Team Spirit players told where they will spend the prize of 1.3 billion rubles
What happened
On the evening of October 17, the Romanian Bucharest hosted the final of the main tournament of the year in the computer game Dota 2 – The International 10. The Russian team Team Spirit won the decisive match, beating the Chinese club PSG.LGD with a score of 3: 2. The total prize pool for TI10 was $ 40 million, and the winners got an amount of $ 18.2 million (1.3 billion rubles).
In 2021, the tournament celebrated its tenth anniversary, but teams from Russia had never won it before – or even made it to the top 4.
What is Dota 2 (in a nutshell) and The International
Dota 2 is a battle arena game from Valve that was released in 2011. It is based on a custom modification of the real-time strategy Warcraft III, created in the first half of the 2000s. In short, the essence of the game is to demolish the opponent's base, each team consists of five players, matches last 30-40 minutes on average. Dota 2 is currently one of the most popular esports disciplines on the planet.
The International is the main Dota 2 tournament of the year, in fact it is the world championship, only among clubs. It was first held in the same 2011 – then Ukrainian Natus Vincere became its champion, winning $ 1 million.Since then, the tournament has been held annually – with the exception of 2020, when it did not take place due to a pandemic. At the same time, over the years of its existence, TI has steadily increased its prize fund, this year it exceeded $ 40 million.
The International 10 was attended by 18 teams from different regions – the CIS (there is practically no division into countries in e-sports, Ukraine and Russia are friends here), Europe, North and South America, Southeast Asia, China. It took place at the thousands-strong stadium Arena Naţională, but without fans – at the very last moment, the organizers canceled the audience due to the growth of COVID incidence in the country. However, the interest of viewers did not decrease because of this: for example, 2.7 million people watched the final at its peak, including 1.2 million Russian-speaking viewers.
Why winning Team Spirit is so cool
For the organization of Team Spirit, this The International was the first in history – as well as for four of the five players on the team. Before the trip to Bucharest, only the Russian captain of the Miposhka team (Yaroslav Naydenov) had experience of performing at TI: back in 2016, he took 7th-8th place there together with the Russian Team Empire.
The championship line-up was finally completed only in March of this year, when the Ukrainian Mira (Miroslav Kolpakov) was replenished. In addition to Miposhka and Mira, Team Spirit includes Ukrainian Ilya “Yatoro” Mulychuk, as well as Russians Alexander “Toronto Tokyo” Hertek and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov.
During the season, the “Spiritualists” performed well on the whole (for example, they took 7th-8th place at WePlay AniMajor, the second most important tournament of the year), but were not even considered the strongest team in the CIS region, which before TI10 was deservedly recognized as the “average” in the world professional Dota 2, yielding at least to Western Europe and China. Moreover, the “dragons” (nickname Team Spirit) might not have gone to Romania at all: in the final of the regional qualifiers they were 1: 2 behind Team Empire led by Petushara (Vladislav Kozlovsky), but still managed to snatch the victory. On the eve of The International, experts predicted that Team Spirit would have a maximum of 5-6th place, and that in advance – for a young roster it would already be an excellent result.
The Spiritualists did not start the main tournament of the year very successfully: in the first two games of the group stage they lost to PSG.LGD and the European Team Secret (as it turned out, these teams entered the top-3). However, later we rallied and even went to the so-called upper bracket – in the playoffs it gives one chance to lose in the series.
The “dragons” had to use the right to defeat already in the first round – they started brightly in the match against the Chinese IG, one of the strongest teams of this year, but lost 1: 2 and ended up in the lower bracket. There, they first dealt with Fnatic from Malaysia without any problems, and then sensationally ended the hegemony at TI of the European team OG – the most titled team in the world, which took the last two The Internationals.
Then Team Spirit beat another Russian club – Virtus.pro (the one that until recently was considered the strongest in the region) – and became the first team in the history of the country to reach the top 4 of The International. Such a result for the Dota 2 fans from the CIS already seemed like a miracle, it was hard to believe in the development of success – after all, the “Spiritualists” had matches with the three most powerful teams of 2021 ahead of them. However, they did not become a serious obstacle for the “dragons” either: first, the team took a confident revenge from IG, then won a strong-willed victory over Team Secret, and already in the final beat PSG.LGD in a hassle-free match.
By the way, the decisive series could even have ended with a dry defeat of the Russian team – the “spirits” took the lead 2: 0, then allowed an experienced opponent to level the score, but already in the fifth decisive map (the final was held until victory in three maps, and not two – as on previous stages), but still took their toll. And this is taking into account the class PSG.LGD, which during the whole season showed by a margin the most convincing game among all teams in the world and was rightly called the main favorite of the tournament.
In addition, the player “dragons” Yatoro managed to set a unique achievement at TI10 – during the playoffs, he made three so-called ramps (killing five opponents with one player in a short time). Before, in the entire ten-year history of the tournament, The International has never had two rampages from one player in elimination matches.
Where will the winners spend their prize money?
The International's prize pool is dozens of times more powerful than other tournaments. It is easy to follow the list of the richest esportsmen in the discipline, which takes into account only the prize money: after winning TI10, all Team Spirit players got into its top 20, each of them earned at least $ 3.7 million in their careers (the overwhelming part of the amount – precisely for world championship). The leader of the rating remains the captain of OG Notail (Johan Sundstein) – in Dote 2, the two-time winner of The International from Denmark won more than $ 7 million.
Soon after the victory, the players of the Russian team told how they would spend the prize – and this is mainly real estate. So, Yatoro plans to “buy a house for a cat and, possibly, a homestead”, and Mira – “a house and a car for dad.” Toronto Tokyo has the most touching story – he recently promised to buy his younger sister an apartment in Moscow – and he will keep his word.
“I will buy an apartment for my sister, as I promised. She is 11 years old, we talked with her on Facetime, I told her that I would buy an apartment in the center of Moscow, ”he shared after the victory.
A little more about millions
Esports manager Anton “Sneg1” Cherepennikov demonstrated amazing faith in the underdogs of the tournament. On the day of the start of TI10, he bet 1.5 million rubles on the victory of Team Spirit at a coefficient of 29 (!) – and won 44 million. A special irony is that in the past he was the boss of Virtus.pro – the main competitor of “spiritists” in the CIS. region. To be fair – he had a similar rate on his former team.
