Tundra, Falcons advance at Betboom Dacha Belgrade

Tundra Esports and Team Falcons rolled to 2-0 sweeps on Thursday and moved within one victory of reaching the final at the $1 million Betboom Dacha Belgrade event in Serbia.

In the upper-bracket semifinals, Tundra downed BetBoom Team before Team Falcons defeated Team Spirit.

Lower-bracket action got underway on Thursday, with Aurora Gaming edging Gaimin Gladiators 2-1 and Yakult's Brothers topping Team Liquid 2-1.

The 12-team Dota 2 tournament began on Oct. 19. Playoff matches will be best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final on Saturday. The champion will pocket $400,000, and the runner-up will get $200,000.

On Thursday, Tundra topped BetBoom Team in 24 minutes on green and in 32 minutes on red. Russia's Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko paced Tundra with an average 7/0/5 kill-death-assist ratio. Russia's Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko wound up at 1.5/2.0/1.0 for BetBoom Team.

Team Falcons pushed past Team Spirit in 56 minutes on green and 52 minutes on red. Slovakia's Oliver "skiter" Lepko logged a 13.5/2.0/16.5 K-D-A ratio for Team Falcons. Russia's Alan "Satanic" Gallyamov finished at 6.5/7.0/8.0 for Team Spirit.

Aurora Gaming opened with a 63-minute win on red before Gaimin Gladiators replied with a 41-minute victory on red. Aurora took the decisive third map in 29 minutes on green. The Philippines' Abed "Abed" Yusop paced Aurora with a 7.3/1.0/12.3 K-D-A ratio. Kazakhstan's Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov posted an 8.0/3.0/6.3 K-D-A ratio.

Yakult's Brothers sandwiched a 34-minute win on green and a 62-minute triumph on red around a 21-minute loss on red against Team Liquid. China's Jin "flyfly" Zhiyi amassed a 10.0/2.3/7.3 K-D-A ratio for Yakult's Brothers. Sweden's Michael "miCKe" Vu registered a 5.7/4.0/7.3 K-D-A ratio for Liquid.

Four matches are scheduled for Friday:

--Upper-bracket final: Tundra Esports vs. Team Falcons

--Lower-bracket quarterfinal: Team Spirit vs. Aurora Gaming

--Lower-bracket quarterfinal: BetBoom Team vs. Yakult's Brothers

--Lower-bracket semifinal: Spirit/Aurora winner vs. BetBoom/Yakult's winner

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 -- Gaimin Gladiators, Team Liquid

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

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

--Field Level Media