi “payk” Arroyo, Kunkka for Luis “Lumpy” Yausin, and Centaur Warrunner for Pablo “Vitaly” Angulo. Falcons thought their opponents were also planning for a slow game as they put Oliver “skiter” Lepko on Troll Warlord, only for beastcoast to run them over in the laning stage and build a 16-8 kill lead and 9,000 gold lead by the 20-minute mark.

Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak's Puck tried to slow down beastcoast's snowball by causing chaos all round the map while remaining elusive, which gave Cr1t's support Windrunner space to farm up and turn into another core built to counter payk's Medusa with Diffusal Blade and Monkey King Bar.

Falcons showed signs of life when they repelled what looked like the game-ending push by beastcoast around the 30-minute mark then isolated payk's Medusa in the ensuing teamfight a couple of minutes later. However, it wasn't enough to stop beastcoast from balling up and sweeping aside the last of Falcons' defenses to claim their surprising first win of TI 2024 in 42 minutes of action.

Falcons were quick to shake off their previous loss in game two, as they went back to their winning ways in a 31-minute stomp. After a quiet showing in game one, skiter showed out on Razor and racked up 12 kills and 10 assists on one death to pace his team's 39-6 kill lead. Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf on Centaur Warrunner and Wu “Sneyking” Jingjun on Clockwerk also notched nine kills apiece and combined for 29 kills against four deaths between the two of them.

Falcons continued their revenge tour in game three, as they drafted another aggressive lineup with skiter on Luna, Malr1ne on a mid Monkey King, ATF on an offlane Pangolier, Cr1t on Batrider, and Sneyking on Tusk to dominate the laning stage and snowball into a quick midgame victory.

Beastcoast could do little to stop Falcons from surgically executing their strategy, as the latter built up an 18-7 kill lead and a 6,000 gold lead by the 22-minute mark. And despite the South American squad's best efforts to mount a comeback, Falcons simply could not be denied as they closed out the series after a grueling 40-minute grinder.

Skiter led the way for Falcons in the closeout game with 13 kills and 14 assists on just one death out of his team's final 35-12 kill score. Malr1ne also pitched in with 11 kills and 17 assists on two deaths.

TI 2024 is this year's iteration of Dota 2's annual world championship tournament and features 16 of the best teams in the world fighting for their cut of the growing $2.36 million prize pool and the Aegis of Champions.

The event is being hosted from September 4 to 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark and is split into two distinct phases: the Group stage (September 4 to 5) and the Seeding Deciders (September 6 to 7). The first two rounds of the Playoffs (September 8 to 10) are branded as part of The Road to The International, while the remaining portion of the Playoffs for the remaining eight teams (September 13 to 15) are branded as The International itself.

For more of everything you need to know about TI 2024, check here.