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The group stage of ESL One Birmingham 2024 is just gaining momentum, and we're excited about it. We're talking about the second stream of Group A matches.
And one of those matches is the match between Falcons and Shopify Rebellion. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most passable and knowingly unThe International Heresy matches.
However, this is the first LAN tournament in 2024, which means that there can't be completely non-The International Heresy and passable matches. Let's see if Arteezy and company will be able to give a fight to the best team in the world or if everything will end the way everyone expects.
Let's go.
Falcons uniforms
We start the match analysis with the analysis of the Falcons' form. The best team in the world is expectedly the favourite to win the match with odds of 1.3 for the Bo2 series.
The tag is not new, but they have not been able to achieve much fame since coming to Dota 2 a few years ago. All they did was to play in the local Saudi eLeague. They played there in 2020, with the top 6 and in 2021, with the top 3 and top 1 respectively.
After a pause of a year, decided to return to the professional scene after Valve cancelled the DPC system. Breaking in with a leg.
- Falcons roster: skiter, Malr1ne, ATF, Cr1t, Sneyking.
The roster was assembled according to the "golden roster" principle. We managed to get two players from Tundra Esports, and at the same time champions of The International 2023 Skiter and Sneyking, Cr1t, who previously played for Shopify Rebellion and previously for EG, ATF, who showed a good performance last season in PSG Quest and before that in Nigma with OG, and closed everything with a promising mid laner Marl1ne.
In the MENA region, where Falcons are based, this squad has no competition even at the skilla level. As it happens, the Falcons have already clinched their ticket to Kuala Lumpur 2023.
First, they passed the open qualification without any difficulty, and then, again without much trouble, slammed the closed part of the qualifiers. In the final, by the way, they beat PSG Quest by a score of 3-1. What one and two are doing in the MENA region is not entirely clear, but come on.
At Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show Falcons look very confident so far, which is to be expected. They have already earned their place in the play-offs by coming out of Group B in first place without losing a single game in three matches.
The Falcons started their appearance in the Pinnacle play-offs: 25 Year Anniversary Show with a first round match against Level Up. An easy win took the Falcons to The dudley boys and there the Falcons got their first and only loss of the tournament. They were beaten by The dudley boys, who were given a rematch by the Falcons in the grand final.
In the end, the Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show Falcons took first place and earned $50,000. The triumph at the local championship was the Falcons' first win in the discipline. But not the last.
After winning at Pinnacle, Falcons finished top 6 at ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 and then started to dominate. In 2024, they won 3 qualifiers: at BB Dacha, at DreamLeague Season 22 and ESL One Birmingham at their home in the MENA region.
Just before competing at DL Season 22, Falcons became BB Dacha champions, earning $400,000.
After the Falcons played at DreamLeague Season 22. They showed the highest level of play and pocketed another trophy by beating BB 3-0 in the grand finals. They made it to the Elite League finals, but were not able to win there: Xtreme Gaming were stronger and won the final 3-1.
They will open ESL One Birmingham 2024 with a game against BB, where they will have to outplay their opponents.
Falcons' most popular heroes
Io (6 matches, 66% wins), Death Prophet (5 matches, 60% wins), Chen (5 matches, 60% wins), Dawnbreaker (4 matches, 75% wins), Earth Spirit (4 matches, 75% wins) appeared most often in spades.
Shopify Rebellion Form
We continue our match breakdown with an analysis of Shopify Rebellion's match form. The Americans are number two, and the odds on their success are at around 3.
On the home stage, Shopify Rebellion have finished in the top 2 twice. In the third round, Arteezy and company finally snatched the championship.
At The Lima Major 2023, Shopify Rebellion made it to the top 4. Getting into the top three was prevented, unexpectedly, by Aurora.
In addition to The Lima Major 2023, the team played at DreamLeague Season 19, and they played even better than the Peruvian major. Cooler because they played with substitutes (the inexperienced Mikey played as a substitute for Abed) and reached the top 3 of the tournament for $1,000,000.
Then there was The Berlin Major 2023 with a dismal top-12, and then the third round of DPC 2023: NA Division 1. The latter went better: SR took the top spot, guaranteeing themselves passage to The Bali Major 2023, and actually made it to The International 2023.
- Shopify Rebellion roster: Arteezy, Yopaj, SabeRLight, Thiolicor, Kitrak.
At DreamLeague Season 20 SR again played with substitutes, but this time they failed to repeat the success of the DL S19 period: Shopify Rebellion failed to pass the first group stage of the DL and, like Liquid, left the championship early.
After the 20th season of DreamLeague Shopify Rebellion played two major events: Bali Major 2023 and Riyadh Masters 2023. Both championships ended miserably: TOP-12 and TOP-16 respectively.
The International is more interesting than Shopify's position at DreamLeague Season 21. Having fallen into Group A to such serious opponents as Liquid and Aurora. Nevertheless, Shopify Rebellion took the first place in their basket, thereby advancing to the top set of play-offs.
In the first play-offs match of DreamLeague Season 21 Shopify Rebellion had to mobilise all the knowledge and all the skill to defeat the Eastern European residents from BB Team. The match ended with the score 2-1 in favour of Shopify, and Arteezy for the first time in a long time gave not a meme highlite, but a game-changing moment.
In the match to advance to the DL S21 SR Ledge and Team Spirit, but later again outplayed BB in the lower grid match. However, it was not possible to take revenge from Spirit in the grand finals: the Dragons easily slammed Shopify Rebellion with a score of 3-0, and Arteezy and company took the top 2.
Shopify Rebellion showed a very questionable performance in the group stage. They barely managed to claw their way into the top 4 in Basket B, finishing it with a score of 2-7.
In the seeding match for the play-offs of The International 2023, Arteezy and company played against one of the main favourites of the tournament, Team Spirit. I don't know why, with a huge advantage on the first map, SR couldn't do anything against the Dragons and rather mediocrely Ledgeyli in the series with a score of 0-2. Next it was even more pitiful, as SR lost to their compatriots from TSM and left the main tournament of the year in 13-16th place.
In 2024, Shopify Rebellion won the qualifiers for DL Season 22 and ESL Birmingham 2024, and finished in the top 3 at Dacha.
At DreamLeague Season 22, Shopify Rebellion finished in the top 8, which is a normal result. Later they won the qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 23, finally securing their status as the strongest team in America.
The first opponent at ESL One Birmingham 2024 for Shopify Rebellion will be Talon Esports. And there the Americans have every chance to win.
The most popular heroes of Shopify Rebellion
Shopify Rebellion is most often played by Crystal Maiden (8 matches, 62% wins), Storm Spirit (7 matches, 57% wins), Doom (7 matches, 57% wins).
There was also Rubick (5 matches, 80% win rate), Terrorblade (4 matches, 75% wins), Underlord (4 matches, 75% wins).
History of head-to-head meetings Shopify Rebellion - Falcons
Earlier the teams played each other on DL Season 22. Then Falcons won.
Predicted result of the match Falcons - Shopify Rebellion at ESL One Birmingham 2024.
In this match for me everything is clear. SR is the opponent that Falcons should eat up in class. I'm sure it will happen.
Bottom line: Falcons win.
