From DQ to champions—Azure Ray reverse sweep Gaimin Gladiators to win Dota 2’s ESL One Kuala Lumpur

Chinese Dota 2 is back on top as Azure Ray dismantled Gaimin Gladiators with a reverse sweep in ESL One Kuala Lumpur’s grand finals.

Before the tournament started, Azure Ray’s roster shuffle had Dota 2 competitors calling for a DQ from ESL One Kuala Lumpur as the team changed three players after TI 2023. With Valve taking a step back from the competitive scene, the rulebooks also changed, however, and AR didn’t receive any penalties.

Coming into the tournament, AR asserted its dominance early in the group stages as they topped Group A, dropping only two matches in the process. Moving onto the main event, AR started in the upper bracket and soon met Gaimin in the second leg. In their first main event encounter, AR was outclassed as Gaimin quickly sent them to the lower bracket.

Another EU giant, Liquid, was waiting for AR in the lower bracket, and they were ready to fight. Liquid won the first match versus AR, meaning the last Chinese representative was only a single loss away from exiting the tournament.

Defying the odds, AR won the last two matches in the series versus Liquid to secure a revenge match in the grand finals versus Gaimin. Despite being highly motivated, AR once again started the series on the wrong foot.

Gaimin took control of the grand finals with two back-to-back wins, which meant there was zero room left for error on AR’s side. While many were quick to congratulate Gaimin, AR did the unthinkable and pulled a reverse sweep out of nowhere, winning three games in a row versus the most dominant team of 2023, securing the ESL One Kuala Lumpur title. Considering there hasn’t been a reverse sweep finals in Dota 2 since 2021, the grand finale was a blast to watch for the fans.

Throughout the tournament, the XinQ and Xxs offlane duo tore down the opposing safe laner as Xm and Lou secured AR’s late game with little to no mistakes. Though the roster had high expectations, many expected AR to remain in the middle of the table at Kuala Lumpur since it was their first ever major tournament together. That didn’t seem to matter at all, though, and there might be more where this came from, as AR players said 2024 would be a year for China in Dota 2 during their champions’ interview.