The top 8 carry players at ESL One Birmingham 2026

ESL One Birmingham 2026 is less than a week away now, with all the players undoubtedly eagerly awaiting their chance at the $1 million prize pool and their share of the ESL Pro Tour points on offer.

As one of the biggest Dota 2 events this season, I and fellow Dota staff writer Owen sat down to talk about the best players at each role heading into the event. We’ll be starting off at position 1 — the best carry players at ESL One Birmingham.

#1 — Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko

Pure’s placement at the top of this list should not come as a surprise to anyone. He’s been playing at the peak of his powers for the entire season, and it was extremely apparent that Tundra Esports missed his presence at PGL Wallachia Season 7. Now that he won’t have to deal with visa issues, he’ll be back in full force in Birmingham.

#2 — Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov

After leaving his first tier 1 team Gaimin Gladiators, watson has risen above his previous pub star ceiling to become a true, consummate professional Dota player. His impact from the carry position at PGL Wallachia Season 7 was significant and was a big part of why Team Yandex won the entire tournament. He looks far more comfortable playing at this level than he ever has before, and this will only become more and more apparent as he continues to gain experience.

#3 — Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko

Aurora Gaming’s ceiling dropped significantly at PGL Wallachia Season 7 when they had to take Alik “V-Tune” Vorobey as a stand-in, and them having to settle for a top 8 finish in Bucharest was proof of that. To say that Nightfall is instrumental to this team’s potential and realized success would be a vast understatement, and they will definitely welcome his return to the roster in Birmingham.

#4 — Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov

Although PARIVISION have not been anywhere near their best form lately, Satanic still remains as one of the fastest farmers in the game — something that will always be relevant to the role he plays. He’s still young so he can have a bad game or two every now and then as the pressure mounts during a tournament, but he is nevertheless a known quantity by this point.

#5 — Oliver “skiter” Lepko

One of the best but most misunderstood carries of all time, skiter will likely never be as flashy or eye-catching as some of the superstar players on this list. But that suits Team Falcons’ gameplan perfectly, as he is more than comfortable playing a diminished or even a sacrificial role in order to uplift Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak and Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf. It might not look like he’s owning every game, but his team-first approach gets the job done.

#6 — Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk

It’s hard not to put a two-time International champion still playing at the highest level on this list. However, Yatoro’s form as of late, including at PGL Wallachia Season 7, is probably the worst it’s been at in quite some time. He doesn’t seem to be as explosive as he used to be at his absolute prime. And if I’m being honest, Team Spirit’s 3-0 result in the Wallachia group stage was a bit of an illusion of their true form anyway, after looking at the teams that they beat to get that record in the first place.

#7 — Ilya “Kiritych” Ulyanov

Kiritych visibly leveled up as a carry player at PGL Wallachia Season 7, helping fuel BetBoom Team to a top 3 finish alongside his mid laner Danil “gpk” Skutin. He is improving very rapidly as someone that has played at this level only for a short while thus far in his career. That said, while he does look extremely good in the first 40 minutes of any given game, he still needs to work on his deep late game confidence if he wants to become a more consistent carry.

#8 — Remco “Crystallis” Arets

Crystallis is at the bottom of our list not because he’s necessarily a bad carry, but because his team MOUZ have not looked good in the slightest over the last two months. However, we did cut him and his squad some some slack looking back at PGL Wallachia Season 7, given that they had coach Daniel “ImmortalFaith” Moza standing in temporarily for Daniyal “yamich” Lazebnyy. It was only for a single series, but having to switch things up like that unexpectedly always has the potential to throw off a team’s rhythm off the bat.