Happy new year to all Dota 2 fans and Hotspawn readers! The BLAST Slam 6 Malta regional qualifiers are now well underway, these being the first batch of tier 1 tournament qualifiers in 2026.
For those that are still in holiday mode, fear not: I’ve got the results for each region right here.
Southeast Asia — REKONIX
The first team to qualify for BLAST Slam 6 Malta was the Indonesian squad REKONIX, who beat the new look Team Nemesis in two games to punch their tickets to their first tier 1 competition.
Image Credit: Valve
The REKONIX roster features a few familiar names to those that follow the Indonesian Dota scene, with Muhammad Rizky “iNYourdreaM” Anugrah and Saieful “Fbz” Ilham being the two most notable members. Meanwhile, Musthofa “Jikroy” Pamungkas, Abdalla “dalul” Afemi, and Rizki “Varizh” Varizh come in as first timers when it comes to tier 1 tournaments, which is great to see coming out of this region in particular.
They’re definitely heavy underdogs as far as BLAST Slam 6 is concerned, but this will be a welcome opportunity for them to cut their teeth heading into the new year.
Europe — TBD
China — TBD
What the heck is RES Unchained?
Before I get to the results, though, I’m sure more than a few of you have noticed that two out of the three regions in these qualifiers are in a tournament called RES Unchained: A BLAST Slam Dota Qualifier — namely Europe and Southeast Asia. This is in contrast to China, whose qualifier tournament operates under BLAST’s watch.
Image credit: Shaun Lee / BLAST
If you don’t know what this really means, I don’t blame you. I personally had not even heard of RES Unchained or its organizer Relog Media prior to BLAST Slam 6. Apparently, Relog Media has been around since 2019, having been founded that year in Belgrade, Serbia. They were responsible for the tier 3 RES Regional Series in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe last year, so it’s clear that they’re still getting their feet wet as far as Dota is concerned.