Yatoro Highlights Two Major Problems With Team Spirit

Team Spirit is one of the most well-established Dota 2 teams, with the current roster seemingly dominating most major tournaments in recent Dota 2 history. This includes The International 2021, Riyadh Masters 2023, and The International 2023. Team Spirit may be considered a titan but even titans are not without flaws. 

During the DreamLeague Season 22 group stage 1, Team Spirit’s Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk sat down in an interview with Dota 2 casters Owen "ODPixel" Davies and Trent "Trent" MacKenzie. During the interview, Yatoro revealed that currently, there are two major problems within the Team Spirit roster that need to be addressed. Yatoro disclosed these problems to be gameplay and drafts.

“We have some problems with drafts and gameplay,” Says Yatoro

“We are not playing well at the moment. We have some problems with drafts and gameplay. There are certain issues. However, the team is trying to fix everything, as usual,” said Team Spirit’s Yatoro while talking about the team’s recent performance at the DreamLeague Season 22.

Interestingly, this sentiment was echoed earlier, after the end of day 2 by his teammate, Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov through a video on X. He said, “We did not have the best draft in the first map. Troll Warlord played against not the most suitable heroes: Outworld Destroyer and Primal Beast. Troll Warlord was the only character who could pull the map. It turned out that the opponents closed him. On the second one, I contributed more with my Doom build and gameplay than benefited from. I will take the experience from this. Overall, the game didn't go well for us”

In the ongoing tournament, Team Spirit finished the first phase of the group stages with a 4th place standing, barely qualifying for the second phase. Although all the qualifying teams of the group table had only 2 series wins, the one series loss against Xtreme Gaming almost cost Team Spirit the ticket to the second phase of the group stage.

However, after it’s all said and done, Team Spirit has played decent and at par with other teams. For comparison, out of the sixteen participating teams, seven teams won two series and only one team could surpass this: BetBoom Team. BetBoom Team had the highest series wins with three series wins in the group stage. This may not be to the liking of Team Spirit players as Team Spirit is often regarded as one of the stronger teams in any tournament and other teams have openly expressed how strong an opponent Spirit is.

As dire as the situation may seem for Team Spirit, Yatoro and his teammates have given their word to improve their gameplay and drafts. It remains to be seen whether it will be reflected in the upcoming phase two of the group stage.