Team Spirit has won The International 12 Dota 2 tournament after beating Gaimin Gladiators 3-0 in the final. The win makes Team Spirit two-time champions of The International, after winning The International 10 back in 2021.
The win now makes Team Spirit the second team to become two-time TI champions, following OG who won both TI8 and TI9. While OG did the double with the same lineup, the Team Spirit team has seen some members leave and new additions join between the two wins.
The final was a matchup of the two favorites heading into the tournament. Team Spirit came in off the back of a big win at the Ryiad Masters and an impressive season. Gaimin Gladiators on the other hand were looking to pull off the grand slam after winning all three DPC Majors throughout the year.
Game one of the final saw some unusual picks, with Gyrocopter and Beastmaster both being picked. The former had not won a single game at TI after being picked five times, while the latter only had a 27% win rate at the tournament. This showed that both teams were confident in their play and didn’t need to rely on the most meta picks. However, one worked significantly better than the other, with the Beastmaster on Team Spirit carrying them to a somewhat simple win over the Gryocpter from Gaimin Gladiators to go 1-0 up.
Game two saw the teams return to some more comfort picks, with Team Spirit picking the Magnus for Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov, a player-hero combination that was a major part of the team’s win at TI 10. Once again the combo proved to be unbeatable, with Spirit taking another convincing win to go 2-0 up and onto match point.
Game three saw the teams go for more of the meta picks that have dominated TI 12. Spirit had CK, Grimstroke, Tusk and Spirit Breaker, while Gaimin took Meurta, the most picked hero at the tournament, along with Pango and AA. Gaimin had a good lead into the mid game and looked to be in a spot to take a game off Spirit. But some big fights turned the game and eventually gave Spirit their third map win to become TI champions.
Despite a massively reduced prize pool compared to previous years, Team Spirit still walks away with at least $1,413,785. However, the lower positions are where you really notice the smaller prize pool, as Gaimin Gladiators take home just $376,954. LGD Gaming took third and $251,372 while Azure Ray took home $172,753 for fourth.
After a disappointing event last year, The International 12 has been a massive improvement and will go down as one of the better TIs in history. The CGI around the arena has looked incredible and really added a lot to the production, while the in-game action has been top-notch. As you would expect the English broadcast talent has been outstanding, especially Austin “Cap” Walsh and Avery “SVG” Silverman who cast the final and Natalie “NatTea” Mahoney who was a host for the TI main event for the first time. The event also saw the announcement of a brand new Dota 2 hero who looks very cool. Hopefully, despite the lack of a DPC, TI13 will be just as good.
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