An impeccable run from Team Spirit in the DreamLeague Season 21 has culminated in a tournament title after the team defeated Shopify Rebellion 3-0 in the grand final. The grand final kicked off with an intense game in which Shopify’s early draft was unable to close out the game as Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk’s Phantom Lancer proved to be a menace in the late game. As has been the case throughout this tournament, Spirit displayed exemplary gameplay in the next two games to win the series. The victory of DreamLeague Season 21 earns Spirit $300,000 USD in prize money as well as a huge confidence boost before The International 12 (TI12).
Team Spirit vs Shopify Rebellion: Match recap and highlights
In game 1, Spirit went for a last pick Phantom Lancer, which weakened the team’s early game, but Shopify also had few solutions for Phantom Lancer in the late game. Spirit performed well to find kills on Arteezy in the initial half of the game, delaying Shopify’s onslaught. But Shopify won one teamfight at 34 minutes and quickly built up a lead. Spirit was on the defensive, but it held out long enough for Yatoro’s Phantom Lancer to pose a threat. A extremely close late-game stage that had previously favored Shopify by 30k ended up in Spirit’s favor in 68 minutes because of a Phantom Lancer carry exploding.
In game 2, Shopify for a last pick Earthshaker for Abed, but the player was defeated in the midlane by Larl’s Kunkka with help from support rotations. Shopify’s cores, with the exception of Arteezy’s Gyrocopter, did not have the greatest lanes and lacked considerably in networth. Constant engagement did help in findining kills for both sides, but Spirit waited for critical item timings before going all in to win in 39 minutes.
In game 3, Spirit delivered a flawless effort, outperforming Shopify in every aspect. Spirit’s cores were enormously tanky, making it exceedingly difficult for opponents to take them down. Arteezy had a difficult game on Alchemist, as he had minimal influence, finishing with a 1-6-7 KDA. Apart from a few support kills, Shopify couldn’t achieve much throughout the game and was defeated after 34 minutes.
Highlights
Here are some highlights of the series.
During DreamLeague Season 21, Team Spirit appeared to be performing at a level reminiscent of when it secured victory at TI11. The squad had a strong run, losing only one game in the group stage after ten games and one in the playoffs to Shopify Rebellion in the upper bracket final.
While Yatoro has been as good as ever, Denis “Larl” Sigitov stepping up big time as the team’s midlaner and Myroslav “Mira” Kolpakov returning to form have been the biggest positives for the squad. Spirit will attend TI12 as one of the favorites after having won the Riyadh Masters 2023 a few months ago as well.
Meanwhile, a tier 1 tournament victory remains elusive for Artour “Arteezy” Babaev and his teammates, but there is a lot of optimism and momentum for the team today after placing second because of the team’s mediocre record in recent months. If Shopify just fine-tunes its game a bit more, it will become a team to watch out for at TI12.
The team receives $175,000 as part of the DreamLeague Season 21 runner-up prize.
