Team Spirit showed fans their true potential with a competitive run that ended in 1st place and the respected Aegis of Champions at The International 10 edition, and that momentum carried over into the next professional split as the roster destroyed the Eastern EU tournament and won a Major event going into TI11.
However everything was about to change, the Team Spirit lineup that showed up to TI11 looked nothing like before, as they struggled in the group stage and also received a rapid defeat in the 1st round of the playoffs. Sadly meaning the defending world champions will not be able to fight and maintain their trophy.
Even though TS player Mira hoped this roster of Team Spirit would stay together for at least another season, TS’ team manager Dmitry “Korb3n” Belov shared that there might be some lineup switch ups coming to the team on Aleksandr “Nix” Levin’s stream.
Korb3n shared via Nix’s 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 talked about the roster’s underwhelming performance at the latest TI. Since the first day of the group stage, Spirit’s overall performance seemed lackluster like they were playing passively, almost fearlike. This was definitely a reason for the result of Team Spirit, with Korb3n stating the team thought they could win the whole event, but at the same time saw a scenario where they could be last place in the competition.
At the 2021 TI10, Spirit were 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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