Tundra Esports have dropped out of the WEU DPC Regional Finals in last place, missing out on the chance to bag precious DPC points.
Tundra Esports have been eliminated from the WEU DPC Regional Finals in last place after winning just one of their five games.
Although they don't leave empty handed, bagging $10,000 for their performance, the squad have missed out on the chance to bag themselves some precious DPC points.
With how cut-throat the road to TI can be, these all-important points could be the difference between qualifying and missing out on a spot at the tournament of the year.
So what went wrong for Tundra Esports?
Tundra were unable to get off to a good start, with the newly sponsored Gaimin Gladiators winning the series very convincingly.
In their first match, Tundra gave away Broodmother, one of Neta "33" Shapira’s most dominant heroes, to their opponents.
Gladiators’ offlane Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard dominated the game on the Broodmother.
Ace took control of Tundra’s triangle, making it impossible for the team to move around the map.
Even though game two of the series was much closer for the squad, Tundra still didn’t stand a chance against Anton “dyrachyo” Shkredov's unstoppable Razor.
Gaiming Gladiators swiftly knocked Tundra down to the lower bracket to face elimination.
As lower bracket opponents OG were similarly squished by front-runners Team Liquid, the elimination match looked to be a hotly contested bloodbath.
From bad to worse
Unfortunately for fans of Tundra Esports, day two didn’t start much better for the stack.
OG battled hard to take the first game of the elimination series in a very convincing fashion.
It was tough for Tundra to find the right pick for 33 after several of his best heroes - Broodmother, Dark Seer, and Beastmaster - were banned.
Selecting Doom didn’t go to plan, with 33 struggling to hold on to the net worth lead we’re used to seeing from this hero.
First phase picking the Beastmaster for 33 in game two helped bring things back for Tundra.
Alongside Leon “Nine” Kirilin’s dominating Templar Assassin, and up against the poor win-rate Underlord, the team were easily able to take an early lead over OG and hold it for the entire game; demolishing the young crew.
After two very dominating games, both sides had all to play for in the final match of the series.
Once again Tundra Esports picked 33’s Beastmaster in the first phase, but gave the highly-successful Templar Assassin over to OG.
The game got off to a tense start, with Tundra keeping things very even for the first ten minutes.
However, it wasn’t long before Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov came online with the Templar Assassin.
From a triple kill to an ultra kill, bzm finished off the game with a second ultra kill; forcing Tundra to call GG just 23 minutes in.
What did Tundra Esports have to say?
Quite understandably, the squad haven't said very much publicly since their defeat.
Shortly after the game Tundra's official Twitter page posted a good luck message to their opponents.
They said OG "were stronger this time", and wished them well with the final day's games.
No players have posted on their own social media pages, but we hope they're not taking the loss too hard.
What did their opponents have to say?
Speaking after his victory over Tundra, Ace from Gaimin Gladiators couldn’t pinpoint the reason for their success.
“I’m not sure, when we play Tundra it feels like their play style just doesn’t really suit well against ours for them. It’s weird. No flame or anything, but I just don’t think their play style is good against ours right now.”
Similarly, a winner's interview with 16-year-old Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf from OG didn't shed much light on the reasons behind Tundra Esports' defeat.
Ammar, the only member of the OG squad not on bootcamp because of visa issues, said the boys usually "lost our brain" in officials, which might explain their unfortunate Underlord pick.
We just entered today with the mentality of ok, what happened yesterday is nothing; just go new game and we’re just going to win. We didn’t win against Tundra before and this is the first time I've won against Tundra in like five series. I've always lost to them.
I think Tundra are the best team for me and beating them, I really like this win. I really like Tundra a lot.
When asked what had changed for the squad today Ammar admitted: "nothing really", before revealing that he always get baited into picking Underlord despite never winning with the hero.
Ammar has lost all three games he's played as Underlord across the WEU Winter DPC 2021/2022 season.
We play scrims and for some reason when we go officials we’re like oh, we lost our brain. We have good strats but for some reason we just go officials and we forget for some reason.
I have Underlord, the best hero in Dota. I never win with this hero, I keep picking it and I get jebaited.
So what's next?
Despite Tundra Esports' sad exit from the DPC Regional Finals, the team are in a fairly good standing for the next DPC season.
The squad will be heading into Division 1 to fight for a spot at the next expected Major.
With the action for Tour 2 expected to get underway on March 15, the boys have a lot of time to play together and find out what's been holding them back and get into a good mindset for the upcoming season.
More imminently, the WEU DPC Regional Finals will finish off tomorrow.
OG will go head-to-head with Gaimin Gladiators in the upcoming elimination match on February 13.
The result will determine which team will join Tundra in walking away without DPC points.
Afterwards, the winning squad will then take on the undefeated Team Liquid in the grand finals.
The winning team will take home $50,000 and 250 DPC points, and the glory of winning.
Stay tuned to Esports.gg for more Dota 2 news and updates.