📝 Team Falcons vs. VARREL Full Match Recap

In the second match at the Stockholm World Finals, the 2024 world champions and Esports World Cup winners, Team Falcons, face VARREL, Japan’s only representative in the tournament— a classic David vs. Goliath situation.

Map 1 - Ilios (Team Falcons pick), Team Falcons ban Zarya, VARREL ban Lucio

During Map 1, both teams had different ideas for what they wanted to play with VARREL, starting with their signature double flex support comps, which play slower and poke out opponents. In contrast, Team Falcons went with a more neutral composition that let them brawl the VARREL composition more effectively. The first round started with Team Falcons dominating VARREL, taking advantage of their rotations and closing it out with little resistance. In the second round, the teams went with mirror compositions, except Kim “Proper” Dong-hyun playing Echo, while Jeong “TOPDRAGON” Seung-yong played Tracer. In a similar fashion to the first round, Team Falcons dominated them with their faster playstyle. Team Falcons grab the first map, 1-0.

Map 2 - Shambali Monastery (VARREL pick), VARREL ban Orisa, Team Falcons ban Kiriko

For map 2, Team Falcons subbed in Ham “SOMEONE” Jeong-wan for Choi “Hanbin” Han-been, which showed Falcons wanting to lean more into the Ramattra type compositions, whereas VARREL again wanted to play slow and poke out Team Falcons.

In round 1, when Team Falcons attacked first, they struggled to win clean fights, with constant trades coming out of VARREL, making it hard for Team Falcons to push. VARREL held them at the end of the second point, despite an excellent kite from Team Falcons. Now on round 2, VARREL started on the exact composition they have been playing so far on this map, whereas Team Falcons started on a double hitscan composition to abuse the long sight line of Shambali’s first point, but the unexpected choice was SOMEONE on Zarya, an unexpected pick from the midseason champion. After a couple of scrappy fights, VARREL managed to get through the first point. VARREL managed to win the map after Kim “Sley” Jae-hwan hit Team Falcons with a massive Captive Sun, taking the series to Map 3.

Map 3 - Runasapi (Team Falcons pick), Team Falcons ban Ramattra, VARREL ban Tracer

After the loss on Shambali, Team Falcons decided to sub Hanbin back in to try to clutch out the final map. Three minutes into the map, and VARREL had managed an over 70-metre lead without using any ultimates, so it looked like they were in a prime position to play the game slow and burn out the clock. But after a few late deaths and bad fights from VARREL, Team Falcons had managed to gain the lead and put themselves 20 metres ahead with five minutes remaining on the clock.

As the map progressed, it looked more unlikely that VARREL would end up winning this map until they managed to clutch out a fight win on their side of the map with just under two and a half minutes left. As the game entered its last minute and a half, the two teams were separated by less than 10 metres, but as it came down to the wire, a couple of missed plays by VARREL cost them the map and, subsequently, the series.

As the winner of this series, Team Falcons move on to face Team Liquid tomorrow in the upper quarter finals.