Team Spirit have truly found their groove and are on fire this Dota 2 season, for they now find themselves in a LAN grand final at ESL One Raleigh after more than a year away from this position. The last time they were in striking distance of a first place finish in an offline setting was PGL Wallachia Season 1 — and I don’t mean 2025, but 2024.

ESL One Raleigh: Team Spirit Finally Make a LAN Final This Season

Roster changes after The International last year saw them sneakily improve overall this season, with their only sub-top 4 results thus far being BLAST Slam 1 where they were eliminated in 9th-10th place, and FISSURE Universe Episode 4 where they fell just outside the top 4. But everywhere else, they’ve actually been very consistent this year; third at DreamLeague Season 24 (and then finally winning Season 25), fourth at ESL One Bangkok, fourth at FISSURE Playground Belgrade, and fourth at PGL Wallachia Season 3 all made them perennial threats.

Now, they’re ramping up really nicely in the months leading up to TI14. Lest we all forget: this organization has two International titles under its belt. With their performances gradually getting better and better, it seems like it’s only a matter of time until they finally win a LAN this season — and perhaps even be the first team in Dota 2 history to win three world championships.

That’s the Spirit

It’s a real testament to how consistent and fiercely competitive this roster is to see how well they’ve hung around the upper echelon of the professional scene, even after three of their championship-winning players stepped aside for a while last year. Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk and Myroslav “Mira” Kolpakov both went inactive in September 2024, just after the team’s bitterly disappointing run at TI13. Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov followed suit thereafter, taking a break from pro play until January.

Incredibly, this didn’t spell doom for the new roster — which actually looked really, really good all things considered in the waning months of 2024. I don’t think anyone could have reasonably expected them to still be putting in top 4 finishes at premier events, considering that Yatoro, Collapse, and Mira had not been playing for them. But I suppose this organization isn’t named “Spirit” for no reason, because it seems like they find ways to field at least decent lineups regardless of whether or not their marquee players are actually in it.

Yes, it does help that someone like Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov came in to replace Yatoro for a few months, but there wasn’t really any continuity with him given that Yatoro decided earlier this year that he was still the best carry player in the world (which he is) and that he wanted to go for a third Aegis of Champions. The fact remains that they basically had a new roster minus Denis “Larl” Sigitov and Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov, which in turn makes the fact that they’ve been this low-key good after the lineup changes even more impressive.

Hotspawn Hot Takes – ESL One Raleigh Special

The Dragon Wakes

So now that Yatoro and Collapse are back in the fold, they’re ready to conquer the Dota 2 scene once more. This team is incredibly dangerous, as evidenced by their guaranteed top 2 finish at ESL One Raleigh. And unless they choke hard in the grand finals or run into an even hotter squad coming out of the lower bracket, they’re going to go all the way.

Their upper bracket series against Tundra Esports has fully convinced me that they’ve hit their stride and are in International-winning form right now. That third game in particular was just vintage Yatoro, Collapse, and Larl, with all three cores having an absolute field day as Medusa, Slardar, and Storm Spirit respectively. Miposhka has also done a masterful job of mentoring Aleksandr “rue” Filin, and while they’re not quite at the level of Mira and Miposhka as a support duo yet, they’re certainly starting to get there.

All in all, this should be a hugely interesting grand final matchup for them regardless of who they end up facing. A rematch between them and Tundra would be the best case scenario in terms of everyone involved really seeing how good they can be, but going up against Eastern European rivals PARIVISION would also be a fantastic prospect.

Either way, this will be the first real test for Team Spirit this year in a LAN environment. Their win at DreamLeague Season 25 was very confidence-inspiring, especially given the circumstances surrounding that grand final match — but it was still an online tournament nonetheless. The pressure is entirely different at ESL One Raleigh, and this is their chance to prove that they’ve still got it after bombing out of TI13.