Falcons Dominance in DreamLeague Season 23
Team Falcons defeated a powerful new Dota 2 patch and a late rally by Gaimin Gladiators to win DreamLeague Season 23, claiming back-to-back DreamLeague titles and a spot at the Riyadh Masters 2024.
The Rise of Falcons in Professional Dota
Falcons was all but certain to qualify for the Saudi Arabian mega-event in July following a purple patch of success over the previous several months, but the 3-0 sweep of Gaimin—and a fully clean upper bracket run without a loss—emphasized the team’s dominance over professional Dota this season. In fact, if they had not split their group series versus Shopify Rebellion, the Falcons would have easily won the entire event.
Focusing on Fundamentals for Success
“A huge reason why I think we are a great team is because we focus on the fundamentals,” support star Sneyking stated after the game, adding that their hard work on the principles of Dota has paid off and helped the squad to win several tournaments. This is the Falcons’ fourth tier one event success in 2024, following their win last season and victories at BetBoom Dacha Dubai and ESL One Birmingham.
Adapting to Patch Changes in Dream League Season 23
Crucially, DreamLeague Season 23 had a big Valve-sized wrench thrown into the mix: the game-changing Patch 7.36 arrived mid-tournament, forcing teams to think on their feet. Andreas “Cr1t” Nielsen stated that keeping things simple was the key to responding to the situation. “Most of the stuff in this patch is just yolo’ing it and [using] anything you think is good as long as there is some logic,” he explained. “Even if we have not played a specific hero in practice, simply selecting what we know is excellent versus their picks helps.”
Gaimin suffered a quick 28-minute loss in the grand final opener, and while they fought the Falcons harder in games two and three, they never really threatened the eventual champions. Malr1ne, the Falcons’ mid laner, proved too much to handle, ending the series with a remarkable 46 kills and only five deaths in three games.
Upcoming Events and Expectations
A few top squads will compete at FISSURE Universe 2 later this week, but all eyes are on July’s $5 million Riyadh Masters. The eight invited teams—Falcons, BetBoom, Gaimin, Xtreme, Tundra, OG, Liquid, and Spirit—completed DreamLeague Season 23. The EPT rankings will soon determine the selection of the remaining Play-In teams.
After Riyadh, the focus will be on TI 2024, although given the Falcons’ performance in 2024, it would be difficult to choose another favorite to lift the Aegis.