Team Liquid took down Natus Vincere 3-1 in the grand final of the BLAST Slam VI event, capturing a $400,000 grand prize on Sunday in Attard, Malta.
The best-of-five grand final kicked off with each side winning one map before Liquid pulled away in convincing fashion.
Liquid won in 33 minutes on red, then NaVi worked for a 63-minute victory on red to tie it. Liquid answered by winning in 34 minutes on red and 32 minutes on green.
Michael “miCKe” Vu of Sweden powered Team Liquid with an average kills-deaths-assists ratio of 14.0/2.3/13.3. Natus Vincere leaned on Taras “gotthejuice” Linnikov of Ukraine, who averaged an 8.0/6.5/5.3 K-D-A.
Liquid took home $300,000 in prize money and another $100,000 in team earnings. NaVi settled for $150,000 in prize money and $50,000 in additional team earnings.
The $1 million BLAST Slam VI is a 12-team Dota 2 event that opened with three days of group play — a round-robin, best-of-one format in which each team played each other team once. The top two teams in the standings, Natus Vincere and OG, moved on to the semifinals of the playoffs.
The teams finishing third through eighth in the standings advanced to the play-in round — four best-of-three matches in which the winners advance to the playoffs and the losers were eliminated. The teams finishing ninth through 12th in group play competed in the last-chance playoff, another best-of-three format where the winners advanced to the play-in round and the losers went home.
All playoff matches were best-of-five. Team Liquid advanced through the quarterfinals, beating Team Falcons 3-2 and sweeping OG 3-0.
BLAST Slam VI prize pool
1. $300,000 (plus $100,000 in team earnings) — Team Liquid
2. $150,000 (plus $50,000) — Natus Vincere
3-4. $60,000 (plus $29,000) — OG, Team Yandex
5-6. $35,000 (plus $15,000) — Team Falcons, HEROIC
7-10. $22,500 (plus $6,250) — Team Spirit, Xtreme Gaming, Tundra Esports, GamerLegion
11-12. $10,000 (plus $2,500) — REKONIX, MOUZ
–Field Level Media
