This is the first championship in BetBoom Team's history since the organization joined the Dota 2 arena in April 2022.

BetBoom Team won the first Dota 2 BLAST Slam tournament after defeating Tundra Esports 3-1 in the grand final on Sunday (December 1). With this victory, BetBoom received a grand prize worth 400,000 USD from the tournament's total fund of 1 million USD, and also marked this organization's first championship after more than two years of competing in the Dota 2 village.

The BLAST Slam tournament series has a unique competition format, different from most other Dota 2 events. The tournament begins with a round robin group stage, which determines the positions of teams in the "King of the Hill" style Playoffs. The leading teams in the group stage will be placed directly into the Playoffs semi-finals, while the remaining teams must start from the previous rounds.

Both BetBoom and Tundra topped their respective groups, with BetBoom posting a 3-1 record in Group A, while Tundra dominated Group B with an undefeated 4-0 record. BetBoom started strong despite having to use former mid laner Danil "gpk" Skutin as a stand-in in place of Gleb "kiyotaka" Ziryanov, who was unable to participate in the tournament.

BetBoom and Tundra then had to wait three days before being able to compete again, as PARIVISION and Xtreme Gaming made it through the tough Playoffs round to face them in the semi-finals. The grand final between BetBoom and Tundra was determined after both teams defeated PARIVISION and Xtreme Gaming respectively with overwhelming scores.

Final developments BetBoom vs. Tundra

BetBoom started the grand final strong with a dominant win over Tundra in a 42-minute game, thanks to excellent performances from Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko with Drow Ranger and Matvey “MieRo” Vasyunin with Magnus in the offlane . Pure and MieRo each scored 7 kills, giving the team a 25-9 kill lead in the first game. Notably, MieRo finished the match without being defeated once, while Pure only had 2 defeats.

Tundra responded strongly in game two, overcoming BetBoom's mid-game to win the 46-minute late game. This victory featured Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko with Spectre. Artem “Lorenof” Melnick on Puck led Tundra's kills with 9 kills and 13 assists on 4 kills, while Neta “33” Shapira on Visage scored 8 kills and 22 assists support with only 2 kills.

Pure with Alchemist and gpk using Pangolier shined in the decisive third game of the final, leading BetBoom to snowball from the mid-game to take a 2-1 lead in the series, after a tense 56 minutes straight. Both Pure and gpk had 11 kills and contributed a total of 42 assists, giving BetBoom a 40-21 kill lead. Notably, gpk was only defeated once in this match. Vitalie “Save-” Melnic also performed impressively against support champion Muerta, recording 9 kills, 19 assists, and only going down 6 times.

BetBoom finished off the grand final convincingly in the fourth game, as they overwhelmed Tundra – a seemingly exhausted squad – in a match that lasted 34 minutes, the shortest of the series. Pure led the way with Morphling, scoring 8 kills, 7 assists and only being knocked down once. Meanwhile, Save continued to show perfection on Muerta, recording 6 kills and 17 assists.

BLAST Slam I marks the entry of tournament organizer BLAST, based in Denmark, into the Dota 2 scene after becoming famous for its Counter-Strike tournament series. The organizer aims to differentiate itself from existing Dota 2 tournaments with a fast and dramatic format in the BLAST Slam series.

BLAST also plans to hold 8 more events in this series, lasting until November 2026. There will be 4 BLAST Slam tournaments taking place in 2025, starting with BLAST Slam II in February, and 4 another in 2026.