Team Yandex barrel through Team Spirit to win the DreamLeague Season 27 grand finals

Look out, Dota 2 world: we officially have a new contender to watch in this current competitive season, with Team Yandex getting their first ever tier 1 tournament win at the DreamLeague Season 27 grand finals.

They did this against Team Spirit, easily one of the strongest and most successful teams in the world — with surgical precision, the right mindset, and a little help from someone who is still just a stand-in for them on paper.

Game 1 — Yatoro enjoys a buffed Phantom Assassin

Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk started off the series with a serious message to Yandex: “don’t give me this new look Phantom Assassin”. The man who could very well be the greatest carry player of all time went for one of his absolute most iconic signature heroes, and Yandex paid the price for letting him have Mortred in Patch 7.40.

ULTRA KILL 💥💥💥💥 pic.twitter.com/BqsmMMexhL

— Team Spirit Dota 2 (@TSpirit_Dota2) December 21, 2025

I mean, he came away from this game with 16 kills and only a single death. He and Nikita “panto” Balaganin (who was playing Warlock) had the time of their lives in the laning phase, with Yatoro helping panto get tons of Black Grimoire charges and panto helping Yatoro just get ahead in farm and experience.

Not to be outdone, both Denis “Larl” Sigitov (Invoker) and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov (Tidehunter) showed up to the party as well, setting up massive Ravage (R)-Cataclysm combos throughout the entire game. The kind of free teamfight wins they got out of this pairing was honestly disgusting, with Larl enjoying what was pretty much a guaranteed double kill every time they landed this combination.

Their draft just worked to perfection in this game, and they were able to execute the gameplan in its entirety. Tons of teamfight followed by the immense physical damage coming from Yatoro’s Phantom Assassin is just classic Dota 2, which is fitting considering how old school Team Spirit can be sometimes.

Game 2 — Yandex get a grand final (game) win

After losing four grand final games in a row starting from their match against Tundra Esports at BLAST Slam 5 Chengdu, Yandex got themselves on the board at last in the second game of this series. If the first game was about Yatoro’s signature pick, so it was for Yandex in game 2 — with Martin “Saksa” Sazdov getting a chance to play Shadow Shaman.

This dude was so annoying this entire game, to say the absolute least. Just the way he maximized the Fowl Play innate (why is this still in the game?!) tilted Spirit off the face of the earth, and he was instrumental in keeping Larl’s Nature’s Prophet from actually doing anything this game. It also helped that Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov dominated Larl in lane as Viper, in a matchup that Nature’s Prophet does not appreciate one bit.

The space that CHIRA_JUNIOR afforded Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov was more than enough to help watson farm like a maniac as Kez. He got himself a Desolator at 14 minutes, which allowed him and the rest of Yandex to really push the pace of this game. With Evgeniy “Noticed” Ignatenko not far behind as the offlane Tidehunter, they just took a bunch of easy teamfights — and Spirit were practically helpless to stop their midgame tempo.

Nope, not even Yatoro’s signature Morphling could help them turn this game around.

Game 3 — The tide officially turns

Okay, Tidehunter is starting to get a little gross in the Patch 7.40 metagame. All the buffs he got in the update have now added to up to create this insanely powerful hero package, something that Noticed showcased in this game in particular — as if he hadn’t already in the previous one. Although he didn’t do a ton of damage in this game, he was able to hit some important item timings extremely quickly.

Read: 11 minute Blade Mail, 12 minute Soul Ring, and 20 minute Shiva’s Guard. Notice how that Blink Dagger isn’t even on that list? He did eventually get it at 23 minutes, but just the fact that Tidehunter can afford not to buy such an important mobility item right away in favor of cheaper but more slot-efficient pieces is a testament to the hero’s overall power right now.

Coupled with watson’s Templar Assassin, Noticed dictated the pace of the game pretty much as soon as the laning phase ended. He and the rest of Yandex just snowballed way out of Spirit’s control thereafter, and Spirit knew this for a fact. With the tide running hard against them (pun intended, of course), Spirit tapped out in less than 25 minutes, with Collapse looking visibly disgusted at his team’s play as they threw in the towel.

Game 4 — New kids on the block

As we like to say in the fighting game community: download complete. Yandex followed through on their adaptation throughout this series in the fourth game, particularly with the rather unorthodox support combination of Keeper of the Light for Saksa and Chen for Arman “Malady” Orazbayev. This wasn’t really a great combination on paper, with two heroes that didn’t complement each other all that well.

🏆 Your #DreamLeague Season 27 Champions are Team Yandex! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/lRinXzH6qx

— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) December 21, 2025

But their exact reasoning for this draft was very sound, because Chen is a great counter to Shadow Demon, and the fact that Spirit didn’t have any good Spirit Vessel buyers in their draft meant that double heals was actually a good idea. This was said by Malady himself in the post-game interview, and it showed in the game itself.

Ironically, Spirit actually looked like they were fighting back in this game, having held the early kill lead in the laning phase and making much better moves throughout the early goings. This unfortunately came to an abrupt end when Yandex attempted to kill Roshan at around the 17 minute mark, and Yandex actually won the teamfight that ensued during the attempt.

Yandex’s impeccable positioning and quick response to Spirit’s approach made all the difference here, and suddenly they were up 3,000 gold. With the Aegis of the Immortal backing them up, Yandex felt brave enough to just go for map control, helped by the fact that watson was incredibly farmed on Templar Assassin at this point.

For once in their lives, Spirit looked like they were sweating bullets — unable to come up with answers against Yandex. The lead just kept growing and growing in favor of Yandex, and Spirit’s every attempt to pull the game back just fell completely flat.

So, alongside MOUZ, we now have yet another squad capable of winning tier 1 tournaments. Yandex have figured out their strengths and weaknesses in practically no time, and their reward comes in the form of a DreamLeague title. Not bad for a club that got swept in a LAN grand final just a few weeks prior.

What a way for these guys to end the calendar year, and I can’t wait to see what else they’ll achieve throughout the 2025-2026 season.