panto on the match against Team Spirit at the 2026 Esports World Cup in Dota 2: “It was a very important match for me.”
MOUZ support Nikita “panto” Balaganin spoke in an interview following the series against Team Spirit at the 2026 Esports World Cup in Dota 2 about the match, the team’s morale after losing the first map, and the challenges they faced in closing out games.
On the series
For me, this was a very important match. To start with, we didn’t qualify for The International 2026, so we absolutely had to give it our all here. We played really well. I absolutely loved how the team communicated—the guys didn’t lose their focus even after losing the first map.
I really enjoyed the game. It was fun, and we made a lot of good decisions. Yes, we lost the first map, but that happens. Usually, if you lose the first map like that, you might go completely off the rails on the second one. But we discussed the right things, had a good draft, and the second map, in my opinion, was even easier for us than the first.
On the mood going into the second game
There isn’t much time between games. We argued for a couple of minutes about communication and discussed what we should have done during the game, but that took literally just a couple of moments. Then we just tried to reset, get in the right mindset for the next map, and not think about the last one at all as soon as the second match started.
On the ability to close out a game
I think part of the reason is that pushing into the enemy base is, in principle, one of the hardest things in Dota 2. We’ve all seen matches where a team is up by 50,000 gold, goes in to close it out, makes a mistake, and loses the game. After something like that, everyone thinks, “Oh, guys, maybe we should just forget about it—we won’t do that next time.” But then you start new games—and people still make the same mistakes: they push too deep and flood the lanes.
On top of that, you always have to keep buybacks in mind and calculate a ton of little details. But sometimes you just have to show some courage and make a bold call: “Guys, screw it, let’s just take the Throne.” I think if we’d just gone for the kill on the first map with two Monkey King arenas, we would’ve won. But it turned out how it did—maybe we just got a little scared.
