Image: Team Spirit
The grand finals was played across two days after a DDoS attack targeting Team Spirit players forced game four to be postponed.
Eastern European Dota 2 powerhouse
Team Spirit claimed the championship of DreamLeague Season 25 after they defeated Western European juggernauts 
Tundra Esports, 3-2, in the protracted grand finals that concluded on Wednesday (5 March). The tournament was supposed to wrap up last Sunday (2 March), but the grand finals was postponed for a day after an alleged DDoS attack on Spirit's players in game four of the series.
With their victory, Spirit claimed the grand prize of US$290,000 out of the tournament's US$1 million prize pool, as well as 4,620 ESL Pro Tour (EPT) points to go towards securing a direct invite to Riyadh Masters 2025. This also breaks a 10-month dry spell of not winning tournaments for Spirit, with their last tournament victory dating back to the 1win Series Dota 2 Summer at the end of June 2024.
Meanwhile, Tundra settle for second place, as well as US$130,000 and 3,920 points in winnings. Tundra had by far been the strongest Dota 2 team in the world for the early part of the 2025 season, following back-to-back victories at FISSURE PLAYGROUND #1 and BLAST Slam II in February, though their winning streak now comes to an end.
Spirit overcome Tundra in DDoS-marred grand final
Spirit and Tundra outlasted 14 other teams across two Group Stages and a double-elimination Playoffs to become the grand finalists of DreamLeague Season 25.
Spirit and Tundra both started the tournament strong by topping Group Stage 1, with Tundra holding the best record of this stage at 13-1 in Group A, while Spirit led Group B with a 12-2 standing. Group Stage 2 then saw 
PARIVISION overtake the two grand finalists by winning every single match they played in this stage, and leading the pack of four teams qualifying for the Playoffs. Tundra finished second with an 11-5 record, while Spirit came in third with a 9-7 standing.
The Top 2 seeds of Group Stage 2 started the Playoffs in the upper bracket, where Tundra defeated PARIVISION in three games to become the tournament's first grand finalists. Meanwhile, Spirit started down in the lower bracket, where they first pulled off a 2-1 reverse sweep over 
Chimera Esports before sweeping PARIVISION in the lower bracket finals to earn the right to challenge Tundra in the championship round.
2-3
Team SpiritSpirit drew first blood in the grand finals as 
Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk put on a show with his carry Nature's Prophet, racking up 18 kills and 14 assists on four deaths in 39 minutes of action. Spirit notably showcased some unorthodox drafting in the series opener, with 
Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov pulling out an offlane Faceless Void with the Time Zone Facet to boost his team's damage output in teamfights.
Tundra were quick to strike back in game two behind 
Neta “33” Shapira's offlane Abaddon, serving as a nigh-unkillable tank in teamfights with some surprising damage output that let him finish the game with 10 kills and 13 assists on just one death. Anton “dyrachyo” Shkredov on a carry Tiny and 
Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov on Pangolier also pitched in with seven kills against six deaths apiece to go along with a combined 22 assists.
The pivotal third game of the grand finals saw both sides go blow-for-blow for over 66 minutes, with Spirit emerging victorious behind another showstopping performance by Yatoro. Despite facing early pressure from the side of Tundra, Spirit's carry deftly weathered the storm until the late game, when he became an unstoppable force and finished with 16 kills and 13 assists on four deaths to give his team a commanding 2-1 series lead.
Spirit were on the verge of closing out the grand finals in game four after they built up a huge lead, only for a technical pause to put a stop to the action at the 18-minute mark after both Larl and Collapse disconnected from the game. The pause would last for almost two hours as both players repeatedly tried in vain to reconnect. Spirit claimed that their players fell victim to a DDoS attack, with Collapse later saying on his official Telegram channel that the attacks came in the form of someone “spamming party invites, chats, etc. 100 times per second, and Dota was simply crashing due to the number of requests."
With Larl and Collapse still barred from rejoining the game even after switching to entirely different accounts, tournament organiser ESL decided to have a full remake of game four instead. However, Spirit captain Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov encountered the same problems as his teammates, which then forced ESL to make the hard decision to postpone game four of the grand finals.
Tundra made good use of the golden opportunity handed to them, as they utterly dominated Spirit in the third attempt at a game four to the tune of a 29-8 kill lead in just 26 minutes of action. And so, a grand final already marred by drama over the party responsible for the DDoS attacks was forced to a deciding fifth game.
Much to the disappointment of the fans who expected an action-packed conclusion to the tournament, game five was an utter rout as Spirit led from the get-go, and racked up a 36-7 kill lead in 35 minutes to finally overcome Tundra.
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