Cover-Credits:
Professional Dota 2 players regard The International (TI) as the holy grail and winning the event likely means they have accomplished their career goal. For Team Spirit, the champion team of the tenth edition of TI, they do not want to dwell on this success, but the hunger for more still resides within them. In an interview with Red Bull, Team Spirit members said that their professional Dota 2 careers are far from over even though they won TI10. They love the game so much that they hope to win more tournaments in the future. Adding to that, Airat "Silent" Gaziev, the coach, said that retaining top status is even more difficult than it is to reach it.
Team Spirit share their future goals after winning TI10
Team Spirit's carry Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk emphasized that winning TI10 was undoubtedly the biggest accomplishment, but he now hopes to keep winning tournaments and compete for the top spot at yet another TI. “When you start playing esports professionally, your biggest goal is to win TI. But that doesn't mean that once you win, your life ends there. We want to play Dota. We just love the game. So we want to win as many tournaments as we can. It would be cool to compete and win TI again."
Alexander "TORONTOTOKYO" Khertek echoed the sentiments of his fellow core player, saying the group was not done with the success at TI10 and is looking forward to more tournament success.
The competitive ecosystem of Dota 2 is designed to draw all eyes to the winners of TI10. As such the award is a large sum of money as well as a great deal of fame. For offlaner Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov, it is still hard to digest the fact that they won the biggest Dota 2 event of the year. "Even lifting Aegis, it was hard to believe it was real,” he said.
As Silent noted, it was far more than simply winning tournaments. As the best Dota 2 team in the world, they had an added responsibility to continue proving their prowess and not lower the bar.
As a relatively inexperienced and young roster, Team Spirit had stunned everyone with their run all the way through the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2021. The team first made its way through the regional qualifiers, and then through the lower bracket of TI10 to take home the tournament title.
A few months after TI10, the team's quest to remain the best has been evident. It registered a perfect record in Tour 1 of the DPC 2021-22 Eastern Europe: Division 1 to finish on top of the points table. Team Spirit also finished second in the OGA Dota PIT Season 5, which pitted some of the best teams from Western and Eastern Europe against each other. Throughout this time, the team has consistently performed well in all departments of the game.
Team Spirit will next compete in the Regional Finals of the Eastern Europe region against PuckChamp, Virtus.pro, and HellRaisers. Unless one of these teams puts forth an exceptional performance, Team Spirit is likely to win this online event.
