Falcons IT 2025 team profile: a strong team

Dota 2 is deeply embedded in their brains and they are the most experienced team at The International 2025.

The two players from Team Falcons are two of the most experienced members of IT, and their coach is the only person to have lifted Aegis as a player and coach in his career. Coach Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling is considered the brightest mind in professional soccer and certainly knows more about the game than anyone else. His role was crucial to the absolute dominance of the Falcons last season.

At the same time, the Falcons player is the only one who has played nine consecutive games in TI. For Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen, TI 2025 will be his tenth attempt at the Aegis Champions. Nielsen and Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu each have eight TIs under their belt.

The Falcons were formed in late 2023, and there have been no changes to the team since then. They managed to create a team that worked perfectly from the start, and in their first year of existence, the Falcons entered TI 2024 as one of the top favorites for the title, but ended up finishing fourth.

Falcons team

• Oliver**"skiter**" Lepko
• Stanislav**"Malr1ne**" Potorak.
• Ammar**"ATF**" Al-Assaf.
• Andreas**"Cr1t-"** Nielsen.
• Jingjun**"Sneyking**" Wu.
• Coach: Curtis**"Aui_2000**" Ling

The Falcons are considered one of the favorites again this year, but the season they face before IT 2025 is very different from their first year together. The lack of trophies this year, however, is due to the fact that nothing depends on them.

A hand injury that forced Skeeter to undergo a second surgery has severely limited his practice time, something Snaking told BLAST a few months ago. The Falcons also had visa issues and had to play with a reserve player at one of the most important LAN tournaments of the season, ESL One Raleigh 2025. But despite this, they secured a place in the middle of the group and received a direct invitation to The International 2025.

Closer to TI 2025, the Falcons started to prove their worth and made it to the Esports World Cup grand finals. They lost to Team Spirit 0:3 in the EWC, but a few weeks later they played another grand final against Spirit in FISSURE Universe: Episode 6 and won their first tournament. Back then, they also beat Team Spirit 3-0 just as they were on their way to training camp for IT 2025.

Comfort at the finish line

Of all the IT 2025 teams, the Falcons are unique in that they consistently play comfortable heroes and build strategies around them. They also have one of the best hero specialists on the scene, the ATF. Since his debut in 2021 with Creepwave, ATF- has made a name for himself with Mars, Razor, Timbersaw or Bristleback. He's not shy about saying that these are the characters he does best, and to this day he chooses them without fear of them being taken away from him.<br>

This year alone, he has played 38 official games as a Bristleback, 23 as a Mars, 10 as a Timbersaw and nine as a Razorback. Recently, the Falcons have dived headfirst into the concept of tough, indestructible formations that fight as a team. They've found powerful power cores that benefit from armor costs, and paired them with intense healing support in the form of Fury.

While Crystal Maiden is the most played Sneyking hero this year (34 picks), in the last two tournaments she has played almost exclusively with Chen, Pugna, Enchantress, or Warlock, who not only shine in teamfights but also provide a strong lan phase and powerful attack.

Falcons are very good at playing Dota objectively, from start to finish, and to do that they need to work together constantly. In many ways they are similar to Team Spirit, so it's likely that the same teams that played in Esports World Cup and FISSURE Universe: Episode 6 will play in the TI 2025 Grand Finals.

TI 2025 kicks off on September 4, with 16 teams taking part in the group stage in Switzerland. The top three teams advance to the playoffs, while the bottom three teams are eliminated. The teams placed in the middle of the group will play each other in the knockout phase. The playoffs will take place Sept. 11-14 at Barclays Arena, where eight teams will battle to retain the league title. Until then, rdy.gg will bring you all the information you need about the main event of the year and the teams fighting for the most coveted trophy in Dota 2, so stay tuned!

Other TI 2025 team profiles

• Nigma Galaxy: No games
• Xtreme Gaming: Friends in times of need are really friends.
• HEROIC: Always unpredictable.
• NAVI: Rite of Passage
• Nemesis: Filipino passion meets computer pressure.
• Aurora: defeat the titans.
• Joker: go for broke.