With TI10 happening in less than a month from now, we take a look at the teams competing for Dota 2’s biggest event of the year. In this piece, we take a closer look at Team Spirit, the CIS Qualifier winners who are looking make their mark for the region at TI10.
Team Spirit at TI10 – can the young roster make it far in TI10?
Roster:
- Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk (position 1)
- Alexander “TORONTOTOKYO” Khertek (mid-laner)
- Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov (off-laner)
- Miroslaw “Miroslaw” Kolpakov (soft support)
- Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov (hard support)
Team Spirit’s journey to TI10 has been long and arduous, purely because of how the CIS region only afforded two slots: a single DPC slot that has been taken by Virtus.pro, and the one at the top of the TI10 CIS Qualifiers. Their run at the latter has been nothing short of a gauntlet, with a ton of promising teams and names all giving Team Spirit a run for their money. In the end, their efforts paid off, but there are still the international teams to go through, and for the most part Team Spirit has seen mixed results on that front.
Predictions:
Against teams from other regions, Team Spirit has seen mixed results. They fared much better than the South American and Southeast Asian teams, but always fell short to one region: China, more specifically PSG.LGD. In the last tournaments they joined (ESL One Fall and OGA Dota PIT Invitational) Team Spirit’s run was always hampered by PSG.LGD, a fact that will certainly come into play if the former runs into the latter in the earlier stages of TI10.
If there’s one saving grace for the team, though, it’s that they see more decent LAN and global tournament results for relative newcomers compared to other ‘onliners’ like Virtus.pro. The team secured a middling placement at the WePlay AniMajor and a second place finish at the OGA Dota PIT Invitational, the latter being filled by teams who will go to TI10.
The International 10 will run from October 7 to 17. Stay tuned for our coverage of Dota 2’s biggest event of the year.
