The International 2024 (TI13) came to an end with Tundra Esports securing the second slot in the Western Europe region.
WEU closed qualifiers delivered everything a Dota 2 wishes for: upsets, unusual picks, dramas and most importantly top notch games. Tundra Esports closed the qualifier leg with an entertaining series held against PSG.Quest, who, unfortunately, this year will have to watch the Dota 2 flagship tournament from the sidelines.
Both teams fought for the final slot at TI13 in the lower bracket finals after Entity won the upper bracket finals on Saturday against Tundra.
Despite the tension a deciding series can bring with it, Tundra allowed themselves also to have some fun while playing for the last ticket to TI. After taking game one from PSG.Quest with a flawless 11/0/4 KDA performance from Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko on Chaos Knight, Tundra went all over the place with their draft in the second game. From position 4 Terrorblade, who was aiming for a Blink-Dagon item build, but never got to finish it, to a mid lane Arc Warden, a carry Broodmother and a position 5 Techies, Tundra’s draft felt like a tribute to the worst pub games out there.
Besides the greediness of the draft, Tundra realized quite early that they lacked stuns or any reliable lockdown. They lost the laning stage and despite being able to drag the game past the 40-minute mark, they had no opportunity to recover from an over 30K gold deficit.
Once the game two nightmare was over, Tundra brought back the CK and paired it with plenty of lockdowns to ensure that any skirmishes and team fights would go their way. By the 15 minute mark, Quest were able to secure just two kills on Tundra’s soft support while they were losing all the lanes. The situation got from bad to worse for them and their road to TI13 was brought to an end by Tundra Esports.
The International 2024 (TI13)
The International 2024 is set to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark in September at the Royal Arena. This will mark the second time The International is coming to Europe, but the first time when, hopefully, fans will be able to attend. The first time Valve tried to bring its most prestigious tournament to Europe was in 2020 when the pandemic hit the world. TI10 was postponed for 2021 and moved from Sweden to Romania. Although tickets were sold, a new wave of coronavirus forced Valve to refund all tickets and hold the tournament in an empty stadium in Bucharest. Since then, TI moved to Singapore in 2022 and last year it returned home, to Seattle.
