Both TI13 grand finalists are now out of the title contention at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024.
For many of the teams competing this week in Belgrade, Serbia for the BetBoom Dacha championship title and a share of the $1,000,000, this tournament represents their first appearance in the new season. Many are also debuting their revamped rosters.
Both grand finalists of The International 2024 (TI13) entered the new season with minor tweaks to their line-ups, and both have ended their first tournament run in the top 8. After Gaimin Gladiators were taken down by Aurora, Team Liquid were next to fall.
China’s only hope at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade, Yakult’s Brothers took down the TI13 champions in the first lower bracket round at the end of the second day in the playoffs stage.
Yakult’s Brothers vs Team Liquid
Yakult’s Brothers started the series with a strong Shadow Fiend carry game and they focused their attention on Liquid’s Luna – Enchantress safe lane, making sure to enter the mid stage with a decent advantage. They turned the engines up a notch and forced Liquid into a defensive stance to end the game in 30 minutes.
Nonetheless, Team Liquid evened the series in just 20 minutes of play time in game two, with a true snowballing draft and a perfect 6/0/11 performance from Aydin “Insania” Sarkohi on a position 5 Pugna.
Game 3 brought the tournament’s most exciting and action-packed match so far. A total of 24 kills went down only in the first 15 minutes of the game. However, 19 of those were on Team Liquid’s heroes. Yakult’s Brothers had a little over 6k gold advantage at the 20 minute mark, as they were constantly harassing Liquid with an offlane Dawnbreaker able to connect with her teammates all over the map. Although Liquid were hunted down, they were able to put up a fight, taking crucial and favourable trades to force a one-hour-long game. But despite their tremendous efforts and even a full comeback at the 50 minute mark, Yakult’s Brothers’ six slotted Luna with a Refresher Orb in her inventory was too much for Liquid to deal with.
Who are Yakult’s Brothers and what’s Yakult?
In the TI13 aftermath, the partnership between G2 and Invictus Gaming came to an end. The official announcement came on the 8th of October but, as both organisations are still interested in keeping a foot in the Dota 2 scene, Yakult’s Brothers can be regarded as more of a trial line-up competing for now with no contractual binding to either iG or G2.
If the team reaches the finals day in Belgrade, it won’t be surprising to see the roster signed by Invictus Gaming for the rest of the season.
For now, the only certainty is that the five players are Yakult enjoyers. Yakult is a Japanese probiotic milk beverage which is quite popular in Asia.
Yakult’s Brothers roster
Zhiyi “flyfly” Jin
Yi “Emo” Zhou
NICHOLAS LIM “zeal” ENG HAN
Zhibiao “BoBoKa” Ye
Wilson “poloson” Koh Chin
