Leaving Tundra, salaries, and the “death” of Dota 2—highlights from Mrs. Marple’s interview with Pure

Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko, carry for 1w Team, spoke in an interview with the YouTube channel Mrs. Marple, he discussed the team’s move from Tundra Esports to their new organization, the “death” of Dota 2 as a discipline, salary levels at his previous clubs, and tournament disqualifications. Here’s a quick rundown of the highlights in our article.

Pure explained that the team only found out about the organization’s dissolution after ESL One Birmingham 2026—and quite late at that: the players were told they would either be sold or left without salaries and forced to play at their own expense. He didn’t have a personal conversation with Tundra’s management—the team was simply given a list of potential organizations, and the players and management began reaching out to them on their own.

The entire roster, along with the manager and CEO, decided to make the move; only the media team stayed behind. The roster met with the new club for the first time at a media day that lasted from 8 a.m. to midnight—there, the players were presented with Rolex watches along with a “Welcome” message. Ivan refused to disclose the buyout amount, but described his salary as having increased—albeit “just a little.”

The search for an organization took two months, and Ivan called this an alarming sign: no one wanted to sign the season’s best team—the one that had won the most tournaments—for a long time; only two organizations showed interest. According to him, Dota 2 is “slowly dying,” and the trend shows that Valve has lost interest in the discipline: the company has almost completely abandoned the competitive scene, has been outsourcing the organization of The International to PGL for several years now, and no longer publishes the Compendium.

Moskalenko admits that the Compendium might still return, but only as a one-time, final promotion. He believes that profit is Valve’s top priority, and if CS2 generates it, the company will invest its resources there. This leads the player himself to think that someday he’ll have to do something other than play Dota 2.

The player described his experience at Virtus.pro as unfavorable, noting that the organization’s standards had already declined by the time he joined, and his first salary was in the range of $1,500–2,500. Entity, he said, knew how to make money but cut costs significantly on flights and boot camps: he himself earned roughly $3,000–3,500, compared to $2,200–2,500 for the rest of the team, and after qualifying for The International, the amount rose to $5,000. At BetBoom Team, the roster signed on for the same $5,000 with performance-based pay increases stipulated in the contract, but they didn’t win any tournaments—and, according to Ivan, that was the main problem.

He has fond memories of Tundra Esports, noting that different managers worked with the team during his first and second stints there, and while the salary wasn’t the highest, it was decent. Pure also admitted that he asked Ludwig “zai” Walberg about 20 times to return to the pro scene, but the Swede refused, hoping for larger prize pools at top-tier tournaments.

Ivan moved to Moscow from Vladivostok thanks to a university scholarship he won at a tournament; he is still studying there and has already become a “qualified manager.” His move to Virtus.pro came after he broke into the top 10 of the rankings and passed tryouts with Anatoly “boolk” Ivanov.

Reflecting on the past, Pure described his removal from VP following his disqualification as strange, since he didn’t learn about it from management but rather attributed the situation with Alexander “Nix” Levin’s open stream at The Bali Major 2023 to the inexperience of some strange administrators who reversed their decision under pressure from Azure Ray. In conclusion, Ivan noted that Vitaly “Save-” Melnik has transformed, acquired many social skills, and become an “interesting conversationalist.”

Earlier, 1w Team carry Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko shared his thoughts on the mistakes made by top teams, commented on their decisive victory over Virtus.pro, and named the top favorite in Group D during an interview at the Esports World Cup 2026.