DESPITE A tough four days, BOOM Esports and Fnatic have survived The International 2022’s group stage to earn a spot in the playoffs.
Boom Esports ended as the eighth seed of Group A while Fnatic finished groups as the fifth seed of group B.
Fellow SEA org Talon failed to move past the group after being swept by Entity Gaming in the tiebreaker series for Group B’s final seed.
Boom Esports beats the odds
It was a tough group for Boom Esports as they struggled from the beginning of groups. OG swept them in their opening series, despite having a lead in the early game. It was an omen of what was to come in the next three days as the team struggled to find their form.
They only earned three wins in two days, ending day two as the eighth seed. Unfortunately, day three would complicate their playoff chances as they went 0-6 for the day, suffering from sweeps in all three of their series. They would fall to a 3-13 record, becoming group A’s tenth and last seed.
With a single series left for the fourth and final day, they needed to sweep their opponents and hope that NA’s Soniqs would go winless and EEU’s BetBoom lose a game to force a tiebreaker scenario. But before they could dream of tie-breakers they needed to beat their group’s top seed Evil Geniuses, a team who only lost a single series in the last three days.
It was a near-impossible feat, with renowned Dota 2 stats man Ben Steenhuisen calculating that Boom had a 1.42 percent chance of getting out of groups.
But the Boys out of Manila would beat the odds. They immediately came out of the gates swinging, handing EG their third loss of the group stage in under 39 minutes.
The North American favorites would go out without a fight. EG found their timings in the second game, as Artour "RTZ" Babaev’s Naga Siren slowly choke out Boom’s map and their early game lead. But Boom would hold on, as they found a team wipe in the 41st minute even as they were 12k down.
From there they would hold on to the lead, but EG kept close. It would only be on the 55th minute that Boom forced EG to tap out. managing a team wipe after a massive Blackhole refresher play onto EG’s cores who bought back.
Boom’s momentum would follow them into the tiebreakers as they redeemed themselves with a quick 33-minute win against Soniqs, and followed that up with a dominant dismantling of BetBoom to quickly end the round-robin tiebreaker.
Now heading to the playoffs, Boom faces another tough foe as they matchup against defending champs Team Spirit in a best-of-one do-or-die game.
Fnatic strides on to the playoffs
Unlike Boom’s rollercoaster week, Fnatic’s road to the playoffs was a steady pace. The squad ended day one with a 1-3 record tied in last place, but they slowly clawed their way back up by day two as they finished the day with a 5-5 record.
The team would find themselves in contention for upper bracket by the third day as they swept China’s Team Aster in two close games. It was a nailbiter of a series that saw Fnatic needing to backdoor in Game 2 just to put out the fifth-ranked team in the DPC.
Despite the highs in the morning, they found themselves being swept by Talon in their final series of the day. But even with the loss, the team stayed in contention for an upper bracket slot after they eliminated TSM in day four. Luck wasn’t on the side of the SEA juggernaut as Thunder Predator’s draw with Beastcoast was enough for the South American squad to lock in the final upper bracket slot without any tiebreakers.
Fnatic would finish the group stage in fifth place. They will face Gaimin Gladiators from Group for their do-or-die series in the playoffs.
The International 2022’s playoff start Thursday, October 20, with teams from the upper bracket opening the day and eliminations played later in the day.