Team Spirit surprised the community with a campaign that ended in 1st place and the coveted Aegis of Champions at The International 10 2021, and that hype carried over into the next competitive season as the squad demolished the Eastern EU regionals and won a Major going into TI11.
Nevertheless, the Team Spirit side that showed up to TI11 looked way less coordinated, as they definitely struggled in the group stage and also received a swift defeat in the first round of the playoffs. Ultimately meaning the defending world champions will not be able to fight for their title.
Even though professional player Mira wished this edition of Team Spirit would stick together for another season, team manager Dmitry “Korb3n” Belov mentioned that there might be some changes coming to the roster on Aleksandr “Nix” Levin’s stream.
Korb3n hinted via stream:
“We haven’t spoken about it yet, and it’s too early” “You need to digest everything first, so I can’t guarantee it 100 percent, but I assume there might be some changes.”
Team Spirit’s manager spoke about the squad’s underwhelming performance at TI11. Since the 1st day of the group stage, Spirit’s overall gameplay seemed like they were playing extremely passively, almost fearlike. That mentality was definitely part of the ending for Team Spirit, with Korb3n mentioning the team thought they could win the whole thing, but also saw a scenario where they could be last place in the competition.
At 2021 TI10, Spirit was considered the surprising and exciting underdogs which could take a game from anyone. Everyone was looking on countering the heavy favorites of the tournament, such as PSG.LGD, this helped Team Spirit to continue their own path in the event without much scouting. TI11, on the other hand, has been almost impossible to predict or even signal the heavy favorites to win it all.
Even after winning the TI with the biggest prize pool in Dota 2’s history, Team Spirit failed to mentally continue with their champion confidence, with Mira even stating that he still deals with imposter syndrome at times.
Maybe Team Spirit always thought their TI10 campaign was influenced by luck somehow, or they just were not prepared to defend a title so big such as the Aegis. Now there is a chance that the TI champion roster will break up before the start of the next Dota 2 competitive season.
If Spirit makes any sort of roster change, it would be the first official one since bringing Mira back in March 2021, which settled the roster for the rest of the season. There are a variety of free agents already from the teams eliminated from the TI, with incredible prospects to choose from. Most likely is gonna take a while for Team Spirit to officially announce their next move.
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