Tragedy of Tundra Esports, xiao8 makes a comeback — key storylines of ESL One Fall 2021

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The end of August is usually the time when the whole Dota community passionately discusses results of The International, but it’s not the case for the second year in a row. TI10 is about to take place in October, so for now teams are perfecting their strategies and working on the proper mindset during non-DPC championships. One of these was the ESL One Fall 2021, which gathered 8 teams that are going to play at TI later this year. Esports Charts breaks down the phenomenal performance of Tundra Esports, admires the unexpected comeback of xiao8 and analyzes viewership statistics of the event.

Tundra Esports is the best team that miss TI10

Pre-TI tournaments rarely give any useful insights, especially online ones. But according to the results of ESL One Fall 2021, we can safely say that the upcoming The International is missing at least one very strong team: Tundra Esports.

Unfortunately, Tundra won’t be welcomed to TI10 stage

All Dota commentators and analysts admired how Tundra progressed during ESL One Fall 2021. At the group stage, the team lost only to Virtus.pro, did not give up a single map to beastcoast or VP in the playoffs, put on a show in the grand final against PSG.LGD and eventually won with a 3:2 score. For Tundra (including the period the team played under mudgolems tag) this is the first victory on a tier-1 level.

It’s a shame, but we will not see Tundra Esports at the upcoming TI. The team was rather clunky at the start of Dota Pro Circuit 2021 and reached its peak form only by the middle of summer. The team looked great in the European qualifiers for TI, but could not deal with OG.

FATA and 33 have put together a very strong team, but the main question is: will it live to see the next competitive season? After TI, a global reshuffle will begin, and there is a risk that some players will be lured away by more eminent teams.

Xiao8 hasn't played on the pro scene for two years, but he's still pretty good

The most intriguing news about the tournament was the announcement that the legend of the Chinese Dota scene xiao8 will play for PSG.LGD at ESL One Fall 2021. One of the greatest captains and tacticians in the history of the game had to replace the mid laner NothingToSay, who could not arrive on time for the team's bootcamp in Europe.

The “Director” (who is a head coach of PSG.LGD) has already had to replace NothingToSay. Shortly before ESL One Fall 2021, the Chinese team won the OGA Dota PIT Season 5: China, where all the top rosters of the region played: xiao8 played in the lower bracket match against Aster and did not disappoint!

Xiao8 is back!

The Chinese team was one of the main contenders for victory at ESL One Fall 2021: it was very close to winning the event. Sure, PSG.LGD lost in the final, but it looked very decent against all opponents and at the same time squad managed to win with non-standard drafts.

PSG.LGD is in incredible shape and will definitely be among the favorites to win TI. At the same time, the Chinese team chose a non-standard approach to training: while almost all top teams practice behind closed doors, LGD decided to test strategies and developments in official games: xiao8 believes that this is the path to victory. We will find out in October whether this was the right way.

Virtus.pro is still a mystery

The Russian-speaking region was represented by Virtus.pro, Team Spirit and Team Empire at ESL One Fall 2021. But alas, none of the teams jumped over their heads.

Most of all hopes were on two teams that got spots at TI: VP and Spirit. The first one was actively searching for the coach after the failure on WePlay AniMajor, and shortly before the ESL One Fall the team announced boo1k, who was the one working with the previous roster with Solo and No[o]ne. It's hard to say whether his second debut for VP was successful. Yes, VP played outstandingly during the group stage, winning 10 maps out of 10; it also beat PSG.LGD in the first round of the playoffs, but was unable to consolidate the success. As a result, VP finished 3rd in the online tournament, which VP previously won with enviable regularity.

Boo1k returned to VP, but is he the missing puzzle piece?

It's too early to consider Team Spirit anything else rather than an underdog. The team played at about the same level that we saw in the second major and in the qualifiers for TI. At ESL One Fall, the team went to playoffs and even put up a fight with PSG.LGD in the playoffs, but the team is not ready to achieve anything more.

Team Empire surprised everyone during the qualifiers for TI, when they almost took a spot at the tournament from Team Spirit. But at ESL One Fall, the team did not perform as confidently, although it made it to the playoffs. It is symbolic that it was Spirit who did not let it go beyond the first round of the lower bracket.

Creepwave with Fishman and Chuvash turned out to be the weakest of the CIS representatives with a draw and four defeats in five matches. But even with such bad results, the team looked preferable to some teams from South America, which will go to TI…

Viewership statistics of the tournament

ESL One Fall 2021 was the first big tournament after TI qualifiers, so there were quite a few viewers. However, the competition was far from setting any new records in the series.

ESL One Fall was less successful compared to the summer event of the same series that took place in June. The only increase was in airtime: 73 hours vs. 46 hours.

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Average number of viewers on tournament’s broadcasts was over 114.6K, and at its peak the event simultaneously gathered more than 232.4K spectators: the most popular match was the final between PSG.LGD and Tundra Esports.

The top-5 matches of the event included three PSG.LGD games: in addition to the grand final, the audience also actively followed its battles against Virtus.pro in the playoffs. It’s also worth noting, that the final of the lower bracket was only 11K viewers behind the overall peak of the event.

PSG.LGD became the most popular team of the event both by average number of viewers and overall hours watched. It’s interesting that the Chinese team was the only one to reach over 100K spectators during its games.

Many English-speaking viewers missed ESL One Fall 2021 as a lot of big teams decided to skip the event (OG, Secret, Nigma to name a few), so it was the time for Russian-speaking fans to shine. CIS broadcast became the most popular one by hours watched (40.6% from overall number). Russian-speaking broadcast also became the leader by peak number of viewers: 109.9K vs. 94.7K at English-speaking one.

ESL One Fall 2021 can’t be addressed as a full-dress rehearsal for The International as too few top teams attended the event. But it was still a big and important tournament to ignore its results. In addition, no significant championships are expected until TI. In the near future, the teams will completely immerse themselves in training, and the audience can only wait: October 7 is not that far away.

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