Spirit back in form, Yandex stun Tundra in grudge match at DreamLeague Season 27 playoffs

The second day of the DreamLeague Season 27 playoffs ended with a huge bang today, with Team Yandex bringing the thunder against Tundra Esports in a full three-game series with an insanely hectic ending.

On the other side, Team Spirit have guaranteed themselves a podium finish, by putting rivals PARIVISION away in just two maps.

The Spirit carries on

Team Spirit really needed the two wins they’ve garnered so far in the playoffs. They disappointed themselves and their fans by getting eliminated from BLAST Slam 4 Singapore at the hands of MOUZ, when they were supposed to be quite a bit better on paper than the squad that bounced them out. Now, they’re guaranteed to finish in third at the very least, and they didn’t even have to leave their gaming house for it.

FULL FIVE MAN TEAM WIPE! pic.twitter.com/17Iv7F1rbT

— Team Spirit Dota 2 (@TSpirit_Dota2) December 18, 2025

They started off by dispatching Xtreme Gaming in just two games, something that I’m sure was expected by not only myself but by basically everyone that’s been following the competitive scene over the last year or so. That said, XG made Spirit work for it in the first game, with Xu “fy” Linsen in particular really putting it to them as the position 4 Spirit Breaker. I guess when you need to give Team Spirit a hard time, you pick this hero exactly.

But Spirit, ever the late game savants, pulled through after nearly 70 minutes of play. Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk and Denis “Larl” Sigitov did some heavy lifting this game as Weaver and Invoker respectively, putting Aleksandr “rue” Filin and Nikita “panto” Balaganin’s 31 total deaths on their backs in order to carry them over the finish line.

The second game was hardly in doubt, thanks to Yatoro’s Ursa leading the charge after he and panto won their lane hard. He got himself a 12 minute Battle Fury, and things just spiraled out of control for XG from there. Lest we forget, this guy is still one of the best carries in the world, up there with fellow Eastern European players Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov and Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko.

Speaking of Satanic, Yatoro’s duel with him in the next round wasn’t even particularly close, with the younger carry player getting humiliated by the two-time International champion. Yatoro punked him in both games of the series, showing Satanic that he still has a long way to go before he’s considered one of the all-time greats at the position.

I mean, seriously, 13-1 carry Windranger and 11-2 Ursa versus… man, I don’t even want to mention Satanic’s stats as Abaddon and Kez. He was that much of a non-factor in this series.

Yandex, Tinker exterminators

The series between Tundra Esports and Team Yandex was quite entertaining, being one of only two three-game series that have occurred in the playoffs thus far. I expected Tundra to run away with this match in two games, considering the fact that they swept Yandex at BLAST Slam 5 Chengdu just two weeks prior — but it’s clear that Yandex have leveled up since then as evidenced by the fight that they put up in this match.

That said, Tundra were still clearly the better team. They recognized Tiny’s insane power level in Patch 7.40, and used his newly buffed Avalanche (Q) to set the tone in the first game. And it was exactly an avalanche that befell Yandex, with Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov laying the hurt on them throughout the 27 and a half minute contest.

For those that don’t know, the Avalanche buff in 7.40 makes it so that the stun is now applied in the area of effect as an aura, and not as a debuff. This makes it completely undispellable, whether that’s by Lotus Orb, Abaddon’s Aphotic Shield (W) — or in this case, the Dark Pact (Q) coming from Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov’s Slark. Unable to prevent such oppressive lockdown coming from the Tiny, Yandex had to give up the first game before half an hour had even passed since it began.

They bounced back very nicely in game 2, and this was despite their decision to not ban bzm’s Tiny out of respect. The amount of effort they had to exert to make a comeback in this game was quite substantial, as they had to deal with Pure’s runaway carry Omniknight in the early game and in the mid game.

It helped that Neta “33” Shapira played Doom, who despite being 33’s most iconic signature hero just isn’t cutting it in the metagame anymore. After receiving nerfs to his laning over the course of 7.39 and finally losing his Devil’s Bargain facet in 7.40, Doom is a shell of his former self and was the obvious dead weight in this game for Tundra. So yeah, Tundra eventually just ran out of gas because Omniknight isn’t exactly a late game beast, thus allowing Yandex to tie the series at one game apiece.

This is when bzm decided that enough was enough and that he wasn’t above picking a hero as disgusting as Tinker to seal the deal. Yandex had control of the first half of this game, but they just weren’t able to close things out before bzm got his hands on Tinker’s core items. The tide quickly shifted against them as a result, with the deep late game teamfights going the way of Tundra thanks to bzm laying the damage on thick.

The game looked well in hand for Tundra at around the 65 minute mark, but Pure made an unforgivable mistake as Ursa in their attempt to put Yandex away for good. For some reason, he died inside of Yandex’s fountain, a place he never should have been in given the situation and how valuable buybacks were at this point in the game.

INSANE ENDING FROM TEAM YANDEX! 🤯 #DreamLeague pic.twitter.com/dGQKrO95J2

— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) December 18, 2025

On the other hand, Martin “Saksa” Sazdov, fueled by his massive grudge against his former team, went absolutely apes*** as Shadow Shaman in the waning moments of this game. He was the biggest reason they were able to lock bzm down as often as they did when the pressure was at its highest, as if it weren’t already abundantly clear that he is the best player on this roster.

Caught with their pants down as a result, Tundra had no choice but to watch as their Ancient crumbled before their very eyes, powerless to stop Yandex because they had no buybacks left. It’s always a great day when Tinker loses like this, making this one of the most cathartic and satisfying Dota games I’ve ever watched.