Falcons, Yandex advance to quarterfinals at BLAST Slam VI

Team Falcons and Team Yandex each recorded a sweep on Saturday to punch their ticket to the quarterfinals of the BLAST Slam VI event.

Falcons posted a 2-0 win over Xtreme Gaming in their play-in game, courtesy of a 39-minute victory on red and 54-minute triumph on green. Team Falcons will compete again on Friday against the winner of Sunday's clash between Team Liquid and GamerLegion.

Team Yandex notched a 2-0 win over Team Spirit in their play-in game on Saturday, courtesy of 38- and 52-minute victories on red. Yandex will be back in action on Friday against the winner of Sunday's encounter between Tundra Esports and HEROIC.

BLAST Slam VI is a 12-team Dota 2 event that pays $300,000 to the winner and $1 million overall. The event opened with three days of group play -- a round-robin, best-of-1 format in which each team played each other team once. The top two teams in the standings, Natus Vincere and OG, moved on to the semifinals of the playoffs.

The teams finishing third through eighth in the standings advanced to the play-in round -- four best-of-3 matches in which the winners advance to the playoffs and the losers are eliminated. The teams finishing ninth through 12th in group play competed in the last-chance playoff, another best-of-3 format where the winners advanced to the play-in round and the losers went home.

The play-in matches will be contested Saturday and Sunday. The four winning teams will play in the quarterfinals on Feb. 13. The semifinals will be on Feb. 14 and the grand final on Feb. 15.

BLAST Slam VI prize pool

1. $300,000 (plus $100,000 in team earnings)

2. $150,000 (plus $50,000)

3-4. $60,000 (plus $29,000)

5-6. $35,000 (plus $15,000)

7-10. $22,500 (plus $6.250) -- Team Spirit, Xtreme Gaming, TBD, TBD

11-12. $10,000 (plus $2,500) -- REKONIX, MOUZ

--Field Level Media