Team Falcons survived a blast from a new Dota 2 patch and a late comeback from Gaimin Gladiators to win DreamLeague Season 23, securing back-to-back DreamLeague titles and a spot at the Riyadh Masters 2024.

Falcons were all but assured of making it to the mega-event in Saudi Arabia in July after a few months of in-form, but Gaimin’s 3-0 sweep—and a completely clean upper bracket run without a lost match—accentuated the team’s dominance over professional Dota this season. In fact, had they not split their group series against Shopify Rebellion, Falcons would have swept the entire event clean.

“A big reason why I think we’re a strong team is because we focus on the fundamentals,” supporter Sneyking said after the match, adding that their hard work on the foundations of Dota has helped the team achieve multiple strong tournament finishes. This is the Falcons’ fourth tier one tournament win in 2024, adding to their win last season and victories at BetBoom Dacha Dubai and ESL One Birmingham.

Crucially, DreamLeague Season 23 threw a huge Valve-sized wrench into the mix: the game-changing Patch 7.36 landed halfway through the tournament, forcing teams to think quickly. Andreas "Cr1t" Nielsen said keeping it simple was key to adapting to the circumstances. "Most of the stuff in this patch is just yolo'ing and [using] whatever you think is right, as long as there's some logic to it," he said. "Even if we haven't played a certain hero in practice, it just works to pick what we know is right against their choices."