Tundra Esports are the DreamLeague Season 28 Champions

After an impressive run in the Second Stage, Team Liquid tripped in the Playoffs, and Tundra Esports took the opportunity to become the DreamLeague Season 28 Champions. This victory serves as payback for having their BLAST Slam streak broken.

Let's take a look at a quick summary of both Grand Finalists' journeys to the top and compare results with DreamLeague Seas on 27 to check how things ended up on the leaderboard.

Tundra Esports: Saving Their Strength

Tundra Esports had a consistent performance and placed second both in Group B of the First Stage and in the Second Stage. Their performance in the First Stage was similar to Team Liquid’s but did not particularly stand out from other teams.

In the Playoffs, things started to change. When it was time to go all in against Team Liquid in the Upper Bracket Final, Tundra spared no effort and won the matchup 2-0.

Defeating Liquid, which got past the Second Stage with a perfect record of 7-0, gave us the first hint that Tundra was not fooling around. They simply chose to save their strength for when it was truly needed.

Aurora Gaming: High and Low

Aurora Gaming had a slightly different story to tell, which was both entertaining and unexpected. Firstly, they got past the First Stage in first place in Group A. They defeated a lot of strong teams, including Team Liquid, and lost no matchups.

In the Second Stage, they dodged a tiebreaker against Team Falcons in the last game by winning 2-1 in a comeback against BetBoom Team. Their performance was good, considering they had a stand-in midlaner, but they ended up having to get through the Lower Bracket in the Playoffs.

Their first match in the Playoffs was another 2-1 comeback, this time against Xtreme Gaming, which ended up in fourth place. Their last obstacle before the Grand Final was Team Liquid, which was undefeated in the Second Stage but lost against Tundra Esports.

Teams usually manage to bounce back in these situations, but playing two tournaments back-to-back finally took its toll on Liquid. Aurora won the match 2-0 and moved forward to face Tundra Esports in the Grand Final.

Tundra Esports are the DreamLeague Season 28 Champions!

The Grand Final started with Tundra Esports getting an advantage with a 2-0 score. Aurora Gaming tried to even out the score and took a map off Tundra to make it 2-1, but in the following map, Tundra finished the series 3-1.

This means Tundra Esports are the DreamLeague Season 28 Champions and will take a grand total of $290,000 and 5,010 ESL Pro Tour Points as their prize. This also accounts for their club reward in the prize money and their First Stage placement in the ESL Points count.

Aurora Gaming gets a grand total of $130,000 and 4,420 total EPT points for second place. Team Liquid finished third and will receive $105,000 and 3,725 EPT points. Finally, Xtreme Gaming closes off the Top 4 and gets $80,000 and 2,260 EPT points.

ESL Pro Tour Leaderboard and DreamLeague Season 27

Out of the Top 4, only Xtreme Gaming made it to the top in both DreamLeague Season 27 and DreamLeague Season 28. The remaining teams had very different performances in December 2025.

Tundra won Season 28 but placed 6th in Season 27. Aurora placed second in Season 28 and 18th in Season 27. Team Liquid was third in Season 28 and 10th in Season 27.

This shows that things changed a lot, especially for Aurora, and that despite their apparently underwhelming result, Xtreme Gaming is very consistent in their performances if we consider only their placements in ESL tournaments this season.

Team Yandex, Team Spirit and PARIVISION were the Top 3 in DreamLeague Season 27 but placed 11th, 12th, and 6th respectively this time. Patch 7.40 feels like a bigger change than I gave it credit for after seeing these results.

Closing Thoughts

Xtreme Gaming is running against time to be the best version of themselves before The International 2026, where they will most likely be China’s biggest hope of lifting the Aegis of Champions. In the meantime, strong teams go up and down the leaderboard in the ESL Pro Tour after DreamLeague Season 28.

The next big tournament on the calendar is PGL Wallachia Season 7, which will take teams once again to Bucharest, Romania. All teams mentioned above will have little time to rest since they need to be in Romania by March 7, less than a week from now.

If you want to check our analysis of the meta changes during DreamLeague Season 28, the preview for PGL Wallachia Season 7, and much more about professional Dota 2, check the news section on the Strafe website!

Featured Image Source: Twitter (@TundraEsports)