Malr1ne on Vici Gaming at the 2026 Esports World Cup in Dota 2: “They read the map very well.”
Team Falcons midlaner Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak commented on the team’s elimination from the 2026 Esports World Cup and spoke about his hero pool in an interview with the YouTube channel TBD DOTA.
On his feelings about the elimination
It’s unpleasant, but overall, it’s bearable. Over the past three years, I’ve lost quite a few tournaments, and there have been worse finishes—so what? At least I’ll get to relax in Paris.
On the reason for the loss to Vici Gaming
They read the map very well, and it was actually hard to catch them off guard. I’d say they simply play very well defensively, which makes it difficult to attack them. But at the same time, they seize the right moments to attack their opponents, and they caught us off guard the whole time. And it turned out that they were attacking us the entire game. That’s how I’d put it.
On why ATF picked Windranger for the third position
Well, it was something we’d been preparing for; we tried it out and saw the potential—that maybe it would be useful. Considering that our opponents picked Lina, it could have been a good flex pick. Overall, things were going fine. We just made the wrong decision during the game.
On Xm’s Slark
I wouldn’t say he was a problem. As for the hero himself—no, we didn’t expect that. Matchup, matchup—I’ve played it. There was a time when I played against w33 in a public game. So I had some experience with that; I knew how to handle the matchup. Overall, everything was fine for me, but again, we just needed to play faster, and they defended very well. We messed up one teamfight, and the game was over. But I wouldn’t say the problem was with Slark in general. They just played better as a team than we did.
On the hero he plans to level up to 30 on Dota Plus
Man, actually, there are probably three heroes that I’ve leveled up to 29: Ember Spirit, Leshrac, and a hero who’s been dead in the mid lane for about five years now—Pugna. But I think the next one will most likely be Ember Spirit.
On the hero pool for the 2026 Esports World Cup
I practiced a lot on heroes that are in the meta. And actually, the only problem I had was with Ember Spirit. And I think that even in the game we played, I performed well in my opinion. Sure, I could have done better, but apparently it wasn’t enough. I practiced him for a long time, but that’s just the meta right now, and you always have to adapt to the meta—and overall, I was ready for it.
Earlier, Team Falcons offlaner Ammar “ATF” al-Assaf commented on the team’s defeat in the Dota 2 Esports World Cup 2026 playoffs, criticized the tournament format, and spoke about the first map against Vici Gaming and the choice of Slark in the mid lane.
David Mchedlishvili
