Malady on the series against Nigma Galaxy in The International 2026 playoffs: “It was three hours of a farce.”
Team Yandex support player Arman “Malady” Orazbaev spoke about the match and discussed the first map in an interview following their victory over Nigma Galaxy in the upper bracket semifinals of The International 2026 playoffs.
On the series
It was three hours of chaos; the game just went back and forth—sometimes we were winning, sometimes they were. All in all, I felt the full range of emotions during those three hours.
On the feeling of victory
Of course, joy. When you win games like this, I don’t know—I’m at a loss for words.
On what prevented us from winning the first map
I guess everyone got a little too excited, and we realized we were winning and wanted to push hard—we wanted to end the game right then and there so we wouldn’t give that Storm Spirit a chance to reach level 25. So we didn’t dive well, and what happened happened—we gave up all our advantage.
On what the team discussed after the loss on the first map
We talked about what had happened and thought, “What kind of bots are we? How could we have blown it like that? That game was definitely ours.” But our coach supported us and told us not to get discouraged: “Guys, forget about the win, forget about the loss—just go out on stage and enjoy the game.”
Team Yandex offlaner Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin summed up the team’s victory over Nigma Galaxy in the upper bracket semifinals of The International 2026, thanked the fans for their support, and noted that the team played better than their opponents.
Photo: Valve.
