It’s been a nice chill start to ESL One Birmingham 2026 despite there being 16 Bo2s played out across the 4 streams and aside from PARIVISION managing to take a game off Team Yandex and Team Falcons dropping their first series to Aurora, the results are pretty much as expected.
Group A – MOUZ on top??
Image credit: PGL
Technically correct, which is famously the best kind of correct. MOUZ have made it out of day 1 with a solid 2-0 result despite being pretty low down in our ESL One Birmingham power rankings. They took down Gamer Legion and REKONIX to get there and it’s a good start but it remains to be seen how this team will fair against the likes of Yandex, who made extremely short work on Yakult Brothers earlier in the day.
Group B – Aurora come out swinging
Aurora didn’t come to play here at ESL One Birmingham 2026. After taking out the TI 2025 champions Team Falcons in a convincing 2-0, they then went on to face another of group B’s tougher opponents: Team Spirit. Spirit put up more of a fight, especially with Yatoro on an unstoppable Templar Assassin and they ended the series 1-1. This was a brilliant showing from Aurora and is surely a confidence boost to see them through the rest of the group stage.
Who to watch on day 2 of ESL One Birmingham 2026
Credit: Viola Schuldner / ESL
The only down side to the group stage is that there are so many games going on, it’s pretty much impossible to follow every game without somehow fitting 4 monitors on your desk. So if you have to pick one game at a time, here are the ones that’ll be most worth your time.
PARIVISON vs Betboom – 12:00 GMT
Why am I recommending that you watch a series from 2 teams that likely won’t make it through the group stage, I hear you ask. Well, these teams are pretty evenly matched and neither of them can be considered “bad”. If you want to watch a quick stomp then sure, go for Tundra v GamerLegion. But if you want a series with potential to get chaotic, this is the one for you.
Tundra vs Yandex – 14:30 GMT
This one goes without saying, I think. The two strongest teams in the tournament are going to face each other very early on. Now Tundra came out of day 1 with a flawless 2-0-0 and they really didn’t seem to struggle at all but the same can’t be said for Yandex, who had a bit of a rough time against PARIVISION and ended the day on 1-1-0, so the pressure is on for this team. You can definitely expect the team that won PGL Wallachia Season 7 to pull out the stops against Tundra.
Falcons vs Spirit – 17:15 GMT
Now hear me out. Yes, Spirit’s results have left something to be desired in 2026 but the same can be said for Falcons based on the last 3 tournaments in a row. In 2025, we’d have been having an entirely different conversation about these 2 teams but there is a glimmer of hope from Spirit after Wallachia. Can they take out the TI 2025 winners? We’ll see.
Xtreme v Aurora – 19:45 GMT
Both of these teams have shown promise early in 2026 and while Xtreme have struggled on the international stage of late, they’re still playing some very strong Chinese Dota. Aurora, on the other hand, have had an incredible run at qualifiers in early 2026 and even placed 2nd at DreamLeague Season 28. This series is set to be very entertaining.