Team Falcons has overcome a banger new Dota 2 patch and a late rally from Gaimin Gladiators to take out DreamLeague Season 23, locking in back-to-back DreamLeague titles and securing themselves a spot at Riyadh Masters 2024.
Falcons was all but assured to make the Saudi Arabian mega-event in July after a purple patch of form over the past few months, but the 3–0 sweep of Gaimin—and a completely clean upper bracket run without a match lost—accentuated the team’s dominance over professional Dota this season. In fact, had they not split their groups series against Shopify Rebellion, Falcons would have clean-swept the entire event.
“A big reason why I think we’re a strong team is because we focus on the fundamentals,” support star Sneyking said post-game, adding their hard work on the basics of Dota has added up and allowed the squad to sling multiple strong tournament finishes. This is the fourth tier one tournament win for Falcons in 2024, with this trophy slotting in next to their win last season as well as victories at BetBoom Dacha Dubai and ESL One Birmingham.
Crucially, DreamLeague Season 23 had a massive Valve-sized wrench thrown into the mix: The gamechanging Patch 7.36 landed mid-tournament and forced teams to think on their feet. Andreas “Cr1t” Nielsen said keeping it simple was the key to adapting to the conditions. “Most of the stuff in this patch is just yolo’ing it and [using] what you think is good as long as there’s some logic,” he said. “Even if we haven’t played a certain hero in practice, just picking what we know is good against their picks works.”
Gaimin suffered a swift 28-minute loss in the grand final opener, and while they pushed Falcons harder in games two and three, they never truly came close to troubling the eventual champs. Falcons mid laner Malr1ne proved too much to handle, finishing the series with a ridiculous 46 kills and just five deaths over the three games.
A few top squads will partake in FISSURE Universe 2 later this week, but all eyes otherwise turn to July’s $5 million Riyadh Masters. DreamLeague Season 23’s conclusion locked in the eight invited teams—Falcons, BetBoom, Gaimin, Xtreme, Tundra, OG, Liquid, and Spirit—with the remaining Play-In squads to be determined by EPT rankings shortly.
After Riyadh, focus will be on TI 2024, but given Falcons’ form in 2024, you’d be hard-pressed to pick another favorite to lift the Aegis.
