THUNDER dOWNUNDER continues the comeback trail in China
THUNDER dOWNUNDER has pulled off another incredible comeback performance against Kaleido Gaming in the Group B consolidation final at the Hero Esports Asian Champions League 2026 to keep themselves alive and move into the group finals. THUNDER dOWNUNDER's 2-1 win puts them into the Group B final and they are set to take on Lynn Vision in the group final.
After an early loss to Haunted House in their opening group game, THUNDER dOWNDUNER has made the lower bracket run stick, taking down Alter Ego, SemperFi, Haunted House and Kaleido to make the Group B final. THUNDER dOWNUNDER is the only team from Oceania still alive in the tournament with the likes of FlyQuest and SemperFi suffering early exits.
The Australian team's pick of Anubis saw them start with a strong T side, with the trio of asap, TjP and aliStair helping THUNDER dOWNUNDER take a four round lead and barring one round, it was a clean sweep on the CT side with asap continuing his strong start to see THUNDER dOWNUNDER draw first blood with a 13-5 win.
Clutches on either side and a back and forth half saw THUNDER dOWNUNDER find a couple of late CT rounds to tie up the opening half on Kaleido's pick of Ancient. The second half was a similar affair as both teams put together a couple of rounds together in a row and it was suki's 30 kill performance that helped Kaleido hold on for a 16-13 win to close out the win overtime after missing out two opportunities in regulation.
THUNDER dOWNUNDER started Inferno with the T side pistol and conversions but dropped an early round to upgraded pistols that brought Kaleido back into the half and with SPine having a couple of impactful CT rounds, it was another tied opening half to start things on the decider. Openers from rage and suki saw Kaleido race away to a 11-6 score on the back of their T side pistol win and the Chinese team hit map and match point first. A couple of big B site retakes kept THUNDER dOWNUNDER in the game and it was a big triple kill from Liazz from mini pit in the final round of regulation to push Inferno to overtime.
aliStair's AWP powered up in overtime as the Australian squad started with a clean sweep on their CT side before wrapping up the series with an incredible 16-12 win, managing to see off five map and match points.
KaleidoTHUNDER dOWNUNDER| Kaleido |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Guanshen 'suki' Wang |
70 - 49 | +21 | 96.6 | 76.0% | 1.47 |
| Hao 'rage' Yu |
57 - 63 | -6 | 80.0 | 68.0% | 1.03 |
| Qingsong 'SPine' Long |
39 - 52 | -13 | 60.3 | 72.0% | 0.83 |
| JiaZhi 'expSasiKi' Cai |
38 - 52 | -14 | 58.6 | 72.0% | 0.83 |
| Ran 'chuzhongT' Song |
35 - 55 | -20 | 54.7 | 68.0% | 0.82 |
| THUNDER dOWNUNDER |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jay 'Liazz' Tregillgas |
53 - 37 | +16 | 80.8 | 78.7% | 1.33 |
| Tyson 'asap' Paterson |
58 - 44 | +14 | 80.7 | 73.3% | 1.28 |
| Alistair 'aliStair' Johnston |
72 - 50 | +22 | 88.1 | 78.7% | 1.27 |
| Tynan 'TjP' Purtell |
51 - 51 | +0 | 75.4 | 78.7% | 1.09 |
| Christopher 'dexter' Nong |
35 - 58 | -23 | 60.9 | 62.7% | 0.60 |
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