Falcons claim revenge to eliminate BetBoom

Snappi's side earned a spot in the Group A decider match after dispatching of BetBoom in Belgrade.

Falcons bounced back from defeat to Virtus.pro in their opening match of BetBoom Dacha Belgrade with a reverse-sweep victory over BetBoom (9-13 Anubis, 13-10 Vertigo, 13-4 Nuke) in the Group A elimination match.

The result sends Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov's men packing from the tournament after they received a last-minute invite and ends their hopes of destroying "the dreams of people who want to win this tournament," while Falcons move on to the group decider match where they await the loser of MOUZ vs. Virtus.pro.

Date	Matches
BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024
17/05/2024	Falcons 14:00 Virtus.pro	Match

Falcons had put up a decent showing in their opening map against Virtus.pro, taking the fight to overtime, but "didn't even get to play Counter-Strike" on the second, according to Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen.

The result left Falcons with a disastrous 1-8 win-loss record over their last four events, including a 0-2 loss to BetBoom at ESL Pro League Season 19. dupreeh admitted that his team wanted "a little bit of revenge for Pro League" before the match, but stated their focus was on playing as well as they could regardless.

"I just hope that we learned from the time we spent home from Pro League and that we developed some new things and stuff that we can come up with," the Dane added.

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KaiR0N-: "We want to destroy the dreams of people who want to win this tournament"

Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García and Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif were the men to watch for Falcons throughout the series, with the former leading his side to a 4-1 start on the T side of BetBoom's Anubis pick.

The team around Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer showed signs of weakness throughout the half, however, with some dicey mid-rounds allowing BetBoom to recover and post four at halftime. That margin was more than BetBoom needed to come back once on the offense, holding Falcons to just a single round en route to a 13-9 win.

BetBoom carried that momentum into Vertigo for a 4-1 start of their own, but Falcons showed some solid resistance and tallied six at the half off the back of multis from SunPayus and Magisk.

A lost 4vs2 near the end of the half could have played into Falcons' heads, but they were in good spirits after a lengthy technical pause and Magisk could be heard laughing throughout the near-20 minute wait.

Snappi took control and led by example on the attack combining, with a 1vs2 clutch and late-round impact from Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković to net Falcons an 11-7 lead. Kirill "⁠Magnojez⁠" Rodnov and Pavel "⁠S1ren⁠" Ogloblin were having a disastrous map, yet BetBoom still brought the score back to 11-10 only for SunPayus to tally a triple kill and sent his team on map point before they closed it out.

There had been laughter from Falcons during the pause but few smiles at the end of the map as it likely got a bit too close for comfort, but jubilation returned on the Nuke decider.

It was clear Snappi had done his homework after losing to nafany's team 8-13 in Malta as he called a masterclass T side, mustering nine rounds on the attack before his team closed things out shortly into the second half. Falcons had no trouble poking holes in BetBoom's defenses and exploiting rotations, enabled by Magisk dominating with a 5:0 record in opening duels and a 1.80 map rating that earned Falcons a spot in the Group A decider.