Falcons win Group B at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade

Team Falcons defeated Nouns Esports on Monday to clinch first place in Group B at the BetBoom Dacha Belgrade event in Serbia.

Group A, though, won't be fully decided until a pair of tiebreaker matches slated for Tuesday. With group-stage action complete, BetBoom Team and Tundra Esports have identical 2-0-3 records and are tied for first in the group. Team Liquid and Yakult's Brothers are 1-0-4 and will have a tiebreaker to determine third place.

The $1 million Dota 2 event began with 12 teams divided into two groups for round-robin play. Group matches are all two maps. The top four teams from each group advance to the double-elimination playoffs, which begin Wednesday. The bottom two teams in each group were eliminated.

Playoff matches will be best-of-three until the grand final on Saturday, which will be best-of-five. The champion will pocket $400,000, and the runner-up will get $200,000.

On Monday, Falcons became the only team from either group to notch a third win in the group stage when they defeated Nouns in 42 minutes on red and 28 minutes on green. Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf of Jordan averaged a kills-deaths-assists ratio of 8.0/0.0/11.0 to guide Falcons.

Falcons went on to finish their day with a 1-1 split with Aurora Gaming, as they fell in 38 minutes playing on red before prevailing in 47 minutes on green.

Gaimin Gladiators had an identical day -- just like Team Falcons, they swept Nouns 2-0 and tied 1-1 with Aurora. That helped GG secure third place in Group B, just behind Team Spirit, whose only result of the day was a 1-1 draw with L1GA TEAM.

In Group A, the only match not to end in a tie was Team Liquid's 2-0 victory over Talon Esports that allowed them to tie Yakult's Brothers for third in the group standings. Liquid triumphed in 24 minutes on green and 42 minutes on red, with Sweden's Michael "miCKe" Vu (13.5/3.0/11.0 average K-D-A) to thank.

After BetBoom Team tied 1-1 with Yakult's Brothers, the final match of Group A pitted Tundra against BetBoom. Tundra took the first map in 40 minutes playing on green, but BetBoom fought back for the 1-1 tie by winning the second map in 47 minutes, also playing on green.

The teams will meet again for a best-of-three tiebreaker to decide the group's champion, which will affect playoff-stage seeding.

The tournament continues Tuesday with two tiebreaker matches:

--Team Liquid vs. Yakult's Brothers

--BetBoom Team vs. Tundra Esports

BetBoom Dacha Belgrade group standings, with match record (W-L-T) and map record:

Group A

T1. BetBoom Team, 2-0-3, 7-3

T1. Tundra Esports, 2-0-3, 7-3

T3. Team Liquid, 1-0-4, 6-4

T3. Yakult's Brothers, 1-0-4, 6-4

5. MOUZ, 0-2-3, 3-7

6. Talon Esports, 0-4-1, 1-9

Group B

1. Team Falcons, 3-0-2, 8-2

2. Team Spirit, 1-0-4, 6-4

3. Gaimin Gladiators, 2-1-2, 6-4

4. Aurora Gaming, 1-1-3, 5-5

5. L1GA TEAM, 1-2-2, 4-6

6. Nouns Esports, 0-4-1, 1-9

BetBoom Dacha Belgrade prize pool:

1. $400,000

2. $200,000

3. $100,000

4. $60,000

5-6. $40,000

7-8. $30,000

9-10. $25,000 -- MOUZ, L1GA TEAM

11-12. $25,000 -- Talon Esports, Nouns Esports

--Field Level Media