Tundra Esports has claimed the championship of the ESL One Fall 2021 tournament after a hard-fought five-game series against PSG.LGD.
Both teams showed incredible performances in the tournament. Tundra Esports for one, pulled off a flawless run in the upper bracket, winning every series without a single loss.
PSG.LGD took another path to the grand final. They dropped to the lower bracket early after losing to Virtus.Pro. PSG.LGD then crawled through the lower bracket matches, going 2-1 in every series at ESL One Fall 2021.
Tundra Esports and PSG.LGD took turns going at each other
The first game in the series was heavily in Tundra Esports’ favor. Tundra picked a fast tempo line up, spearheaded by Leon “Nine” Kirilin’s Monkey King in the mid lane while PSG.LGD opted for a slower draft and were punished for it.
Tundra Esports pulled ahead in the laning stage, but it was their massive team fight win at the 13-minute mark that snowballed them to victory. Nine started the fight with a beautiful Wukong Command that took out Wang “Ame” Chunyu’s Templar Assassin and Zhang “y`” Yiping’s Phoenix.
After that team fight, Tundra Esports was able to exploit their lead, and closed the game out 20 minutes later.
Game two of the ESL One Fall 2021 grand final was highlighted by a standout performance on Y’s Bane, a recently buffed support, which allowed PSG.LGD to even the score line.
PSG.LGD was able to hit even harder in game three with their own stomp. The Chinese superstars ran a push heavy lineup with Zhang “Faith_bian” Ruida’s Lycan and Zhang “xiao8” Ning’s Leshrac, while Ame’s Sven farmed up for the late game.
Tundra Esports had their own Zoo meta going with Beastmaster on Neta “33” Shapira, but was countered by PSG.LGD’s Keeper of the Light, which resulted in an impressive 9,000 gold lead at the 20-minute mark.
Tundra Esports tried a last hoorah after securing the Aegis, but things went from bad to worse after Oliver “skiter” Lepko’s Naix got blown up, which gave Ame’s Sven an opening to rack up a triple kill.
The TI8 finalists are one of the fastest at pushing their advantage, and closed the game out in 26 minutes, the quickest match of the grand final.
Game four of the ESL One Fall 2021 grand final followed the same storyline as game two, but this time it was Tundra who came out ahead due to an incredible Roshan steal. Nine perfectly timed his jump to take the Aegis for himself as Templar Assasin, while securing four kills for the team.
Game five was the most exciting game in ESL One Fall 2021
The ESL One Fall 2021 grand final series had it all. While two of the matches were one-sided, the other three were nail biters that either team could have won. None was more exciting than the final game of the series.
PSG.LGD picked a mobile draft with Ame’s Slark, xiao8’s Storm, XinQ Zhao “XinQ” Zixing’s Pangolier, and Y’s Keeper of the Light. Faith Bian provided the team with a slow-moving but stable tank to play around on Viper. Tundra Esports, on the other hand, opted for individually strong heroes.
Tundra was able to take an important team fight at the 23-minute mark due to their high ground advantage, but their success was capped off by Adrian “Fata” Trinks’ amazing escape at the end as Monkey King.
PSG.LGD hit back hard a few minutes later in a long Roshan stand-off. Both teams used multiple buybacks at Roshan, but it was the Chinese squad that finally secured the Aegis, along with a nice dieback on 33’s Nightstalker.
It was truly a back and forth game, but by the 40-minute mark, Tundra started to pull ahead during the late game as their draft had better scaling cores.
The game ended abruptly when Tundra was able to get multiple quick pickoffs against PSG.LGD while they had no buybacks.
The fight started with Faith_Bian’s Viper and Y’s Keeper of the Light perishing, leaving the rest of PSG.LGD exposed and dying one by one.
It was a fantastic ESL One Fall 2021 victory for Tundra Esports, especially since they almost didn’t make it to The International 10. PSG.LGD’s next appearance will be at The International, as one of the five Chinese teams that are favorites to the tournament.
After the 3-2 grand final victory at ESL One Fall 2021, champions Tundra Esports took home US$175,000, their biggest tournament earning so far.
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