Team Spirit Dota 2: Silent steps aside as coach, Larl goes on vacation

We’re barely halfway into January 2026, and already we see our first pair of major roster changes for two-time International champions Team Spirit. Coach Airat “Silent” Gaziev, famous for mentoring the young squad through their two title-winning campaigns at TI and in several other high profile tournaments, will be taking a leave of absence according to the organization.

Meanwhile, Spirit also confirmed that Denis “Larl” Sigitov will miss at least six weeks of play, citing personal reasons.

Not-so-Silent exit

Silent is being moved to the club’s inactive list after six years of rousing success with the squad, a stint that moved him up the ranks as one of the greatest coaches Dota 2 has ever seen. Aside from helping the team reach the pinnacle of professional Dota not once but twice, he also guided them to several tier 1 tournament wins, including the Esports World Cup in 2025.

To say that Silent was a massive part of why this team burst onto the scene in 2021 and continued their success as a group would be a gross understatement. Yellow Submarine, as they were known before being fully acquired by Team Spirit in December 2020, was simply a burgeoning roster with not much experience at the highest level of play.

They went through a few lineup changes before finally settling on the now-legendary lineup of Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk, Alexander “TORONTOTOKYO” Khertek, Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov, Myroslave “Mira” Kolpakov, and Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov. Without Silent’s guiding hand, I personally do not think that they would have improved so rapidly in 2021 while COVID-19 was still out there.

True enough, they shocked the entire Dota scene by beating the supposedly unstoppable LGD Gaming in the TI10 grand finals, and went on to do it again two years later. Such a feat was simply unprecedented for a lineup that was composed almost entirely of nobodies at the time, something that Yatoro himself recounted in my interview with him at BLAST Slam 4 in Singapore.

Losing one of the brightest coaches ever so early in the new year is a significant blow to Team Spirit, who will now have to find a suitable replacement for Silent. I’d imagine that they’ll be recalling Miposhka in order to fill the hole Silent is leaving in his wake, as it has been a few months now since he went on sabbatical in October last year.

Larl takes a break

To add to Team Spirit’s troubles, Larl will be inactive as well for at least the next six weeks, as announced by the organization a few days before Silent’s benching as coach. The TI12 champion is apparently stepping aside for now for personal reasons, and will not be present for the team’s campaigns at BLAST Slam 6 Malta and DreamLeague Season 28.

Thankfully, Marat “Mirele” Gazetdinov will stand in for him in the meantime. Mirele had a taste of the limelight last year at FISSURE Universe Episode 6, where he also subbed in for Larl who was dealing with some health issues at the time. Mirele played like a piece well beyond his years at FISSURE Universe, helping Spirit reach the grand finals despite not having their usual mid laner in tow.

I’m sure he’ll relish this opportunity to gain some tier 1 experience once more, and I’m pretty confident that he’ll be up to the task again.