With two spots remaining for The International 2022 (TI11) Group Stage, the twelve teams participating in the upcoming TI11 Last Chance Qualifiers will have to make every game count as winners of the Upper Bracket Finals and Lower Bracket Finals will be given the remaining spots. One of these teams include the resurging Virtus Pro, who have had a rollercoaster of a season.

Before his trip to the Southeast Asia region (SEA), Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev talked about his experience during the PGL Arlington Major as well as TI11.

RAMZES666 said there are 5 teams that he favored to win TI11

In a recent interview with Escorenews.com, Virtus.pro carry Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev talked about his journey to the Arlington Major as well as the upcoming The International 2022 (TI11) Last Chance Qualifiers.

When asked about the TI11 Last Chance Qualifiers, he stated that it will be interesting to go up against the other teams in Group B as each team is strong in their own rights. “We have a pretty normal group in the TI11 Last Chance Qualifiers. You’ve got teams such as Xtreme Gaming, Wildcard Gaming, T1 and other teams I can’t remember the names of. The group stage of the Last Chance Qualifiers is going to be a lot of fun.” said RAMZES666.

The Virtus.pro carry also talked about his journey during the PGL Arlington Major, as he qualified to the Major with VP after rejoining the form following a stint in the team, CIS Rejects. He also talked about the whole situation regarding the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points debacle with Fnatic after missing out on a direct invite by 1 point according to Valve.

“There was no tilt from us, since at the end of the day it’s just not our team who earned the final invite. Well, who knew it would be like this? It was our own fault for not checking properly. We should have beaten Beastcoast at the Arlington Major and Daxak’s BetBoom Team in the qualifiers.” said RAMZES666 when talking about the Major and Regional Qualifiers.

“With Beastcoast [during the Major], we were playing with no stress on our mind at the time. Sometimes we lost in our matches because our coach was not there. We had trouble drafting and allocating heroes because we were lacking Fng [Artsiom "Fng" Barshak]. We were very strong and tough during the new patch, but there were issues because of Artsiom [Fng]” RAMZES666 noted that the team lacked a coach at the time.

RAMZES666’s Five Favorites for TI11

Finally, when talking about the upcoming TI11 the Russian carry said that there are 5 main favorites to win TI11, but stated that this year’s Aegis of Champion might be going towards a Chinese team.

“The strongest teams at TI11 at the moment are PSG.LGD, OG, RNG, Team Spirit, and Entity. It seems to me that these five squads are the main favorites of TI11. PSG.LGD and RNG play very strongly. At some point we got to have a Chinese team winning TI. Guys, it's been a long time since TI had a winner from China. Teams from China have managed to participate in the Grand Finals four times in a row and lost [Newbee in 2017, PSG.LGD in 2018,2019 and 2021]. At some point the trophy has to go back to China.”

[transcriptions via Escorenews.com, translations via DeepL Translate]

RAMZES666 and Virtus.pro are looking to regain its former glory, as it will look to qualify to TI11 via the Last Chance Qualifiers. Virtus.pro will face Xtreme Gaming in Group B on 8th October.