With Team Spirit’s second rise to the top as The International champions, Valve decided to commemorate their victory at the grandest stage with a simple gesture. As of today, Oct. 31, one of the most dominant heroes, Spirit Breaker, has had its name officially changed to “Team Spirit Breaker.”
Spirit Breaker was widely considered to be one of the S-tier heroes during TI 2023. The hero’s rise to prominence happened gradually, with constant buffs to his Charge of Darkness and Bulldoze. After going through a few nerfs in the previous patch, the prevalence of Hand of Midas and a bigger map to charge around slowly brought him back into the meta once again.
While not picked as much as some of the other heroes like Primal Beast, Muerta, and Kunkka, Spirit Breaker was relevant and contributed to the success of its team in every game it was picked. According to the stats from Dota2ProTracker, Team Spirit Breaker currently occupies a comfortable 52 percent win rate, making him a successful hero overall in this patch.
Team Spirit’s offlaner Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov was back in TI form once again this year, showcasing the full capabilities of Spirit Breaker. Collapse dismantled several teams throughout the tournament with the hero, including a dominant game three in the grand finals on Oct. 29 against the dominant Western European juggernaut Gaimin Gladiators. Team Spirit Breaker looked unstoppable.
The consistency of the hero is one of the reasons Team Spirit managed to dethrone the dominant Gaimin Gladiators, who won every Dota 2 Pro Circuit Major event this year. The TI10 champions flew under the radar for most of 2023, building up steam until Riyadh Masters, where they picked up a convincing victory against Team Liquid, the team who came second all year.
Team Spirit’s dominance continued throughout the entirety of TI 2023, going undefeated through the entire group stage. The Eastern European team dropped only one game each to Team Liquid and Virtus.Pro during the playoffs, making for an almost perfect run throughout the tournament. Valve commemorated this run with special stickers displaying the TI12 champions.
Now that Team Spirit are the only two-time TI champion alongside OG, the future looks bright for the upcoming Eastern European stars. We can’t wait to see what the team will accomplish in 2024, but first, a hard-earned rest is in order.
