Leamare discussed the analysts’ work at The International 2026
Data miner Ilya “Leamare” Silakov revealed on his personal Telegram channel that most of the teams participating in The International 2026 brought an analyst with them to the tournament.
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Today, this major leak threw me off a bit, but generally speaking, over the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about how encouraging the evolution of the analytics scene in Dota has been.
Whereas before, they might not even have paid a salary, or six-month contracts might have been up for review, and you had to prove why all of this was necessary, now many teams have analysts, almost all of whom are paid a decent salary, and many of them can even travel to tournaments (the organization was willing to spend either an extra slot or money on them), which is just incredible. Some even get bonuses from prize pools—which also seems like a surprising thing, but it’s rare.
Among the teams at the event
—Iron Wing—brought an analyst (the analyst got drunk at the afterparty)
— Falcons — brought an analyst (we had a great time, discussed approaches to working with data, showed each other what software we use, and showed each other respect)
— Team Yandex brought an analyst and actively immersed him in the team’s processes—
GamerLegion brought an analyst
— Team Liquid brought two coaches and an SAP (both coaches made it; nothing to say about the SAP; but I did run into Team Liquid’s management and had a nice chat with them)
— Nigma — they seem to have someone; I saw a guy who was constantly working with their internal software and crunching data while watching the games, but I don’t know anything about him (other than that they brought him along)
Besides that
— Aurora, BoomBoys, Vision, OG—they use some kind of software and seem to have someone, but it looks like they didn’t bring anyone along; I can’t say for sure—
Spirit, LGD—no analysts at the LAN, but at least they were actively working;
Xtreme, Huligani, Resilience, Vici—I don’t know anything about them anymore, and it seems like they don’t have any support staff there
(not to mention how many people from different teams came up and said something along the lines of “thanks for the spectral reports, I use them every day,” but that’s beside the point)
It’s really great to see how using data in preparation has become the norm, players are taking a more responsible approach, and management now sees the value in bringing in an analyst because “they’re part of the team, part of the ship.”
Plus, every time, there are more and more people to sit down with and chat with. So, I’m giving this a like.
Earlier, esports event host Jake “SirActionSlacks” Kanner commented on Nigma Galaxy’s performance at The International 2026, spoke about the retirements of Cr1t-, SumaiL, and Aui_2000, and shared his expectations for the ranked matches following the tournament.
Photo by Ilya “Leamare” Silakov
