Xtreme Gaming runs down Elite League, Topples Team Falcons

The Chinese squad dethrones Team Falcons, who had been on a dominating streak this year.

As one of the invited teams, Xtreme Gaming had a round robin berth, not needing to go through play-ins. There they won dominating games against SEA reps Blacklist Rivalry and Aurora.They split the rest of their matches against other strong contenders like Team Liquid, Gaimin Gladiators, and Tundra Esports, on their way to a 2nd seed finish.

In the brackets, they were dropped to the Lower Bracket after a 2-0 defeat in their first match against Team Falcons. From there, they dominated the climb back to the Grand Finals. A 2-0 against PSG Quest brought them face-to-face with fellow Group B squad Team Liquid, who were the only team ahead of them in the standings. After a quick 33 minute win in Game 1, Team Liquid retaliated with an even quicker 28 minute win to tie up the series. Game 3 looked to go in favor of TL, until a massive team wipe around the 26-minute mark started to swing the tides in favor of XG. The lead started to snowball from there, and Xtreme continued to put on the pressure until they closed out in 41 minutes.

The Lower Bracket Finals saw a clash of the two Chinese teams, with Azure also being a 2nd seed from their group. XG’s clean sweep painted similar pictures in their two wins; stay close in the early game, find a good teamfight opportunity once they’ve hit their power spikes and team breakpoints, and slowly apply pressure until their opponents choke out. Their methodical approach punched them a ticket to the Grand Finals, where Team Falcons awaited.

Team Falcons were the favorites headed into the tournament, having recently won BetBoom Dacha and DreamLeague Season 22 this year. They finished the Group Stage with a 4-2-1 record, splitting their series against Team Spirit and HEROIC, and only dropping a match against OG. In the first round of the Brackets, they sent Xtreme Gaming to the Lower Bracket after a 2-0 sweep, after which they also swept Azure Ray to punch a ticket to the Grand Finals. 

Game 1 was all Falcons the whole way through. Constant map pressure allowed Falcons to snowball into an insurmountable lead. At the 30-minute mark, XG were able to find a favorable teamfight which cut the net worth lead from 22k to 11k. Falcons were able to recollect however to take Game 1.

With a 1-0 lead, it looked like it was going to be a similar picture to the last two tournaments. XG were not going down without a fight though, as they dug deep to turn things around. With a late game draft of Luna, Leshrac, and Kunkka, XG were able to fend off the MENA team's early game of Timbersaw, and their own late game insurance with Alchemist. With superior objective control, XG played to their draft's strength and finished the game in just under 30 minutes. In Game 3, XG switched it up, this time going for a late game team fighting composition. Despite Falcons drafting Batrider, Lion, and Disruptor, they were unable to get that many picks off, and led to XG power farming and out scaling them. In the end, XG took Game 3 with 29 kills to Falcons' 7, and took the series lead. 

Backs against the wall, Falcons knew they had to do something different to get back in the series. They prioritized the Doom and Enchantress picks that were vital in their Game 1 win, while taking away the Faceless Void from XG. The Chinese team retaliated by switching up their draft again, bringing out off-meta picks like Chaos Knight and Dark Willow, who only had 5.5% and 6.8% pick rates at the tournament, respectively. The two teams managed to go blow for blow, with neither team gaining a significant enough advantage. At the 33-minute mark XG led as much as 8.1k gold, but a big teamfight swung the lead the other way, giving Falcons their biggest lead of the game at 8.5k gold. The back-and-forth continued until Xtreme Gaming finally outmaneuvered and outplayed the subsequent teamfights, leading them to victory after 53 minutes.

With the victory, Xtreme Gaming were able to dethrone Team Falcons to take the top spot and get redemption of their own, after finishing 3rd in DreamLeague Season 22.