OG and Team Spirit Complain About TI10’s Substandard Practice Rooms

Team Spirit and OG have taken to Twitter to express their discontent with the practice rooms provided at The International 10 (TI10). Team Spirit was the first to bring this issue to the surface after posting a video describing its practice room with manager Dmitry "Korb3n" Belov. The video showed Korb3n complaining about a cramped room, uncomfortable seating arrangements, no internet, and no toilet paper. He continued, claiming that the practice rooms were allocated based on Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) rankings, and teams who were higher up in the rankings were provided with the better rooms. In a comment on Twitter, OG's manager Valter 'Shootsgud' Games later mentioned that they got "one of the shitty rooms” where players didn't feel comfortable and could barely move.

TI10's practice rooms cause problems for Team Spirit and OG

When he entered the practice room, Korb3n noted that Team Spirit would compete in this same room during TI10's group stage, with an eight-person group. To emphasize the narrowness of the room, he said adding two more people would leave no space at all.

Because the room was inhospitable, players could not recline their chairs, he said. Korb3n also noticed a low-hanging lamp and said that Miroslaw "Mira" Kolpakov, the support player, had bumped his head after getting up from his chair. Additionally, there was a microwave, food, and a sink present in the practice room which gave Korb3n the appearance that they were playing from a kitchen. Mira then mocked these details in the video.

“I am feeling like I am at home. I am feeling like I am in my uni five years ago. There is no space just like in my old dorm. Exactly the same kitchen, but without a microwave. But here they care about us and got us a microwave.”

During the video, it was stated that the computer did not have Windows activated and the Internet was not accessible 20 minutes before the start of the practice match. Then Korb3n went into the bathroom to show there was no toilet paper and seeing an empty roll of paper lying on the ground, he remarked that someone had been there before them.

Korb3n then claimed that teams were assigned rooms based on their DPC rankings. “Teams that (were) at the bottom of the DPC ranking all got practice rooms like this one. Teams that are in the top-10 have bigger rooms where they can at least lean back on the chair. I am waiting for next year and hope it will be better. Maybe they will start giving away water and food depending on this ranking too - no DPC points, no food,” he concluded.

TI10 practice rooms pose similar problems for OG as well

Alliance’s Chief Strategy Officer, Kelly "kellymilkies" Ong posted a tweet post this video in which she stated that seeding practice rooms based on DPC rankings was "unheard of & shameful." In the comments, she added that after watching Team Spirit’s room, she was “ashamed” to post pictures of Alliance’s practice room.

Shootsgud then outlined in the comments the issues that OG was facing. He mentioned that he could not work from that room and that they were waiting for the problems to be resolved somehow. In addition, he said he believes the problems only exist in the practice rooms, since everyone's bedroom is the same.

Alliance’s kellymilkies criticizes PGL’s handling of TI10

kellymilkies engaged with people on Twitter to discuss further the arrangements which PGL, the organizer of TI10 along with Valve, had made for TI10. As she mentioned, she did not know if the rooms were actually being allocated based on DPC points; however, she could empathize with the situation of Team Spirit.

Further, she stated that the cancellation of staff travels for TI10 was not communicated to them privately; instead, they found out about it through Twitter. The information should have been provided to them in advance as a warning, she noted. Additionally, she said that talent was given priority over teams because the latter had been informed 24 hours in advance that they were not allowed to bring a second person.

Some other teams appear to have comparatively larger practice rooms

It appears that some other teams received larger rooms. Dota 2 Maincast posted images of TI10’s practice room of Virtus.pro. As can be seen in the images, Virtus.pro’s room looked significantly larger than the one depicted in Team Spirit’s video.

Elephant posted a single image of its practice room on Weibo showing players seated on their chairs. It also looked larger than Team Spirit's room.

In Alliance's images, their rooms appeared to be larger than those of Team Spirit.

TI10 is two days away from kickoff. The event starts on 7th Oct 2021 and lasts for 10 days, culminating with the grand final on 17th Oct.