Tundra Esports and Gaimin Gladiators will play for the BLAST Slam II championship after winning in the semifinals of the Dota 2 event on Saturday in Copenhagen, Denmark — albeit in different ways.
In the first semi, Tundra faced a stiff challenge from Nigma Galaxy, winning 2-1 after nearly two hours of play. In the second match, Gladiators breezed past Team Falcons with a 2-0 sweep.
The $1 million Dota 2 tournament began last week with two groups of five teams. A round robin of best-of-one matches in each group determined seeding for the playoff stage.
Sunday’s grand final will be a best-of-five contest; all other playoff matches were best-of-three. The champion takes home $300,000 in prize money plus $100,000 in team earnings. The runner-up will pocket $150,000 and $50,000 in team earnings.
Tundra opened the day with a 44-minute win on red. Nigma responded with a 46-minute win on red, but Tundra put the match away with a 29-minute win, also on red.
Bulgarian Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov paced Tundra with a 9.0/3.7/13.7 kill-death-assist ratio while Daniel “Ghost” Chan of Malaysia led Nigma with an 8.0/4.7/5.3 mark.
Gaimin and Falcons opened with the longest map of the day, with Gaimin winning in 48 minutes on red. They followed that up with a 38-minute win on red.
Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov of Kazakhstan led Gaimin with a 12.0/1.5/10.0 mark while Russia’s Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak posted a 6.0/4.5/7.0 line for Falcons.
BLAST Slam II prize pool, with prize money and team earnings
1. $300,000, $100,000
2. $150,000, $50,000
3-4. $60,000, $20,000 — Nigma Galaxy, Team Falcons
5-6. $35,000, $15,000 — PARIVISION, Yakult Brothers
7-8. $30,000, $10,000 — Team Liquid, BetBoom Team
9-10. $25,000, $5,000 — Talon Esports, Xtreme Gaming
–Field Level Media
