The Betboom Xmas Show gave some teams the opportunity to prepare ahead of others for the 2023 DPC season.
Some of the European Dota 2 teams that participated include Gaimin Gladiators, which had Quinn on display. Quinn led the team (GG) to the title and a $25,000 price tag, but it wasn’t all straightforward.
Gaimin Gladiators started with wins against Nemiga Gaming and Virtus Pro, who had a new roster. The team also faced Tl10 winners Team Spirit. Both sides were strong enough for each other, having recently rejigged their team ahead of the 2023 DPC season.
GG struggled to replicate their early form in the upper bracket finals but managed to scale through.
The decider for GG was having to reshuffle the team, replacing dyrachyo with Shad. Team Spirit took advantage and secured a win over GG.
The route led GG back to Nemiga, who was renewed for another battle after the first against GG, which dropped them to the lower bracket. The difference this time was that Nemiga never dropped a single point since losing to GG.
Nemiga threatened a win after winning the first match in the series, but GG adopted the Faceless Void draft to scale through.
The next game was against Spirit, and GG triumphed despite’s Spirit’s strategy to counter the Faceless Void Strategy. Instrumental to the victory was North American midlaner Quinn whose performance helped Gaimin Gladiators to win the final tournament of the year 2022.
Elsewhere, Natus Vincere and Ukrainian CS:GO rifler Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev mutually ended their engagement on Friday after sdy had spent a long period standing in for former in-game leader Boombl4.
A permanent replacement is yet unknown, but an academy player with NAVI Junior Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi has been promoted to the main roster for IEM Katowice 2023 and other January events as a full-time player for the org.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
