
Community caster and former esports player Alexander “Nix” Levin spoke during a live stream on Twitch about Team Yandex’s performance in the lower bracket final of The International 2026, assessed the individual skill levels of the team’s players, and compared Ilya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk and Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov.
I can just see how terrible watson is on Shadow Fiend—he won’t come out of that jungle until the end of the game. Terrorblade will just kill him in 4 seconds, and that’s it—he’ll type “GG.” I can see how Noticed is playing Timbersaw; I can see that Malady on Mirana can’t land a single arrow. CHIRA_JUNIOR can’t land any combos on Ember Spirit—they’re just sitting there, trembling; they’ve already lost the game before they even entered the lobby. No matter how well they farm their lanes, bro, it won’t make a damn difference, you get it? Because they’re totally screwed, and Yatoro is just pushing forward—there’s Tumbler’s Toy—and then there’s this situation with Shadow Fiend, who’s been farming the jungle for 20 minutes without ever leaving it. And then Larl rolls in on Pangolier and just buries them.
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People just appeal to authority. “Oh, Team Yandex won all those tournaments.” They can’t see how the team is actually performing right now. There’s zero chance here; Team Spirit is going to get crushed 2-0, without a single chance. These guys were just brought in as cannon fodder so Yatoro could warm up his fingers before he goes on to *** [win] against PARIVISION.
Honestly, guys, I don’t want to *** [brag], but I said all this before The International. I drew you diagrams in Paint about Team Yandex, showing that they have players who have no ceiling. Meaning they can’t break through it. Basically, Saksa on Nature’s Prophet is just carrying them this season, and that’s it. But they have no ceiling; they’ll never be able to play better than a certain tier of players, like Collapse and so on. They’ve already hit their peak. That’s it—they can’t go any further. From here on out, it’s just a matter of working on their mental game, I guess. And how that’s even done is a complete mystery.
And Yatoro’s peak skill level is so high that I don’t even know—it’s just unbelievable. No one else—not a single player in the world—has a peak skill level like Yatoro’s. He can play the entire season... Here are my favorite graphs. [Nix begins drawing graphs showing Yatoro’s and Watson’s skill levels. — Ed.] He can play the whole season, you know, like this [weakly], while watson is somewhere around here [high]. And it’ll create the illusion that watson is a badass carry.
But when The International rolls around, Yatoro will be right here [very high], and Watson will be right here [low]. You get it? And that’s the reality of a whole year’s gap. But there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. And if we’re talking about Collapse and Yatoro, these guys just need motivation to reach their peak.
Earlier, Alexander “Nix” Levin compiled tier lists for heroes in every role in the current Dota 2 patch. Clinkz, Windranger, Luna, Phantom Lancer, Kez, Tiny, Shadow Fiend, Sven, and Lifestealer made it into the top tier for the first position.
Photo by Alexander “Nix” Levin.