ATF Explains Falcons’ Deciding-Map Edge

Published September 23, 2026

Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf has identified Team Falcons’ prior championship experience as the central reason the team won the deciding map of The International 2025 grand final against Xtreme Gaming. Speaking in an interview on KheZu’s YouTube channel, the offlaner said Falcons had two players who had already won TI, while their opponents did not. In his view, that difference mattered most in the title-deciding map, where the pressure of a grand final was at its highest.

ATF did not present the finish as a flawless personal performance. He said he felt little conscious nervousness, yet later concluded that he and Malr1ne were heavily affected by stress beneath the surface. Their communication did not break down and they did not visibly show nerves, but ATF believed their play looked markedly different from normal. He described himself and Malr1ne as largely present while other Falcons players delivered the clean performances that carried the map. That self-assessment gives his explanation a narrower meaning: the experience advantage was not simply a slogan about the roster, but his explanation for why Falcons held themselves together in the game that settled The International 2025.

Experience mattered in the deciding map

The former TI winners, ATF said, did not visibly waver in the deciding map. He singled out Andreas “Cr1t-” Frank Nielsen as a player who also stayed composed, even as ATF and Malr1ne were dealing with pressure they did not fully recognise at the time. ATF’s point was not that every Falcon played the same way; rather, the team had enough composure and execution around the stressed players to close the final map against Xtreme Gaming. Falcons’ advantage, in his telling, was specifically that the roster included two previous TI champions while Xtreme did not. He called that the most important reason for the result, rather than treating it as a general claim that experience always decides a match. Cr1t-‘s calm also fits the teammate assessment ATF had formed after playing with him: ATF said he came to value Cr1t-‘s laning, game knowledge and psychological resilience. The deciding map therefore became the clearest example of the qualities ATF believed his teammates could supply under the greatest pressure.

ATF also revisited choices he would change if he could replay the map. He said he would not buy Dominator, arguing that he would instead purchase Yasha, win his lane and farm. The remark underlines how critically he viewed his own performance despite the victory. His retrospective was not limited to itemisation, either. ATF said Falcons’ results during 2025 had sharpened the squad’s focus until TI felt like the only result that mattered, with the prospect of a disband hanging over a failure to win. He added that the team’s second-place finish at EWC, where it lost to Team Spirit, was useful because Falcons felt they had placed highly while playing poorly enough to require more practice. In that sense, he framed the TI run as the product of a team pushed by expectations, setbacks and a renewed need to improve.

ATF credits teammates’ clean finishes

ATF highlighted two deathless hero performances from the deciding map. He said Naga and Medusa each played the game of their lives, contrasting their execution with the mistakes he and Malr1ne made. ATF mentioned his own solo death and Malr1ne dying in the middle lane, then used the two unbeaten scorelines as his measure of how cleanly the other parts of Falcons performed. The exact figures are set out in the table below; ATF’s larger point was that those contributions gave Falcons the stability he felt his own play did not provide on the map.

• ATF said the immediate effect of winning TI was relief: the team had reached the goal it had been chasing.
• He also described a sense of being lost after the title, questioning what achievement could feel bigger than a first TI victory.

Deciding-map hero cited by ATF	Scoreline ATF highlighted
Naga	10/0/15, with zero deaths
Medusa	8/0/8, with zero deaths

ATF’s reflection reaches beyond one tense map. He said winning TI brought both relief and a sense of being lost after reaching the goal he had pursued. Yet he also described competitive Dota as difficult to replace because of its stage, emotions, worldwide travel and the people he can meet through it. That perspective gives his comments a final dimension: the title resolved Falcons’ immediate competitive demand, but did not end the personal questions ATF associated with achieving it.