Spirit close it out on red
Team Spirit beat TEAM VISION 3-2 in the best-of-five grand final at The International 2026 in Shanghai a few hours ago. It is their third title at the event.
The series swung all the way. Spirit and VISION traded games, with VISION posting wins of 64 and 44 minutes on green and Spirit answering with a pair of 46-minute victories on the same side. The decider ran 64 minutes and Spirit closed it out on red.
They arrived in the final with momentum. Earlier on Sunday Spirit swept Team Yandex 2-0 in the lower-bracket final, taking 37 minutes on red and 34 on green. Two matches, one day, no games dropped before the final.
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Ten days, sixteen teams
The 15th edition of the Dota 2 tournament opened on August 13 with 16 teams. Eight reached the double-elimination playoff bracket, where every series ran best-of-three until Sunday’s grand final stretched to five.
Crowd funding did the rest. The prize pool started at a base of $1.6 million and finished at close to $3.4 million once player contributions landed. Spirit collected $1,430,221 for the win. VISION banked $437,541 and Yandex took $302,829 for third, with BoomBoys fourth on $201,931.
Nigma Galaxy and Team Liquid shared fifth and sixth on $168,253 apiece. Iron Wing and Team Falcons split seventh and eighth. OG, who won this event back to back in 2018 and 2019, finished 14th-15th alongside Xtreme Gaming for $33,678.
What it means for Spirit
Three Internationals puts Spirit in rare company. The tournament has run 15 times and no roster has held it down for long, which makes a third Aegis a genuine marker rather than a streak.
VISION leave Shanghai with the harder version of the same story. They reached the grand final a day early and won two of the five games. That is as close as it gets without lifting anything.
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