Spirit Beat the Team That Knocked Them Down to Win a Third Aegis

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24 August 2026 03:06

This was unexpected.

TEAM VISION pushed Team Spirit into the lower bracket in the upper-bracket semifinal, 2-1. Spirit fought back through it, reached the grand final, and beat them 3-2 across five games at Shanghai's Oriental Sports Center.

This win makes Spirit the first organisation with three Aegis of Champions, breaking a tie with OG, and Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk and Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov the first players to win three, across six appearances together. First place earned them 1,426,422 dollars.

Coach Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov also has three now, two as a player alongside Yatoro and Collapse, this one from the booth. Denis "Larl" Sigitov becomes the 13th player with two. Aleksandr "rue" Filin took his first in his second TI, and Alexey "not me" Kosmynin won on debut, joining a short list that includes Topson and SumaiL.

How it went

Game 1. Yatoro on Shadow Fiend and Collapse on Undying won their lanes, 60k gold between the two. Yatoro finished 16/1/7 and Spirit took the game in 46 minutes.

Game 2. Spirit once again started ahead, VISION down 17-30 in kills at one point, farming and waiting. The turn came at 43 minutes through Evgeniy "Noticed" Ignatenko and Alan "Satanic" Gallyamov, and once VISION had the gold lead they never gave it up. 64 minutes.

Game 3. Quiet for half an hour, gold near level, few kills. Then a devastating fight at 38 minutes.

Game 4. VISION at their best, the version that won the EWC. Supports 9Class and Dukalis put up 20 and 19 assists, the composition proved close to unkillable at 31-13, and Spirit were wiped at 43 minutes.

Game 5. Yatoro's Lifestealer built an 11k lead and Spirit looked a fight away. VISION caught him in chain CC, turned the engagement, and made that their entire plan: remove Yatoro, win the fight. Spirit adjusted by taking the initiative rather than reacting, and the decisive moment came when rue landed a Bane save on Yatoro mid-fight. VISION's base opened up, Satanic's surprise Juggernaut pick died twice in the collapse, and Spirit burned through the buybacks. 64 minutes.

More than 500,000 people watched live across Twitch and YouTube.