DreamLeague Season 25: Team Spirit claims victory
Team Spirit emerged victorious in the DreamLeague Season 25 after defeating Tundra Esports during the league’s grand finals for 3-2 on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. This victory marks the organisation’s first trophy of 2025, and Team Spirit is ready to shoot for more before the year ends.
The winning team took home $290,000 (£225,941) in reward money and 4,620 ESL Pro Tour points, making a total of 8,040 points. This league win helped them climb up to 2nd rank just below PARIVISION with 10,845 points.
During the league, the Russian esports team was one of the top choices for the trophy as they dominated their opponents during the Group Stage. They were the only team to remain unbeaten as their score concluded in 5 wins, 2 draws, and 0 losses.
The 2 draws happened during their match with Team Liquid on February 18, 2025, and Yakult’s Brothers on February 20, 2025. The grand finals of Team Spirit versus Tundra Esports also became the most-watched match of the tournament.
The team’s journey before the victory
Before their decisive match with the Tundra Esports, they had to defeat 5 top teams in the Group Stage first.
They had to face the current ESL Pro Tour leaderboard top scorer, PARIVISION. The match ended in a 2-0 sweep, with Team Spirit coming out on top. During their match with Chimera Esports, they had a close game that ended in 2-1 in favour of Team Spirit.
The organisation’s match with AVULUS, BOOM Esports, and Gaimin Gladiators all led to clean wins, with all three matches ending in 2-0.
This win by Team Spirit did not come without any hardships as they encountered ‘DDoS attacks’ during their first match up with Tundra Esports on Monday, March 3, 2025.
Team Spirit players Magomed ‘Collapse’ Khalilov and Denis ‘Larl’ Sigitov experienced issues 18 minutes into the match as they received massive amounts of party invites, chats, and other distractions for ‘100 times per second.’ Collapse recalled, ‘Dota was simply crushed because of the number of requests.’
This led to a delay in the match, which was then rescheduled to continue the next day. Fans were sceptical about the claims, saying they were ‘delaying the game on purpose,’ but the DreamLeague tournament organisers made their decision based on what they saw fit in the current situation.
Team Spirit has expressed its side and stated on X (formerly Twitter) that a ‘vulnerability inside Steam/Dota 2’ was to blame for the DDoS attack.
After the delay, the game resumed on March 4, 2025. The heat of the battle never died as Team Spirit and Tundra Esports competed for the top. The tournament ended with Team Spirit with 3 points and Tundra Esports with 2 points.Â
