bzm at ESL One Birmingham 2026: “We figured out some good heroes before other teams”

Tundra Esports made a statement in the upper bracket semifinals at ESL One Birmingham 2026, taking down Aurora Gaming, the most dominant team of the group stage, despite some of the signature Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov heroes being heavily impacted by the new patch.

We sat down with bzm himself ahead of the upper bracket finals to break down how Tundra got ahead of the patch, which heroes he's still figuring out (Invoker and Ember included), and why the team's mindset heading into the finals is simpler than you might expect.

Congrats on the victory in the upper bracket semifinals, and I want to talk specifically about your matchup with Aurora, who seemed like an unstoppable team in the group stage. Of course, the patch intervened, but what would you say was the key to taking them down?

I’d say it was our draft. The way we built our draft in that series, because I think we figured out some good heroes before other teams did. We had very little time to prepare for that series, but the amount of heroes that we found to be good, I guess the others didn't. So, I’d say that was like the biggest part, probably.

Speaking about heroes, we saw you playing a Sand King mid lane in game 3 versus Aurora. How much of that is you trying to also have fun during the tournament, or how much is a legit pick for mid lane right now in this patch?

I mean, that’s one hero that I thought would be good this patch. Yes, they removed his Facets, so now he is a bit weaker in the lane, but they also changed his talents, which I think are better now. You have a bigger power spike at level 20 than you previously had at 25. They also tweaked some items that are better for SK than before.

I haven't gotten to play them that much to figure out completely how they are now. I just tried to test some stuff around the Aghanim's Scepter and the Shard, but I can’t say that I have a complete idea about them. Invoker is definitely weaker than before, but the question is how much.

Ember, I think in some ways, he is better than before, but the removal of the Facets makes him a different hero. From the few games I tested him, I can say that I am not exactly sure how to itemise for him. We will see. It’s still super early days of the patch.

Do you feel like you have to rely more on the pure mechanical skill of a 1v1 match up now, until you figure out all your strong heroes, rather than timings and macro strategy?

Not really. I mean, if you can remember, for example, the Tormentor, the terrain changes, whatever they changed on mechanics, like with the healing and lifesteal, it’s gonna be helpful for you to understand which items are better now and which are not that good anymore.

But for the mid lane itself, not much has changed. They changed how you manipulate the creeps in the sidelines or whatever. The cool thing for midlaners this patch are the new items. There are a lot of new items that feel like you could buy on mid, so you can even decide what hero to pick based on that.

Who on the team is the “patch notes nerd" that figured out the meta so fast?

It's probably the coach because it's kind of his job. We also have an analyst, of course, so those two, probably the most, because, again, that's kind of most of their job. And between us, the players, I would say probably me and 33, and then we just shared ideas with the rest.

With the finals series coming next, do you feel the pressure mounting up, or is the goal simply to keep the momentum rolling?

We haven't played on the stage yet, but these types of tournaments happen kind of rarely nowadays.LAN tournaments with an audience, I mean.

I like to play in front of the crowd. It's definitely going to feel different, and I hope it’s going to be good for us. We'll see; I guess. But hopefully we will keep the flow going. Don't think too hard. Just enjoy the Dota, the new patch. Just enjoy playing on stage.