BETBOOM booked the last spot in the Thunderpick World Championship's four-team playoff bracket with a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Legacy.
The Russian side overturned a 12-7 deficit to win their pick of Nuke in overtime, almost pulled off a similar comeback on Dust2, then ran out 13-11 winners on Mirage in a lively decider map.
"It was a crazy game," Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov told HLTV after the match. "I think the one bad thing in this series was our T side on Dust2. It was stressful. We were doing something wrong.
"But it's new errors to fix for the next matches. But it was still a crazy comeback on Nuke and an overtime, so crazy game.
"I think everyone is happy right now because we made the playoffs."
The win puts BETBOOM on a collision course with Falcons in the semi-finals. The last time the two teams met was in Stage 3 of the IEM Cologne Major — where Kirill "Magnojez" Rodnov had a 1.86-rated performance as the Russians ran out 2-0 winners with Timur "FL4MUS" Marev as a stand-in.
"Last season we had a lot of stand-ins, and we went to the playoffs in Atlanta and the Major as well," Boombl4 said. "It was a [good] experience for some players like Magnojez, d1Ledez and S1ren.
"Right now we have a full lineup. It [the match against Falcons] should be a great experience, and maybe we can make it to the final."
The back-to-back group victories in Malta, after an opening-day defeat to FURIA, have propelled BETBOOM to the top 10 in the global VRS — a massive boost before the final leg of the season, with stops in Bucharest and Beijing before the Singapore Major.
"This tournament we're playing better, and I feel the progress," Boombl4 said. "The first three tournaments of the season were not the best for us. We were feeling a lot of stress.
"Right now, I can say my guys are enjoying the game. We're showing something, you know?"
He added: "At the start of the season, we were discussing with the team, and the main goal of our coach this season was to stay in the top-15, top-16, to have LAN invites and get some experience on LAN.
"Right now we are top-10, and we have Beijing and Bucharest as well, and, I hope, Singapore Major. I hope we can make two playoff runs minimum. Who knows what will happen in this tournament as well?"
Kirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovPast 3 months
BETBOOM
Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov
Aleksandr 'zorte' Zagodyrenko
Pavel 'S1ren' Ogloblin
Daniil 'd1Ledez' Kustov
Kirill 'Magnojez' Rodnov
Artem 'Fierce' Ivanov
Timur 'FL4MUS' MarevPast 3 months
Kirill 'Magnojez' RodnovPast 3 months
FURIA
Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo
Yuri 'yuurih' Santos
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato
Danil 'molodoy' Golubenko
Sid 'sidde' Macedo
Legacy
Andrei 'arT' Piovezan
Eduardo 'dumau' Wolkmer
Bruno 'latto' Rebelatto
Vinicius 'n1ssim' Pereira
Santino 'try' Rigal
Alan 'adrrr' Riveros
Falcons
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Maksim 'kyousuke' Lukin
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen