Team Spririt are this year's The International, DotA 2 champions, taking home a shared $18 million in prize money. This is the 10th annual DotA 2 world championship tournament that saw the world's best teams compete for their share of a more-than $40 million prize pool, and despite some set backs and struggles in both the group and Main Event, they battled through to defeat PGS.LGD in the final in a close fought battle.
This is a major event not just for Team Spirit, because this is their first major victory in a top-tier DotA 2 tournament, but for the DotA scene as well. The past few years have been dominated by European teams, with Team Liquid, and OG taking home the prize every years since 2017. This time around, however, Team Spirit has taken the trophy for the CIS region -- some might say a fitting turn of events, considering Navi's original win at the first International 10 years ago.
Team Spirit didn't have a smooth run to the championship, however. After qualifying in the Eastern European region, they struggled in the group stage, just scraping into the top four with a 5:3 record. The group was dominated by PSG.LGD, which didn't drop a single game, in comparison. The main event had similar troubles for Team Spirit, which immediately lost its opening bout against Invictus Gaming, but there it started to turn things around. It went on to dominate Fnatic,, OG, and Virtus Pro in the opening games, before defeating Invictus Gaming in definitive fashion, and winning a tough 2:1 victory against Team Secret in the semi-finals.
PSG.LGD, on the other hand, won almost unanimously throughout the main event run. It was only in the final that it struggled. The eventual result of the best of 5 was 3:2 to Team Spirit, crowning them the champions for 2021 and The International 10.