Illness Strikes Team Spirit and ex-HellRaisers Players During DreamLeague Season 19

The DreamLeague Season 19 (S19) has been providing top-tier Dota 2 action together with the opportunity for teams to compete for a grand prize pool and get match practice for the upcoming ESL One Berlin Major. According to the results so far, some regions are doing a lot better than others, but in Eastern Europe (EEU), the team that no one saw making it to group stage 2, might have suffered from illness. The manager of Team Spirit Dmitry “Korb3n” Belov and the former CEO of HellRaisers, Aldar "Jamba" Dzhambinov, both stated that some of their players and support staff in their respective bootcamps in Belgrade, Serbia were suffering from a virus that was described by the former as "scary."

Team Spirit and ex-HellRaisers players suffer from a virus during DreamLeague Season 19

In a Telegram post following ex-HellRaisers' elimination from DreamLeague S19, former CEO Jamba advised people against traveling to Belgrade because the virus is spreading rapidly and had impacted his team severely.

As a result of the same virus, Entity had to replace Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov during the tournament and he is currently recovering in a hospital.

“It's better not to come to Belgrade. First Miero got sick, then I came down with a fever. They sent me to quarantine, but the virus still spread and Lech (Solo) and Masha (Inverno) got sick. Also, Alim (watson) is in the hospital with a fever. And a couple more guys, who are not of interest to you, are also lying around like vegetables. Cool timings what can I say? It's your own fault. You should have prepared better.”

A promising start to group stage 1 for Ex-HellRaisers in the DreamLeague S19 led to two draws before the team lost two series the next day, making it difficult for it to make it to group stage 2. Eventually, it finished seventh in Group A and was eliminated.

Additionally, Team Spirit's manager explained how health issues caused by the same virus might interfere with their performance.

“If we fly out today in the replay (tiebreaker), you know - we are sick, there is a virus in Belgrade and in general it is very scary.”

[Translations via DeepL Translate]

It turned out that Team Spirit lost the tiebreaker against OG and Beastcoast after two extremely close games and was eliminated from the event.

Hopefully, both teams will be able to get their players back on their feet quickly so they are ready to travel to Berlin, Germany to play the Major. After showing themselves to be the two best teams from the region last year, Team Spirit and the ex-HellRaisers will be faced with the challenge of lifting the EEU flag at the Major, which starts on 26th April.