Team Spirit clinched their historic third The International title after a thrilling five-game victory over Team Vision [Parivision] in Shanghai’s Oriental Sports Center.
Team Spirit’s victory saw them win $1,426,422 and the most-prized trophy in Dota 2 history, the Aegis of Champions.
Team Spirit start The International 2026 Grand Final stronger
Spirit’s dynamic duo of Illya ‘Yatoro’ Mulyarchuk and Magomed ‘Collapse’ Khalilov were the focal point of Game 1 as the Shadow Fiend and Undying players won their lanes with ease.
The pair grew huge gold leads over their positional adversaries, accumulating over 60k gold between them, with Yatoro providing the difference in the teamfights to record a remarkable 16/1/7 KDA as Spirit took Game 1 in 46 minutes.
Game 2 saw Team Vision behind early and looking vulnerable as Yatoro once again showed his skill in teamfights, with Team Vision behind by 17-30 kills at one stage.
Team Vision had to hang on to not fall 0-2 behind in the Grand Final, farming and patiently waiting for their moment to turn the game.
That moment came 43 minutes into the contest as vital contests went in favor of Evgeniy ‘Noticed’ Ignatenko and Team Spirit loanee Alan ‘Satanic’ Gallyamov.
Team Vision never relinquished the gold lead once they had turned the contest, converting Game 2 in 64 minutes.
With the series squared up, Game 3 became tense with comparatively little action over its 46 minutes. Gold remained fairly even, with few kills across the first 30-minutes before the game was broken open by a devastating engage 38 minutes into the contest that decisively put the game in Spirit’s bag.
The team wipe quickly led to complete control and supremacy from Spirit as they moved to within one game of the Aegis of Champions.
Team Spirit overcome Team Vision fightback to claim TI 15
With their potential end in sight, Team Vision finally showed the dominance that had characterised their EWC 2026 victory and their run so far at TI 15.
The Support pairing of Edgar ‘9Class’ Naltakian and Andrey ‘Dukalis’ Kuropatkin provided 20 and 19 assists, respectively, as Vision’s comp was unkillable, giving up only 13 kills in the contest to the 31 in favor.
With the contest always to their advantage, Vision wiped Spirit 43 minutes in to take us to Game 5.
Could Spirit muster themselves for Game 5? They certainly could, as Yatoro’s Lifestealer gave Spirit a huge 11k lead, seemingly one fight away from claiming the Aegis.
However, Team Vision caught Yatoro in chain CC to open up an engage that turned the contest.
Vision’s strategy from that point on was to replicate that success, to take away Spirit’s most important piece and take the fight from there.
Aware of that strategy, Yatoro and Spirit went on the offensive to control the fights, once again gaining control of a thrilling Game 5.
Team Spirit then began to burn through Team Vision’s buybacks, converting fight after fight and claiming the Aegis of Champions.
How do you rank The International 2026 compared to previous iterations of the event? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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