Team Spirit is one of the newest formed squads that will attend the Winter Major, however they originate from CIS Rejects, a team formed in the post TI5 shuffle that had its share of glory in the European competitions.
At the Frankfurt Major, CIS Rejects didn’t manage to grab a qualifying spot in the European group stage and since then they underwent numerous roster changes. In September 2015 Bogdan "Iceberg" Vasilenko was brought into the team. Two months later, in November 2015, CIS Rejects suffered a final four man roster change when one of the youngest carries we currently have in the pro scene, Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev stepped in along with the - more than two year - long time support of Team Empire, Andrey "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko, the not so well-known Aspera offlaner Vasily "AfterLife" Shishkin and finally, the CIS veteran Artur "Goblak" Kostenko.
In this composition CIS Rejects performed beyond any expectations at the Starladder|i-League Europe+CIS qualifiers where they won their group by defeating Team Secret and Team Liquid.
Immediately after the qualifiers were over the Russian organization D2Net shook hands with CIS Rejects and rebranded the squad into Team Spirit.
image source: MDL Facebook album
Team Spirit roster:
Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev
Bogdan "Iceberg" Vasilenko
Vasily "AfterLife" Shishkin
Artur "Goblak" Kostenko
Andrey "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko
Going to Minsk in January this year to compete at the LAN event of Starladder|i-Lague XIII, Team Spirit had the chance to accommodate their youngsters in front of the live audience for the first time. It was the first big challenge for the 16 year old carry RAMZES who unfortunately looked a bit overwhelmed when he faced the Dota 2 legends like Sylar or Arteezy. Having to face LAN pressure, he made numerous rookie mistakes, especially on his Lycan, a centerpiece for Team Spirit’s game tactic and their singular win in front of Alliance was not enough to help them advance into the playoffs.
But despite their poor performance at SL|i-League one player stood out for Team Spirit, namely Iceberg, who’s playing the mid role. Same story happened at MarsTV Dota 2 League Winter where Team Spirit came through as the winners of European qualifiers.
Again they had a perfect run in the qualifier stage, reaching the finals from the upper bracket after defeating the best CIS team of the moment, Virtus.Pro, but once they landed in Wuxi, China everything fell apart.
Team Spirit got paired with Vici Gaming, OG, Evil Geniuses and Newbee in group A and placed last with 0 wins and one drawn score against Newbee which marked their early exit from the tournament.
CIS Rejects/Team Spirit achievements after Frankfurt Major:
4th place: Hitbox EU Championship #4
1st place: PGL Dota 2 Pro-AM
9th-16th place: BTS Europe #1
3rd-4th place: D2CL Christmas Charity Magic
1st place: ProDotA Cup Europe #1
3rd place: UCC Hitbox Championship
7th-12th place: SL|i-League XIII
9th-10th place: MarsTV Dota 2 League Winter
During the European qualifiers for the Shanghai Major Team Spirit established the supremacy over the CIS teams. Out of the ten invited squads to duel for the two spots available at the Winter Major main event, seven were CIS representatives. Na’Vi, Vega Squadron and Team Empire were the obvious favorites to claim one of the spots if not both but Team Spirit proved once more that they are the lords of the online battles and defeated both Empire and Vega to secure the ticket to Shanghai.
Having all their five members playing along their professional careers only for CIS teams and organizations, Team Spirit’s play style is defined by the region’s characteristic aggressiveness.
There is almost no draft of TS without a Chen, Lycan, Nature’s Prophet or Enchantress in it or a multiple Necro Book stack strategy. If all these options are banned for them, the old Visage - Drow Ranger proven combo will come into play for Team Spirit.
The early laning phase dominance is clearly extremely important for Goblak’s tactics - who likes to force teamfights and tower dives even before the timer reaches 10 minutes.
Goblak’s Chen or Treant Protector are a staple for Team Spirit’s drafts and all their extremely aggressive game strategy is based on strong dual healing supports leaving the push power on RAMZES and Iceberg shoulders. Oracle, Dazzle, Witch Doctor, Io, Chen, Treant Protector are the support artillery from which Team Spirit will always pick.
If somehow Goblak’s plans are blocked in the first two rounds of bans and picks there is always the rat option available for his style of combining heroes. Terrorblade, Morphling and Furion are his first choices and he will surely go with at least one of them for a late game split push tactic.
Top hero picks in the 6.86 patch
RAMZES666
Sven / 14 games / 64.3% win rate
Beastmaster / 9 games / 66.7% win rate
Gyrocopter / 7games / 57.1% win rate
Iceberg
Invoker / 18 games / 50% win rate
Outworld Devourer / 12 games / 66.7% win rate
Zeus / 8 games / 75% win rate
AfterLife
Natures Prophet / 9 games / 66.7% win rate
Slardar / 7 games / 57.1% win rate
Enchantress and Doom both played 6 times with a 33.3% win rate respectively 83.3% win rate
Goblak
Treant Protector / 11 games / 45.5% win rate
Bane / 10 games / 60% win rate
Chen / 10 games / 80% win rate
ALWAYSWANNAFLY
Io / 11 games / 54.5% win rate
Bane / 9 games / 44.4% win rate
Dazzle/Witch Doctor/Oracle, all played 4 times with 75% / 75% / 50% win rates
Team Spirit’s taste for blood from early stages makes room for a lot of mistakes which can be fatal for any team put in their situation but their small LAN experience adds additional pressure on RAMZESS and Iceberg who can easily crumble after small mistakes that are more likely to happen when you dive tier one towers at level six.
Polishing their aggressive maneuvers during the bootcamp and working on their communication may enable Team Spirit to deliver the big surprise in Shanghai. The talent and the determination is definitely there and if I would have to make a top list of the mid players coming to Shanghai I would place Iceberg in it without a doubt.
They say third time's a charm and the Shanghai Major will be Team Spirit’s third LAN. Their chance to claim the tier one ranked team spot will start in the group stage where they must accomplish an upper bracket spot, otherwise a top eight finish will be nearly impossible for them.
player's stats collected from datdota.com
